And before we knew it, we were saying goodbye to our colleagues.
After a few good leaving parties and a Paddy’s Night blow out, we also finished work at the ski school on 17th March (our latest finish yet) and headed off on a Hokkaido North road trip. First we drove East to Toyokoro Ice Beach. We passed lots of Japanese Red Hooded Cranes and fields of geese.
It was too late to find ice in the beach (they call it the Jewellery Ice Beach) but I (Janet) was desperate to see the sea all the same. It was a grey day but lovely to hear the waves crashing and smell the sea, after 3 months apart.
We drove North West and stopped at Mount Io where they used to mine sulphur. Crazy that you can get so close to such hot and powerful vents with no health and safety !
Next we headed to Kawaya Onsen where our hotel was right over a sulphur hotspring and the hotel onsen smelled very “eggy”. We popped out just before sunset to Ikenoyu onsen which is a small hot oitdoor mineral pool made at the side of Lake Kussharo. It was lovely looking across the lake at the snow covered mountains and watching the deer nibbling nearby.
It was so nice we had to return the next morning for daylight photos when you could see the mountains clearly.
We had breakfast at the lakeside and all you could hear was a woodpecker and one guy pottering about in his canoe (a bit chilly at minus 3 for that – especially when he fell in and had to swim his canoe ashore to get back in).
We left him to it and drove up and over the Bihoro pass which overlooks the West of the lake.
Then we drove to the North Coast and at Shari caught our first glimpse of the drift ice on the Okhotsk Sea. It is made from the cold Northerly winds blowing over the sea at almost minus 70 – eek.
We followed the increasingly compacted drift ice all the way up the Shiretoko peninsula with regular stops to ooh and ahh and take more photos. The ice gathers in the huge bay so they have to take out all ships to prevent them getting crushed in the pressure. All the way up we could see loads of huge Steller Sea Eagles sitting on drift ice, presumably fishing, and in the trees and flying about White Tailed Eagles, and, of course, on land lots of deer.
Oshinkoshin falls was pretty but Sandan Falls was still buried beneath deep snow.
In Shiretoko, we did see some people in huge dry suits floating between the ice and also a few people on a kayak pootle.
We drove back to Shari for the night taking an onsen, this time separately in our hotel onsens.
The next morning it was grey skies and snowing. We drove to Abashiri and Janet went to the Okhotsk Ryu-hyo Museum to learn all about drift ice and see live Clione, (Sea Angels), Lump fish and Balloon Fish. You can usually only see these under drift ice!
Then we took a long drive to Asahidake through some very interesting driving conditions. On the high passes the roads we covered in snow but the guys were out there trying to clear the snow as fast as it was coming down in the snow storm.
We got to 9 km away from our hostel for the night and then sat behind a lot of stopped vehicles on the last part of the mountain climb. The Police had closed the road so that the diggers and snow cutter could come through and clear the road. The fresh snow was deep!!! And hour and a half later we made it to our hostel but could only make it into the car park once the digger had cleared the snow and dug us a little car park space.
All was looking good for out test session the following day on our new Korua Darts (powder boards) although it was high alert for avalanche conditions after such a big snow fall.
The next morning we joined the ropeway queue before 8am and we’re on the second ropeway up at 9.10am! The visibility wasn’t great so we hung about waiting for it to improve a little, and it did.
We went for the route we know and in the knee to thigh deep snow it was great fun. The fishtail boards make it so easy to stay on top of the powder – I’m sure we would have been buried a few times on our old boards. Plus you can turn so quickly on them.
It was so much fun we had to have another go. A hour later we were back at the top. This time the visibility had improved and we could see where others had gone so varied our route a bit more. The snow was even deeper ! Wow! What fun!
Loved our new boards. Shame we will probably pack them away now until December but at least we will have them for day off fun next season!
