Lake Toya for a Nakajima Island hike and on to Noboribetsu

4 August

One last breakfast in Hakodate - here's what some of the morning buffet looks like - sushi, mmmmm:

Today we cross Uchiura Bay by rounding it leftwise on the train heading to Lake Toya (below, the little life ring):

Now in the little resort community of Lake Toya where they offer these fun rides (we passed):

Our destination in the morning for a hike on Nakajima Island - hopefully the skies will look drier:

Preps are well underway for tonight's fireworks show on the lake:

The lake was created from a massive volcanic eruption with more recent eruptions creating Nakajima Island in the middle.

We headed down to the ferry pier to see where it is and to check for tickets.  One of today's trips is now arriving at the pier.  The guy at the ticket booth says, no problem, just show up tomorrow, buy the tickets and hop on.  Now which departure time - we have to eat breakfast, hop the ferry, do a 2 1/2 hour hike, and return to Lake Toya for the bus to take us to the coast to meet our next train...

...​hmmm, let's try for the 9:30 am.

​Lavender on the lake...

Ah, look at that sky - if it was a cold November, back in Ohio, we'd call them clouds snow makers...

...but we're taking in the view from a fairly balmy beer garden at the hotel.  And in a few minutes the woman walking behind us, and her daughters, will become our newest new friends.

They're vacationing from Taiwan flying direct to Hokkaido (Sapporo).

For whatever reason restaurant seats were hard to come by in town, so we obtained some Italian takeaway and headed back to our hotel room - the view was far better from there anyways...

...and the fireworks followed after sunset.  They launch them both from a boat crossing from left to right as viewed from our balcony, and from fixed pipes spread across the lake - each night, all summer!

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​5 August

​...and there's another hotel breakfast, lots of choices once again.  And a bonus, you get to practice counting to nine.

We head to Nakajima Island on a ferry today:

The sky is looking brighter than yesterday, at least the sea gull is expecting a Visual Flight Rules day:

View at departure from the ferry - our hotel is way down at the other end where they hold our bags while we hike:

The fireworks boat is coming in to take on tonight's load of fireworks - I want to be them when I grow up.

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We get a surprise airshow on the trip over - with tourists tossing them cheetos and stuff.

Two boats provide the service, yeah, here's the castle-version passing us at the halfway point - hoping our timing is right to ride this one back early this afternoon.

As we approach the landing the sky is staying dry...

After signing the hiker's log at the visitor's center, we step out the back door into a tree wonderland.

The trail very clearly goes left here, and there's a possible lair of the elusive raccoon-dog...

Oh, I just made a sighting of the Sqautch-Gerri!

...and raccoon-dog-man enters the high meadows...

...we were alone out here till we met some more forest friends...

...some folks from Okinawa, who were excited by the thought of UFO's, and carried didgeridoos - we suspect they go around trying to call in flying saucers - hope they're not thinking we ruined their latest attempts.

If you can not see the video below, CLICK HERE.

We now reach the other side of the island, with a lot of hiking left to do (almost 2 hours).

We don't do UFOs, but we do do geocaching (hee hee, someone said 'do-do'):

​Stop pushing the tree Gerri, you're tilting the island!

The rest of the hike is a walk along the volcanic island shore (hmmm, doesn't have that ring of 'walk along the sea shore')....

Jink right, jink left......
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....okay, I cheated, the right image below was 'digitally reversed', the lake was always on the left at this point in the hike.

Be wary wary quiet, the elusive raccoon-dog approaches, we may soon see his circled eyes and funny belly-button, and if we're especially fortunate he'll be carrying sake.

Let's end this hike soon, the island's solitude is creating hallucinations.

As we near the end, the ferry we took out is approaching, we can't make this one in time, which is very good, this means the next one will be the castle ferry, boy oh boy!

Hallucinations aside, we give this hike a thumb's up.

We check back into the visitor's center - the 'circle-3's' in the second column are those who chose to do the long hike on the island - the staff pays special attention to these, since at the end of the day the island is evacuated with no ferries providing services overnight.

Our castle awaits...

Now Noboribetsu-bound on the magical mystery train departing from Platform 3.

We're not heading far today - just around the corner really...

It's been a long day, the hallucinations seem to continue...

...okay, this is making sense now, we've now arrived in Noboribetsu, and will get to see more hot springs - pathways from the underworld.

Just across from the hotel, we have to try out a highly recommended sea food joint:
(these 3 little friends of mine comprise a sake flight)

Salmon collar (have only tried tuna collar previously), unagi (grilled eel), and steamed clams, domo oishi!

And the biggest platter of uni (fresh sea urchin) Gerri has ever seen - about forty bucks worth (may have to eat  Starkist in a can till the next payday huh?) - but worth every sweet creamy sea salty bite.