hokkaido: day 6 - seriously, what the fuck was that noise?
DEST: MASSHUKO DIST: 150KMS
monday morning. yesterday was a very long day and toward the end, a little scary - we headed down from the national park after climbing for an hour to the pass and descended down through the valley passing more tat and ice cream shops with stuffed bears outside - the vibrant colours couldn't hide the fact that most were dilapidated and the foxes chained up outside really didn't charm us. countryside was nice though - still european but a bit more danish than french. we got the train station just in time for the 1.10 to masshu and managed to waive putting our bikes in the bag hassle. dan reckoned the knee could withstand the gentle climb up from bihiro though so we jumped ship and made our way out of town.
unfortunately we took the wrong road (the sign posting was bloody awful and I'm good with directions) but it ended up being beautiful (a lot like perthshire). we threaded up slowly and then came to the inevitable hard climb which we knew was waiting for us. it had already been a long day but this started at 8% and went in and out of 11 and 12%. not many cars were even using it. the sun was setting by now and we knoew we still had a good 20 clicks on the other side. as with every other day, we made it through the long stretches by testing each others memory of childhood tv programs and quiz shows. this was interspersed by singing and some outrageous english/scottish accents. the girl chat was pretty constant too. and rather ungentlemanly at times, I might add.
almost at the top of the climb, and about 100 metres apart, we stopped dead in our tracks with a very loud animal noise near to the road on our left. I turned and sprinted back to dan. the sun was down now and the few cars we saw had long gone. dan looked like how I felt - big eyes and a heart rate of 180 - the chance of making our long awaited aquaintance with the local bears suddenly lost it's appeal. In truth it was probably just a stag but without a library of wild animal recordings at hand, we found a new lease of life and spun up to the top of the mountain. this was blair witch territory. hitting the top, the mist had covered us as well as the darkness but we descended fast off the mountain and down to relative civilization. the vision of watching dan being mauled by a bear was becoming less real as we saw a distant street light.
we finally got to the hostel after a long 20 k's in the dark and could have collapsed in the robby if it wasn't for the receptionist offering to take us to the convenience store. we got a chicken bento each, a bar of chocolate and a six pack - bish, bash, bosh, back in time for superman on the box.