Friday 5th May 2017
Lake Toya

Many of the rally people were leaving this morning, either by train or shuttle bus to the Sapporo airport (many had also left around 5am as they had early flights). Said goodbye to new friends and old and hoped we'd meet again on another rally.

After breakfast we drove down to the lake to the village of Toyato looking for a Post Office and coin laundry. Driving down the main street Phil spied a car showroom with a Morgan & gold Corvette in the window facing the road. Finding the PO shut we drove back to the car showroom and parked on the footpath, parallel to the Morgan inside. We went in and found about 10 classic cars there. The black Morgan was a 1974 Plus 8, only 5 years younger than ours.

The receptionist, after running here and there trying to get maps to show us what she thought we were looking for we eventually discovered that it is a public holiday today for Children's Day which is why we continue to see "flying carp" everywhere.

Next was an attempt to find a coin laundry. With our "Point It" booklet we found a proprietor of a fashion shop who drew a route on a map. As well as others, he pointed out that it was out of town on the Sapporo Road and it was "in a house on the left side". Drove out there, sought directions from another man and indeed it was "in a house",  flags flying but with no signage in English. 

Lake Toya is beautiful, extending 11 kms east and west and 9kms south and north with four islands in the centre. A gigantic eruption created the Toya caldera and surrounding plateau. The volcanic domes of Nakajima and Usu came later. This area played host to the 2008 G8 Summit of the world's leaders. Mt Usu is a symbolic mountain and one of the most active volcanoes with repeated eruptions on a twenty to fifty year cycle. The most recent eruption was in 2000. The dominent mounain in the range is Mt Yotei and we have great views of this snow topped mountain from our hotel, which is perched atop a mountain looking like a wedding cake or cruise liner.

Driving back up the mountain to our hotel, we saw a fox sunning itself on the footpath. As we reversed back to get a better look, it ran up the side of the hill.