took the ferry to Hokkaido, and cycled around for 3 weeks.

I visited 4 National Parks. Rishiri and Rebun Islands

Shiretoko Akan

and Daisetsuzan before arriving in Sapporo.

The plan was to ride all the way down to Cape Sata in Kagoshima.

But first it was time to go back home to Ireland to visit family and friends.

Ok, and I'm back on the bike trip. It's now Autumn. It's a lot colder than before.

Last night I went out and planned to camp. And test out my gear.

But I got caught in torrential rain and didn't even make it to the campsite.

So I was camping just here in this little park.

Pretty close to the main road but... I'm ready to go now. The bike's all packed.

Two months to get to Okinawa. Should be good.

As you may know Japan is made up of 4 main islands.

And to get from Hokkaido to Honshu, I had to get down to Hakodate to take the ferry to Aomori.

My next plan was to meet a friend and hike Mt. Yotei, but it was covered in snow,

so we decided to climb a smaller mountain instead.

We climbed from afternoon and made it up in time to drink a beer at sunset,

sleep in the hut at the top of the mountain, and wake up in time for sunrise.

Although we couldn't climb Mt Yotei, the view we had of it was amazing!

I set up my tent in a park the following day, and as I lay down to sleep, I could hear the

fire brigade driving around with loudspeakers telling people to turn on their heating.

Unfortunately I didn't have any.

Well, it was pretty cold last night. And there's frost everywhere.

So last night was the coldest night so far. I woke up with frost all over my tent.

Oh, my hand are cold.I really need gloves. I dunno why I haven't bought gloves yet.

Just in time for sunrise!

Ok, and now I'm on Honshu. I'm in Aomori Prefecture.

And, it's a lot hotter here. I didn't sleep much on the night ferry,

but I'm going to go to a campsite that's not so far.

So I'm finally going to get off the main road. I've been following that for a while but...

too many cars, too noisy. And, I'm going to try and go a quieter way.

Yeah, it was good roads for a while. And now it's this.

But, hopefully it gets me there. I don't wanna go back.

Not unreasonable for a bike though.

And now we're in a forest. And I've seen signs for bears,

so I don't know how much I like this detour. But we'll see.

I probably didn't have much to worry about, but some people had been killed by bears in

the Tohoku Region in the past few years, and I hadn't planned to be in a forest today.

And after seeing a bear in Hokkaido, they were on my mind a bit.

And we're back on the good roads. No more fear of bears.

Although one will probably jump out and get me now.

I've just spend the last while cycling uphill and

I got to this free campsite. Just after I arrived, and old man came up,

and got me to sign in. And he's spent the past 15 minutes cleaning.

But hopefully I get a good view tomorrow.

And I was complaining about it all day but there was all these apple trees.

And I was thinking "why has nobody given me an apple"

But just before I got up here. A van stopped and a guy got out and

here I've got it.

It was a pretty bad typhoon so I booked into a hostel for two days to stay safe and keep

an eye on weather reports.

Ah, it's so nice to get back out on the bike after two days of sitting in the hostel.

It's 6 degrees! I was planning to just head south, try and

get to Tokyo, but everyone has recommended that I go and

see this gorge. Oirase Gorge.

Hopefully it's worth it. We'll find out.

But the real shame is missing out on The Grave of Christ.

But, 30km the wrong direction and I just don't have time.

Ok, it's 4.45pm which is sunset time. And I've just a little more to go to the campsite.

Another 6 or 7km. I can see the mountain I was hoping to climb

but it looks like it's covered in snow so yeah, I'm not going to be doing that.

It's another frosty morning. And I've just stayed at this campsite last night,

I think I'm the only person at the campsite again.

I haven't stayed at a campsite with anyone else yet. Just in time for sunrise.

And, yeah. There definitely a bit of snow on that mountain.

I'm going to try and do another 100km+ today and just get further south as quick as I can.

It's pretty cold, and snow is going to be coming soon.

I was enjoying the challenge of cycling in the cold weather,

but I was glad to be moving south through the prefectures.

Although I'd camped almost every night in summer,

this was more difficult now because of the shorter days.

I started to look for people to stay with through websites like Couchsurfing and Warmshowers.

So was great to finish off this stage of the trip by meeting up with some friends for drinks

and dinner, and to have a place to stay for the night.

It was nice to look at what I'd already cycled on the map.

From here the plan was to continue South to Tokyo, then visit my old hometown, Tottori

on the way to the south point of Japan.