Hokkaido Adventures: Trip One

Flying from Tokyo to Hokkaido, I noticed that many mountains below me were still covered in snow. This last winter was especially cold in Hokkaido, and since Hokkaido is the Japanese island that is furthest North, that means really cold and lots of snow. Its been a late spring, too, and most places we traveled had snow melting in  a shady crevasse. Quite a change from Australia, let me say.
 Of course, there are lots of other differences in the landscape as well. The sea, for one, is more blue grey than green, and the coast has more rocks and grey sand than sparkling white sand like the Sunshine Coast. The water is harder to get to, as well; the Japanese attitude towards the ocean seems to be respect tinged by fear, understandable for a country prone to tsunami. As a result, though, much of the coastline is covered in concrete and lined with breakwaters, a far cry from the naturalistic coastlines of New Zealand, Australia or even California.
 On our first trip we saw a lot of the coast. We started our trip with a train out of Tomakomai, the port city in Hokkaido where my friend Tessa lives. As we left the city industry gave way to progressively smaller towns, spreading inland from their own small ports on the coast. The train followed the coastline, and as we traveled east the sun set behind us over the ocean, turning the coast gold and lighting up the clouds gathered at the horizon. We were planning on camping that night, and the weather had looked fine heading out from Tomakomai, but as the sky darkened the first rain drops started to fall. The train line ended at Samani, and as we pulled into the station it was undeniably raining. Unsure of whether we would be able to reach the campsite, we came out of the station to discover a bus heading up the coast in the right direction (its times like those when having a Japanese speaker really makes traveling easier). Ten minutes up the coast, the bus driver let us off at the base of a hill, gazing up a road into darkness. With the help of flashlights we managed to climb the hill in the rain, but failed to find the campsite - locked bathrooms were the only sign, and a wooden viewing platform looking out towards the sea. With increasingly heavy rain, we made the decision to sleep in the only logical place available; the viewing platform. It had a roof, dry floor and some promise of a dry night. So we set up the tent three stories off the ground, attached the rain fly as best we could, ate dinner and turned in for the night.
 At 5am the sun rose. It woke us up from an uncomfortable night, sleeping on wood with wind trying to tear its way into the tent.  The view, though, was perfect. Straight ahead the sea stretched out, with coast curling in both directions.
(to be continued)