Tuesday 9th May 2017

Rausu to Wakkanai

Up early for a complete Japanese breakfast in our own tatami mat dining room.

What a difference a day makes! It was clear and sunny. Queried whether the road over the Pass was open. We were told it would open at 10am. Checked the road board and it said the same thing. We didn't want to hang around for nearly three hours so we took the road back to Shibetsu and then across to Shari on the north coast (on the Okhotsk Sea). We could still see a lot of snow on the mountains.

                                     The high red markers show the side of the road when under snow

Around Shari and Abashiri there were large farms under cultivation in rich volcanic soil and large dairy farms. The outbuildings were three or four Nissan huts, mostly painted two tone blue. Some of the sown crops had white plastic covering whatever was germinating underneath. Many paddocks had what seemed like newly planted grass.   This is certainly a more prosperous area than the east coast we travelled yesterday. We passed one large farm which had separate wooden stalls for each cow and smaller wooden ones for the calves. Tractors drive along the roads and many farms have two or more tractors ploughing in the paddocks.

Some interesting things along the way:

                                                      A large bank of vending machines

                                                                    A big crab claw
       

        A Soviet like sign

                                                              Happy travels by car??

We drove by a Curling Hall. We didn't know that curling was played in Japan. Some large timber processing places were along this route, looked to be some kind of pine. We also saw several large piles of what looked to be shells. When we got a chance we drove up to a pile and discovered that they were scallop shells. Apparently these are bagged and used, what for we don't know but have seen many of the pink bags along side roads and other barriers.

We then came across "litter crews" who were manually picking up any rubbish and putting it into plastice bags by the side of the road to be picked up by a following truck. We couldn't see any litter but these men were getting down into the gutters alongside the road.

All along this coast we have passed massive wind breaks. It was certainly windy. Roads signs tell you the temperature (15 degrees today) and how windy it is.

Just before reaching the northernmost tip at Cape Soya, we passed a police car in a layby. He came after us with lights flashing. He was telling us he had radar and that we were going too fast (60kms is the speed limit on this major road). After examining passport and looking at the car, he brought out a translation book and said to keep the speedo down. Giving up, he let us go.

We stopped at Cape Soya (latitude 45 deg 31), looked at the monuments there and drove on to Wakkanai.

Coming into town, the signs were in Russian as well as Japanese.

The Kuril islands which we could see this morning off the eastern coast have been a source of contention between Russia and Japan for years. An agreement reached in 1945 returned the islands to Russia although Japan maintained a claim to the four southernmost islands. Despite increased diplomatic pressure in the 1990's Russia has been unwilling to relinquish sovereignity over them.