Thinking Allowed: Day 17-19: Yuni to Tanesashi

Day 17: Laugh Tale, Yuni to Abiracho Tokiwa Campground

Hours walked: 7:30-3:00

Distance walked: 30 km

Cumulative: 381 km

After a dry, calm night we got up at 6; all the other campers were awake and packing up too. Early on, as we ate breakfast snacks, we passed a large fire station with all five trucks flashing and honking away, and eleven firemen standing in a neat row in front of the station, saluting the trucks.

Tova was a bit blister-glum today, but then found 100 yen on the ground, our biggest treasure yet. “Mama says that’s enough to buy a napkin!” Sophia also used her tooth fairy money to buy a napkin; everyone here brings their own into public bathrooms for hand-drying, which Aurora finds totally bizarre.

Our road really wasn’t the nicest today; we are on a large bypass road. We’d hoped all the cars would be on the nearby highway, but all the trucks take our road to avoid tolls. So we had no shoulder, a few overgrown sidewalks, and “so many trucks you wouldn’t believe it” says Aurora. Levi had a huge nap, though, so we powered through 17km without pause

Around lunchtime we Ray from Nebraska who now farms 75 sheep. Apparently Hokkaido is good for sheep farming because you get to know all the buyers. We said we haven’t seen a single sheep the whole trip, but he was unfazed as farmers generally are.

The latest in Levi Management is that Tova tells her a long-running story about Anna (who is apparently a flower). It’s full of action and plot twists, with songs, jokes and even math problems.

At the campground we were greeted by three chipper women who smiled right through all language barriers. The girls had fun on a giant slide, helped make miso tofu udon, and made friends with a Japanese girl who spoke English from American school in Cambodia. Though there were cool “treehouses” raised up on poles, we had booked a very small, very warm log cabin.

Firemen at the ready!

Our last Seicomart stop - we will miss it!

Michelin star camping cuisine

Levi seeks her family

Day 18: Abiracho Tokiwa Campground to Tomakomai

Hours walked: 8:30 - 6:00 with lots of breaks

Distance walked: 24 km

Cumulative: 405 km

Quote of the day: “I don’t think it’s part of human nature to watch TV.” - Tova

Our last day in Hokkaido! We woke up in our tiny cabin and grappled for an hour with the giant heap of stuff that was piled up in one quarter of the room. Then we sat outside and spilled cereal as we ate it, despite everyone’s best efforts. We left camp, and ate more at the 7-11. Tamar got a $3 smoothie where you buy chilled fruit, then a machine from the future scans the barcode and blends it just so.

After walking some more, and getting ice cream (everyone got to choose their own, a rare treat), we came to a truly horrible road. It was a constant barrage of trucks in both directions, with no sidewalk or shoulder, that went on and on. Everyone was miserable except Levi, who was asleep in the stroller (not where we wanted her to be). Even though drivers here are uber-careful, it was stressful as anything.

The very last kilometre was a massive cloverleaf interchange with the highway and we gritted our teeth - but then found a secret walking path which wound its way through dark underpasses and into town! So that redeemed the road a bit.

We had lots of time before the ferry, so we went for Nepali food. Everyone actually got their own meal for the first time since Lima, and even Levi got a lassi. It was tasty and rich, the Nepali owner didn’t mind our size/chaos, and it was my first restaurant meal of the hike (Tamar and the others went to one Indian restaurant early on).

Then we relaxed in a playground. The baseball diamond was immaculately brushed in perfect smooth concentric circles, and I felt bad defiling it by walking across to fetch Tova’s ball.

Next the onsen, very no-frills. Tamar took Sophia, Zadie and Levi into a private room, where Levi was a terror and there was no soap. My tan attracted stares, and I had to shave while pointing a high-pressure shower head directly at my face. Aurora and Tova were given some soap by a kind old lady, and felt both grateful and like Japanese are right to judge us sometimes. But all the other onsen had soap!

Anyway, the ferry terminal was nice: there was a free piano, ice cream and corn chocolate for sale, judo on TV. Tova and Zadie slapped up a hiking sticker outside. Levi blazed up and down all the staircases until boarding time. And the ferry was pretty great too! Everyone gets lovely traditional robes. There was a playroom, and more Olympics (it’s so different in Japan, the whole Olympics is really just table tennis and judo every day.) We waved farewell to Hokkaido, and then climbed into our bunks, where the ship rocked us to sleep for a few short hours ahead of our 4:45 am arrival.

Tova in her ferry garb

Levi knows how to enjoy her ice cream

The sea was beautiful from the boat

Japan has a lot of cute mascots, but this postal snowman is creepy

Day 19: Hachinohe to Tanesashi

Hours walked: 4:45 - 1:30

Distance walked: 18 km

Cumulative: 423 km

Quote of the day: “Shouldn’t I put my mask on if there’s a tsunami? Then I won’t get radiation!” - Tova

So it turns out Japanese ferries wake you with

extremely loud rock music at 4:15 am, fully half an hour before arrival. We zombied around getting ready, and emerged into broad daylight at 5:00 am. It was already so hot and muggy! We drank a litre of Aquarius as we left the port, hiked out of town, and soon came to the start of the Michinoku Trail. This 1,000 km path was heavily invested in as part of the post-2013 tsunami reconstruction, and has tons of infrastructure. It felt very different: we saw two thru hikers, lots of tourists, and a donut shop (11 am opening time was hours away).

There was a pretty beach at the trailhead, and we were very hot, so we took a break. The water was delicious, Levi and Tamar enjoyed the shade. We swam out to some buoys, dived to the bottom, generally had fun - then eventually continued on our walk.

Our day felt like a completely different hike. The air was salty and fresh, kids were playing on rocks, there were walkways and people. We sometimes split up into team stroller-on-road and team coastal-trail; once, Tamar manhandled the stroller through an obstacle course of a “paved” trail where someone had thoughtfully planted boulders into the asphalt for a more rugged look.

Later Tamar took the stroller along the road, and the other six of us walked along Shirahama beach for half an hour. The kids took off their shoes and walked in the crashing waves, Levi snored on Sophia’s front, and it was the most peaceful moment yet of the whole hike.

At the far end of the beach we reunited, ate onigiri, and Tova and Zadie swam again. “The big waves were so fun and gigantic, but one time Tova got crashed onto the sand” says Zadie.

After another hour of riding waves, we tore them away and we walked the last few kilometers to Tanesashi. This is a “natural lawn”: a giant sprawling headland covered in putting-green quality grass. We set up our tents and lay around for awhile; the heat had gotten the better of some of us.

Eventually we went to the market - it was closed! No groceries for us, so we had to have French fries, mackerel sandwiches and ice cream sundaes at the rest stop for dinner before they closed at 4:30. Worse, we went 0/3 on buying diapers at stores, and were down to our last 3 diapers by evening with no stores tomorrow until the end of our hiking day. Levi was gonna be soggy…

At the visitor centre, a volunteer who spoke English gave us some maps. A pack of joggers ran back and forth across the giant lawn; Tova and Zadie ran around too. The sun disappeared and we all sighed with relief.

When the mosquitoes appeared at 7:00, we were all ready for bed; today was a big change and definitely the start of a new chapter in our walk!