Today was always going to be a big day for us. We wanted to make the most of our time on the islands, so we were rushing to get from Asahikawa to the ferry terminal in Haboro as quickly as possible. So it was an early start. We were mostly packed up before 7am. It was raining as we left the campground, and the rain would follow us most of the the way up and over the hills to the coast.
The mos surprising thing for us today was the sheer amount of snow still on the ground in the hills. Even at 200m in altitude there was still at least 1m of snow sitting on the fields. Horokanai is one of the coldest areas of Hokkaido in the winter, and the spring conditions certainly showed it. The descent down to the coast was fast, but we were happy to have gloves – it was a frigid, cold, wet downhill.
Mercifully, the rain had stopped by the time we arrived at the coast. This allowed us to dry off a little along the short section of seaside riding before arriving at the campground. We’d stayed at this campground previously (story here) and knew that despite it being very exposed, the onsen hotsprings right next to the campground made up for it.
