In which the weather gods were cursed

Before I start, we've posted 3 entries now in as many days, so if you haven't checked back in a while, look down the page to see if you've missed any.

Where I last left off, we'd woken to a driving rain in the town of Abashiri. Our Korean friend Hyun, who we'd met the night before, poked his head out of his tent and told us curtly "I'm not riding anywhere today."
We set out anyway, and to give the abridged version, experienced 3 days of crappy weather and bad lodgings. So, rather than write it out, here's a brief photo essay.



-Riding up the Okhotsk coast of the Shiretoko peninsula. A famous world heritage area, the most remote area in Japan, and boasting a healthy asian brown bear population (which rules the park with an iron fist - if a bear is sighted nearby, the area is closed off). All we saw were bad roads, headwinds, and what may have been been a mountain (obscured by fog of course).



-Skipping over the overpriced dingy hostel, this was the ride up over Shiretoko pass. A 15km ascent, supposedly boasting fantastic views. We saw a couple of foxes on the way up, but hit the clouds soon after. It was actually pretty neat - howling winds and swirling mists, temperatures dropping below 10 celsius, an epic climb indeed. However we saw no scenery.



-We emerged from the clouds on the other side of the pass, in to the town of Rausu and surprisingly good weather! (This would last in to the evening but no later.) The most exciting thing? Getting a clear view of the Russian-controlled island of Kunashir! For some reason, seeing Russia was big on my list, and with just the faintest outline of Sakhalin visible from Wakkanai, this did the trick very nicely.



-For one night at least, I could see Russia from my house (tent). Blah blah, Sarah Palin joke, ......



-After another boring, cloudy day of riding in to the wind, we reached the spa town of Teshikaga, where we're staying even still. Surely the weather would get better, right?



-And finally, ramen with our Finnish pal Mikka!

Tomorrow we head west, probably towards the city of Otaru which will likely be our next stop. I imagine after 3 days of sunshine, sweat and sunburns, I'll be crying for the rain again, but the complaining is what makes it fun!

-z