September 11, 2025
Day 9 — Surufutsu to Horonobe
Marilee here.
I was hoping to start this post without a weather report, as that’s beginning to feel a little repetitive. But no such luck, I’m afraid— we had more notable weather events that needed to be reported on.
We were up at dawn again, way before the 7am loudspeaker rendition of Edelweiss. And although it was a lovely morning, our weather apps were forecasting rain. So we debated: get an early start to put in some mileage before the weather turned, or try to wait it out? We decided to play the waiting game, and as it turned out this was The Right Decision.
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We packed up and wheeled the bikes over to the Michi-no-Eki by the highway (these are a bit like a tourist info centre in Canada, but with shops and restaurants as well) to get a coffee and watch the sky. A very black and threatening bank of clouds was building in the west.
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Well, it didn’t take long before the skies really let loose on us — a crashing downpour commenced. The Michi-no-Eki quickly filled up as cars turned off the highway and people ran for shelter. It lasted about an hour, and then ….the sun came out, it was a perfectly lovely day again, we jumped on the bikes and we were off! 10:30, not the latest start we’ve ever had by any means, but we did have some miles to put in so we didn’t dawdle.
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Since we passed Cape Soya the previous day we’d been riding south down the east side of Hokkaido, but now it was time to cut back across the island to the west coast. We were on a little country road, following a twisty river through a narrow valley — a very lovely sunshiney ride through the woods, and we had it almost to ourselves, with only about one car every ten minutes passing us.
We stopped to eat our lunch in a covered pavilion at a community park, in a little sawmill town in the middle of the woods.
In the afternoon we emerged from the woods into rolling farmland — more hills to climb, and somewhat busier roads. Which gave us the opportunity to observe that Japanese drivers, like drivers everywhere, seem obliged to follow The Two Immutable Laws of Traffic:
1. All cars must travel in squads of at least 6, bunched up and impatient behind a slow-moving truck.
2. Squads of cars must never pass cyclists where there is a wide, generous shoulder, but must wait until the road narrows or turns and the shoulder disappears, forcing the cyclist into the lane of traffic. Bonus points if there are potholes at the edge of the road.
All part of the fun!
We arrived at our destination, the town of Horonobe, around 4pm and set up our tent in the community campground — we were the only campers. Then off to the local seniors center for an onsen, after which we found a grocery store to stock up some supplies, and had dinner in a tiny izakaya.
Today's ride: 67 km (42 miles)
Total: 365 km (227 miles)
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