A trip down Hidaka

Some days ago I went to Obihiro for an archery competition. Of course that usually doesn't involve a trip down Hidaka,which is quite a detour from the shortest and second shortest route from Sapporo to Obihiro. And Hidaka always being a detour has been the exact reason I never been there: I don't see a lot of destinations there for me. Cape Erimo is a good cape but its potential glory of being the southern tip was nullified by the whole Hakodate part of Hokkaido; lots of horse ranches along the coastline, which surely are destinations for those who are interested in racehorses, while I have as much interest in that as in watching paint dry - well maybe less than watching paint dry.

All that said, I do have a lot of interest in covering distances and just going to places I've never been to. I like how the underpopulated areas of a relatively more developed state can offer decent infrastructure without offering the mind-numbing dense of people.

Also sadly I didn't really got to Cape Erimo, so that's reserved me a future reason of going down this route again.

An introduction of the Hidaka region

The Hidaka region, or what I am referreing to, is basically the coastline starting from the eastern tip of Tomakomai until Cape Erimo. This probably differs from the official Hidaka Subprefecture (振興局) definition or some of the former administrative divisions, but I'm not the kind of person that gets sleepless over that.

Of course, the Hidaka Mountains are part of this region, too, quite apparently if you look at the name. But I didn't really have the time for mountain adventures, and roads in Hidaka are pathetically sparse.

There is National Route 235 that is essentially the only main road for all the settlements and areas it goes through; a free motorway section of Hidaka Expressway (E63), providing a faster alternative for R235 from Tomakomai until Niikappu; Nat Route 237 that branches from the old Monbetsu part of the now two-piece Hidaka Town, going up northeast to connect with the other part of Hidaka Town and Shimukappu; Nat Routes 236 and 336 that provide a little more variety at the east end of R235.

There are also Prefectural Routes (quite charmingly abbreviated 道道 in Japanese) that goes alongside R235, the most impressive for me being Pref Route 1025 which is a more elevated and mountaneous option, which stays in parallel with R235 most of the time (parallel if you disregard all the twists and turns due to the mountain terrain). I actually quite like these roads as they are of less transportation importance, and usually has significantly less cars than the main road, and obviously few to none patrol vehicles. If I ever bother going to Hidaka again without a tight schedule some time, I'd definitely go that way instead of the literally coastline R235.

Before Hidaka

The first part of a Hidaka trip, of course, is getting to Hidaka. Which is probably the most frustrating part for this instance.

Sapporo was stormed by several snowstorms in succession. While the day I departed was not plagued with heavy snowfall, what fell from the sky was mostly yet to be removed from the streets. So like every other winter there were only 50% to 66% lanes available, and that effectively reduced the overall traffic efficiency. I took my time to look at the odometer, it took around 45 minutes to move 15 kilometres in the city. Surely not something I enjoyed.

But as I moved further from central and peripheral Sapporo, down southeast on R36, things got a lot better. There is always less snow in Kitahiroshima, Eniwa and Chitose if you compare these cities to Sapporo, and there were less cars. I could still see other vehicles for most of the time as opposed to having a really open, clean road, but at least the traffic was constantly flowing ratherthan stagnated.

Much of the traffic going out from Sapporo on Route 36 was either bound for New Chitose Airport or the ports of Tomakomai. This became more obvious once I passed the airport, as the portion of container semi trucks rose significantly. Apparently not a lot of smaller cars were really going this way.

Mukawa

Previously the furthest I had gone into Hidaka was Mukawa. This time, it was the starting point.

Mukawa (むかわ) is named after the river that flows into the Pacific here. The river itself was named after transcribing the original Ainu name, which remains undetermined. The Mukawa Town now was created after the merger of ex-Mukawa (which was written as 鵡川) and ex-Hobetsu Towns. Probably at that time, when they voted for the new name, the kanji version was deemed too difficult.

The town is known for its production of shishamo, a type of edible fish. Also due to some massive dinosaur fossil being found in the vicinities, dinosaurs are also used in promoting the town.

Last time I had some really good grilled shishamo, but