Day 04 – Kutchan to Lake Toya / Toyako – Going round Mt. Yotai-san to the vulcanic island

2019-08-21

Start: 11:00 / Arrival: 17:45
Distance: 65km / Gained height 680 hm

This was the when we started to ignore the forecast. Projected was thunderstorm and rain – in the end it turned out to be one of the most beautiful rides with great weather.

Left Kutchan, that strange small city with an american touch (layed out as a grid) to cycle around Mt. Yotai-san. Yotai was shy in the beginning, disguising it’s top in clouds. Sun was coming through, making the ride through rural area a pleasure. Had an ice coffee at a very nice touristic park and went to go on around Mt. Yotai. Just before we left the round course about it, the clouds cleared up so we could get a view on the whole beauty of the mountain.

Indeed it does look like a smaller scaled version of Mt. Fuji-san. So nice having that view.

Then passed some very rural and nice areas. At one point a herd of cows was running parallel to us because they thought we were the farmer who was bringing them back home.

A couple of bear warning sign later, we finally approached Lake Toya. Coming from the mountains this provided us an stunningly view from above. When we reached it’s level, had an break to embrace the whole stunning sight we were experiencing. The view on the central island of that vulcanic lake was just overwhelming.

After a 10km ride on the shore we checked in at our hotel, talked to some british backpackers, had a beer at sundown and went for some udon. While eating we just realized that we missed the fireworks happing, but everything before was more than enough.

Finished the day at the 7/11, talked to some taiwanese guys and had later a deep conversation with a very kind vietnamese student, who gave us some very interesting insights into both japanese and vietnamese culture.

Phew, this was an incredible day….