Week 8

After recovering from the stomach ache, I decided to spend the Saturday in Obihiro by doing something I had wanted to do for a while. On clear days, the mountains are easily visible on the horizon of Obihiro and that's where I wanted to go. I looked up on Google Earth for some directions since I didn't have a paper map at all and went cycling. Now, my bicycle isn't the best of its kind - the saddle is really hard and too low, the rear gears don't work at all and as a result, the bike only has two gears. Nonetheless, I was determined to go, even though the map software displayed that the distance to where I was going was about 30 km away.

After cycling all through the rural landscape, horrendously thick smell of dung and across the farm fields, I finally got to my destination which I'd seen on Google Earth. There was a big waterfall and a mountain stream with crystal clear water, flowing somewhere from the mountains. The stream was a tributary to Tokachi river, which is supposed to be kind of well-known - at least some locals I've talked to have mentioned it.

All the way to the waterfall, the road was covered in tarmac, so it was a rather pleasant ride, but after getting to the waterfall, that luxury was over. I decided to take a dust road which took me nowhere, but I only figured that out after cycling on it for a few kilometers.

After turning back, I visited another spot along the tributary, which was meant to be a canoeing starting point. After admiring the sights, I started to head back. I stopped by the only shop in the whole rural area to ask for a map and to my surprise, they gave two different ones for free! It was a really happy surprise for me, since I really didn't want to take the same route back as I had come from and those maps helped me in figuring out other places of interest as well.

Eventually, I got back to the city and being really hungry, I decided to head for McDonalds. After eating three double cheeses, I was full and headed back home after a six-hour trip and 80km.