We left for our northern adventures on a sticky post-typhoon Chiba day. We planned to drive up to Hokkaido and avoid flying, public transport, and people in general where possible. Apparently, it would take 18 hours to drive to Hokkaido, so we planned to make 4 overnight stops and work our way gradually up. First stop: the
Ura-Bandai highlands in Fukushima. We stayed in a
basic Airbnb for the night near the lakes and checked out fairly early the next morning.
The lakes (Akimoto, Onigawa and Hibara) were hauntingly beautiful in the rain, but we didn't do any walking there as (1) it really was too damp, (2) there didn't appear to be any trails around the lake, and (3) the hike we found on the
AllTrails app had the starting point of a spa town called Tsuchiyu Onsen that had literally no parking spots anywhere.
We weren't very taken with Tsuchiyu Onsen town, so went to the second stop-off point on our journey to Iwate, the cheesy sounding 'Village of Four Seasons' (Shiki no Sato) which turned out to be wonderful.
While there, we saw a tourist poster showing other places to visit including the remains of a 2000-year-old Jomon settlement and museum called Jompia Miyahata, so we couldn't resist stopping there, even though it was a little out of our way. I'm so glad we did! What a treat!
After that, it was on to Ichinoseki in Iwate for a night in a cheap hotel near the station, an izakaya dinner and a good sleep.
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