Land of the Rising Sun

I woke up around 3am feeling a bit chilly. Peeked outside the tent to see Venus blazing brightly and Orion really clearly too. I don't think I'd seen Orion in Japan yet - looking in the wrong places at the wrong times, maybe.

Woke up at about 4:30 to see the sunrise - really nice. But my toes were freezing - it was generally nice and cool during my trip, but occasionally a bit too cool. Cooked up some instant ramen, and hit the road by 5:15.

Just after leaving camp, I saw a big bird walking through a field, so took a couple pics. Then continued on down to Kushiro, a wetlands national park, home of the tanchyou - red-crowned crane - (didn't actually see any in the park) Finally made sense of the map notation on what looked like back roads - "ダート" (daato) = "dirt". So I cut through some of those roads. Stopped at one viewpoint and at the top of the stairs, almost bumped into a doe and fawn casually munching on the foliage. They let me get pretty close too.

Headed back down to the coast, and out towards Nemuro Misaki (the easternmost point in Japan). Stopped at Ayame ga hara to eat my bento and take some pictures of the sea cliffs and horses.

Driving was taking longer than planned, so I skipped the actual cape, and cut north.

Kelp harvesting is a big industry out here - people were spreading it out to dry everywhere.

Saw a few cranes at various places (how many cranes can you see in the picture above?), and a curious fox. When I pulled over to take a picture, it kept and staring at me with its beautiful golden eyes. They're really beautiful animals, too bad they make the water unsafe to drink!