Eastern Hokkaido Lakes & Coast Bike Tour

We meet at the Kushiro airport, to start our cycling holiday. Kushiro is famous as the home of the Red-crowned crane, one of the rarest species of crane in the world. We take a shuttle and drive 30 km out of town to a small dairy and farming village called Tsurui.

The word Tsurui in Japanese means “there are cranes”. And guess what we’ll be keeping our eyes peeled for during our stay here?

You guessed it right - the magnificent Red-crowned crane. Called Tancho in Japanese, the Red-crowned crane is recognized as a natural treasure in Japan, and there are few better places to observe it in its natural habitat than Tsurui.

While in Tsurui, we stay at a pleasant hotel that has natural hot springs, called onsen in Japanese, on its grounds. Once you’ve relaxed after soaking in the rejuvenating waters of the onsen, we meet for a bike fit and a tour briefing. We have dinner together to say Kanpai! to the start of a wonderful adventure. In case you didn’t know, Kanpai is Japanese for Cheers.

Travel to the Meeting Point: We will meet at either Kushiro Station or Kushiro Airport (KUH) between 1:00 pm and 2:00 pm on the first day. If you wish to stay in Kushiro the night before, we are more than happy to assist you with booking your pre-tour accommodation. If you are flying into Kushiro Airport (KUH) from Tokyo on the first day, please reserve an early morning flight that arrives at KUH before 12:30 pm, allowing us to pick you up from the airport on the day. An alternative to flying is to travel by train (Japan Railway, abbr. JR), which spans 6 times a day between Sapporo and Kushiro. The cost is 9,990 yen for a reserved seat. Upon booking, please let us know your travel plans to Kushiro, and we will confirm in detail where and what time we will meet on the first day. You can see train timetables in English on the Japan Transit Planner website.

If you plan to arrive a day early, we recommend staying in Kushiro (near Kushiro Airport) for a night. You can hire a taxi from the airport and reach your hotel. La Vista Kushirogawa is one of the accommodations we utilize, but downtown also features Crown Plaza and Hotel WBF, which are popular among foreign travelers. Hotel WBF, in particular, offers more affordable options compared to the other two. For booking, Rakuten Travel serves as Japan's local OTA and its English booking engine is known for being user-friendly.

Our Day 1 is at Tsurui which is about 1hr from the Kushiro Airport. If you intend to stay at Tsurui, the easiest way to get there will be by taxi. The estimated cost is 15,000 yen, and it will take 1 hour from Kushiro Airport to Tsurui.

This is the first day of our cycling adventure. We get on our bikes and head in a north-easterly direction toward the famous Lake Kussharo. En route, we stop for lunch at a scenic hamlet called Teshikaga. The scenery consists of undulating hills, picture-perfect farms, and quiet backroads.

The day’s highlight is Lake Kussharo. A caldero lake formed in a volcanic crater, it is nestled among low, rolling hills and green meadows. Because volcanic gasses are constantly being released into the lake, its water is acidic and supports little vegetation except for a rare species of cicada. Along its banks are located numerous hot springs situated among naturally-heated sands. The Kussharo, which completely freezes over in the winter, is often called the Loch Ness of Japan because of frequent reports of sightings of a lake monster. However, we’ll have more interesting things to do for the night than go looking for monsters.

We stay for the night at a Ryokan in Kawayu Onsen.

Source © Komoot

We move into the very heart of Hokkaido on this day as we start a gentle ascent toward the spectacular Lake Mashu. Mashu is often called the clearest lake in the world, and after a hard climb of 550m over 15 km, we get to find out why.

Sitting deep inside steep crater walls that rise over 200 m on all sides, Mashu is an endorheic lake, which means no water flows into it and none flows out. The transparency of its water was measured at an impressive 41.6 meters in 1931, whereas its nearest competitor, Lake Baikal in Central Asia was transparent only to a depth of 40.5 meters, giving Mashu the popular label of the clearest lake in the world. On most days, however, the lake is covered in mist and fog.

From the lake, we continue to ride onward through quiet roads surrounded by tall forests of fir and pine. Stopping for the night on the edge of Nakashibetsu, a town known for its dairy farms. This is a good place for spotting the famous Blakiston’s Fish Owl, the largest owl species in the world, so keep your eyes and ears open to any calls of To Whit and To Who!

Source © Komoot

We head north from Nakashibetsu today till we reach the Sea of Okhotsk which separates Japan from Russia. Okhotsk is recognized as having some of the richest biological resources in the world.

We bike along the coast, passing by quaint fishermen’s villages until we reach Odaito Onsen, our stop for the night. The region is located in Notsuke Peninsula, the longest sandpit in Japan extending for 26 km. More importantly, the region is recognized as a Ramsar Convention site due to the extraordinary biodiversity its wetland ecosystem supports. The unique flora of this region includes the Mongolian Oak, the Sakhalin Fir, and the Japanese Iris.

We spend the night at a quiet lodge run by a fishing family and exchange stories while feasting on sumptuous local delicacies.

Source © Komoot

Having arrived at the sea, we now begin to travel in a southerly direction to start the second leg of our loop.

We start this day’s cycling by continuing to skirt the Sea of Okhotsk until we arrive at Lake Furen. Another Ramsar site, the lake is an important bird-watching area. However, our highlight for the day is the town of Nemuro, which is where we also stop for the night.

Nemuro is one of the most important fishing centers in Hokkaido. It also has an important dairy industry. All this can mean only one thing — great food.

Nemuro is known for some of the best Sushi in Japan because of the quality of the fresh fish caught here. A must-try local delicacy is Tonkatsu or deep-fried pork cutlets served with butter-fried rice and demiglace sauce.

The terrain for the day’s cycling remains mostly flat.

We stay for the night at a beautiful cottage overlooking Lake Furen.

Source © Komoot

This is the longest day of biking, albeit one with some of the most beautiful views. We begin cycling this day towards the Kiritappu wetland, known as the wetland of flowers because of the vast variety of flowers that bloom here during the summer, presenting a view of a vast marshland of green grass and colorful flowers.

We continue cycling through undulating terrain to arrive at the hamlet of Hamanaka. Our hotel for the night has views of the Kiritappu wetland behind and the Pacific Ocean out front.

Source © Komoot

This is the last day of cycling on our adventure, and we make sure to make the most of it. We bike through undulating terrain along the Pacific coastline, getting some excellent views of the Pacific from vantage points. We cross lakes, rivers, and hills until we arrive at Akkeshi, a small town situated on the edge of a lake of the same name. Akkeshi is famed all over Japan for its prized oysters that are farmed all year round from Lake Akkeshi.

We have a stopover for lunch at Akkeshi before moving onwards to Konbumori, the terminal point of our cycling adventure. At Konbumori, we load our bikes into the van and take a short drive back into Kushiro, whence we had started.

Stay for the night at a hotel in downtown Kushiro.

Source © Komoot

We meet for breakfast in Kushiro to share tales of a fabulous adventure and say our goodbyes. Or Sayonara, as the Japanese say.

A group drop-off can be arranged on request to the Kushiro airport or the train station.