Day 8: Onetoko – Sapporo 297km

Getting quite tired, so slept an intensely deep sleep.  We’re still quite slow in the mornings, it still takes nearly two hours from when we wake up, to when we depart.  I guess we’ll get better at it, and we haven’t really had any need to have a rushed morning (apart from the ferry to Rishiri).

We camped in a parking area for people who want to hike Meakan-dake (which, if I had the time/energy I would have… maybe).  The weather was perfect-ish for hiking, too.  Shame we didn’t.

Instead, we went to check out the lake that we parked by, Oneto-ko (Lake Oneto).  I saw on the map that it was quite small, so I didn’t expect much, but the colour was amazing! It was an epic opaque turquoise shade of blue/green, with Mt Meakan and Mt Akan looming (complete with sulphurous smoke plumes) in the background, it was quite the sight!  We started a quick boardwalk around the lake, until we realised that the 1.3km distance on the signs wasn’t a loop (and would be quite a return walk), so we gave up, and returned back to the car.

When we drove out of the prior night’s parking area, we spotted on the signposts yu-no-taki (hot-water waterfall)!  We couldn’t NOT visit that!  We drove to the car park at the start of the trail, did the hike (at least it was mostly flat), and finally made it to a clearing, where we could hear the unmistakeable sound of a waterfall.  It wasn’t a big waterfall, but it was a pretty set of cascades.  The pools of water at the bottom were also the unmistakeable shades of colour that only come from onsen water.  Imagine our surprise when we saw the pools teeming with small fish… and that the water was cool when we put our hands in.  There was a second set of waterfalls slightly behind the first set, of equal stature/splendour.  The water was most certainly not hot, and it felt like we’d been lied to!  A little, as the water wasn’t actually ‘cold’.

Because we took our time getting ready, and wandered around the Oneto area, it was now 12:30, and we had nearly 300kms to cover before dinnertime.  Easy in Australia, with the 100kph speed limits, but in Japan with the 50/60kph limits, and mountains to cross and villages to pass through, it was going to take hours.  Five hours to be precise.  Five hours.  It’s really starting to take a toll on my body.  I was so tired when we finally arrived at Risa’s parent’s house in Sapporo, I was feeling like a zombie, though, without the brain cravings (I was craving fried chicken, which we had!).

I made the most of a constant source of power (and mobile reception) to catch up on posting blogs, before passing out around 11PM, absolutely exhausted.