Where we spent each night
We drove ≈ 1800km from 10th June ⇛ 22nd June; 12 days! Little planning was done before hand, we mostly winged it as we drove from one place to another and explored serendipitously.
We mostly camped except for one night in Wakkanai. Here is an ordered outline of where we stayed. I have embedded a link to the Google Maps for each place. Click on the section of interest if you want to know what we have seen and done.
- Sapporo 9-10 June
- Elm Kogen Campsite 10 June
- Kamifurano 11-12 June
- Misakidai 13 June
- Wakkanai 14 June
- Lake Kutcharo 15 June
- Lake Saroma 16 June
- Lake Kutcharo 17 June
- Kushiro 18 June
- Sahoroko 19 June
- Bubetsunomori 20 June
- Back to Sapporo 21 June
Starting out in Sapporo
We did not spend much time in Sapporo. I had arrived the night prior from Osaka and we stayed in this hostel. The highlight of our one day here was the Sapporo Beer Factory. You can try their beers there.
We bought our camping gear from Second Street and Hard-Off throughout our trip. Picked up some food to grill from a supermarket while on our way to the Elm Kogen campsite.
Elm Kogen is not free. There is a fee to set up camp. You cannot dispose of your trash there either.
Kamifurano
We left Elm Kogen for the Kamifurano camp site. The general Furano area has plenty to see, so we took it easy and spent 2 nights here. We did spend some time in Asahikawa as well.
Misakidai
This was quite far from Kamifurano. We stopped at Rumoi for lunch before driving on to the camp site. This was my favourite camping ground throughout the trip. There is a fantastic onsen close by and the sunset view is great.
Learnt from a local camper about the Japanese YouTube famous fox that comes every evening scavenging for food.
This is probably a free camping ground, we did not pay to set up our tent.
Wakkanai
We stayed at a hostel here instead of camping.This is the Northern most city in Japan! There are references and memorials to the Russo-Japanese conflicts all over as well. We recommend trying out this donburi restaurant that is popular among bikers. There are plenty of museums and good restaurants in this town.
They even have a city guide that we found useful. Be sure to check out Cape Soya before leaving!
Lake Kutcharo
The first camp ground in the Okhotsk region. It is named after the Sea of Okhotsk. A name that is clearly of Russian origin. The camp ground did have a good onsen close by. This is a paid camping ground.
Lake Saroma
We stopped by Mombetsu city to visit the ice shelf museum and sea tower. In winter, the sea would freeze up and ice shelves would form as the Northern winds blow in more ice from the Arctic. At least that was my rudimentary understanding.
The museum has a whole section that is kept at -20 degrees that you can walk around in. They have frozen samples of marine life in there. The Okhotsk sea has special marine ecology as it is isolated within the Arctic and the Kuril Island chain that runs till the Kamchatka Peninsula.
It is worth checking out the Abashiri Prison Museum. Shortly, to combat Russian Expansionism in the Far East, Japan ramped up road building in Hokkaido and lots of prison-labourers died.
Kussharo
This place had me impressed with the viewpoints and unique geology.
We set up camp at Recamp Wagoto which was quite expensive for a camp ground. I believe 1000 yen per person.
On your way to the camp ground, there is a nice view point called Bihoro Pass
Definitely check out Mount Io and Lake Mashu. The parking ticket that we got at Mount Io also covered Lake Mashu.
Mount Io will have a strong sulfuric smell, which smells like rotten eggs. We stumbled upon it by accident while trying to find an onsen; they were all closed and the towns were barely populated in this area. Lake Mashu is something known as a caldera which is a lake within a volcanic crater.
Kushiro Town
While driving over to Kushiro, we did visit this one interesting museum in Temuro City It has the real border stone that was used to demarcate the 50th parallel during the Japanese occupation of South Sakhalin.
Our trip from Kussharo to Kushiro was a long one, we did swing by Cape Noshappu which is the Eastern most point of Japan.
We stayed at a guest house in Kushiro. It is ran by an elderly Japanese woman who speaks good English. She is a very well-travelled woman who has lived in New York City for 10 years.
I did like Kushiro a lot even though we stayed there for just a night. There is an izakaya that we ate at that night. Met two fellas from Tokyo who were on a job posting in this small town. They were working for NHK and were straight out of college. They spoke English and one of them even knew Norwegian. Had a good time with the izakaya master as well and they gave me their apron as a souvenir.
The NHK fellas recommended that we visit Obihiro for the horse sled race that is called bamba.
Sahoroko
We spent the day in Obihiro to catch a bamba race. The camp ground is free!
Bubetsunomori: Our Last Site
This camping ground is not free.
This is close to where we started from that is Sapporo. There were substantially more tourists in the area already. Okhotsk on the other hand had few foreign tourists when we were there.
Places to see in the area are the Jigokudani Hell Valley and the Mir Space Capsule. The capsule was the backup that never made it to space, and was bought by the local construction company when the Soviet assets were being auctioned off during the dissolution of the USSR.