Chatting to another camper we discovered we are not far from the famous Furano Lavender Fields so we decided to head out there on the train for the day. We caught the 10am "Lavender Train" from Asahikawa station. It's a special sightseeing train with open windows which is great when its moving but very hot when it's not. It took most of an hour and a half to get to the Tomita Farm, the first stop of interest. Here we sampled the local fare: fresh rockmelon, rockmelon ice-cream and rock-melon ice slushy while staring amazed at the crowds of people and cars. Feeling a bit rehydrated we strolled through the fields, truly beautiful in regards to colour and scale. It was very hot though so within half an hour we had to stop and sample the Lavender ice-cream and Lavender soda. Let's just say Elsie was a happy girl today!

We had pretty quickly had enough (mostly because of the heat and trying to keep track of Elsie to stop her picking the flowers) but had difficulty working out how we were to get back to Asahikawa. We didn't want to catch the same train back as it was quite slow so we waited for a share taxi to the train station and marvelled at how relatively easy travelling by bike is in contrast.

Once back in Asahikawa we asked at the information centre about a swimming pool. The perplexed looks were not promising but two ladies both jumped onto their computers and frantically started checking for us, eventually finding one only a couple of kms away. We cycled to Tomita Park Pool and enjoyed swimming with Elsie for an hour or so. On the way home we stopped at a Sushi Bar for dinner and discovered that Elsie particularly likes salmon sushi.

Back at camp and the mozzies are out in force so we are in the tent already. It seems however that a party is raging in the park tonight so sleep may be difficult yet again.

Oh, there are also a lot of foxes and squirrels at this camp. We had a fox come within a few metres of the tent and just sit there. Unfortunately the camera battery was dead so didn't get a great photo. Elsie is very curious about the "sneaky fox".