Started our journey home today, catching the train from Wakkanai to Asahikawa. It was sad to leave Soya Fureai park, a great campground, luxurious cabins, free showers, amazing playgrounds and lovely staff. We took off quite early because there were 50km/h headwinds forecast so we thought it could take a while to do the 10km to the train station. It wasn't too bad in the end. We stopped off for an early lunch at a chain restaurant (very efficient and good value) ...

A quiet day today.... we hung out in our luxurious cabin for one more day as we were all a bit tired from yesterday's effort. We chatted to our neighbours, an artist and his lovely family from Taiwan. Elsie got to play, first in the indoor play area and second in the outdoor play area which we finally found. We also walked up to the top of the hill to look down at the lake. A rather relaxing day. Getting ready for the train trip to Asahikawa tomorrow. Fingers cro...

Wow we made it to the top of Japan! 725km after setting off from Sapporo and after a glorious sunny ride from our cabin at Fureai Park we waited our turn for a picture with the monument. Elsie chose that moment to become camera shy so we went and had some lunch (yummy fresh seafood) then came back for another go. In writing this blog I guess I often miss writing about those everyday interactions we have with others. I've mentioned that Elsie gets so much attenti...

Goodbye beautiful islands! Everything had got quite wet overnight but the rain had pretty much stopped plus we had a kitchen shelter to pack our gear up in. So we set off yet again and made our obligatory stop at SeicoMart for morning tea (Elsie wanted a sausage and Edamame and that is exactly what she got, I wanted a coffee and the obligatory Kara-age chicken and that is what I got!). Once everyone was satiated we took off to the southern end of the island to h...

Once again it was difficult to leave the dryness and space of a cabin, especially with rain forecast but we took off anyway (not before making a few more friends - a couple from Hong Kong and an ornithologist and her husband from Kyushu). We snuck off down a walking trail hoping it was as flat and wide the whole way through as it was at the start... it was! And beautiful too. Shane especially got a buzz from taking this gem of a shortcut. The path joined up w...