hokkaido: day 2 - it's definitely left after the tunnel

DEST: FURANO DIST: 130KMS

Dan's mate junko, and her man, picked us up from the port in otaru and we headed back to their flat in south sapporo. we had a few local beers while we looked over the map and altered our course slightly, choosing a nice campsite for the final night as they glared, initially, open eyed and taking sharp, serious intakes of breath at our route. today we got our bikes together, took the obligatory photo and headed off around 10. the road out was pretty busy but we had a tail wind and made the foot of the mountains at a leisurely pace, taking in all the peculiar sights (local graphics, cows, chimneys, elevated fuel tanks in gardens) and trying to get an initial feel for the place as dan taught me animal words I didn't know - kitsune (fox) and kuma (bear).

getting over the mountains took a fair effort but we found a pleasant waterfall where we had a late lunch of barbequed sweetcorn and then half a melon each for 450 yen we bought off a wee wumin. it really felt like we were out of osaka now. the last stretch to furano was also longer than we'd imagined but flat and the youth hostel turned out to be great and with food for 3,350 yen a night. if you're ever in the neighbourhood and can stand snoring korean students we definitely recommend it. we're getting more pained expressions when we show our route to people but as long as we get a good nights sleep we should be cool.