Day 2 Adventure on Lake Akan

We collected our car early in the morning at 9am, a Toyota Fielder, and made our way towards Lake Akan. The scenery enroute reminded me of Christmas log cake with pine trees and many layers of cream. Thankfully it hadn’t snowed recently so the roads were relatively dry.

When we arrived at our destination, I was immediately taken by the large expanse of white before me. It still blows my mind that the whole lake had indeed frozen over, all 13 square kilometers of it. Unfortunately, ice skating was not available so we ended up doing a 7km snow mobile route and ice fishing. We took the snow mobile out into the middle of the lake to explore its surroundings guided by a route. On hindsight, it was really quite thrilling. What if the ice cracked??

As a second part to this trip, I had really looked forward to my ice fishing experience and eating the tempura smelt but alas after two hours of labor, I had nothing to show for it. I’m pretty sure I must have done something wrong. All the locals fishing with me caught something and in bucketfuls. Sob. During the two hours, a snow storm started outside out tent and temperatures dropped to sub zero. I was literally freezing so I finally called it quits and we ran back to our car covered in a layer of snow by the time we got back.

After a quick lunch at Lake Akan and buying a cute marimo which is native to this lake, we headed south towards Kushiro. I had wanted to stop at a crane sanctuary to watch the birds who migrate here in flocks during winter. Alas, the sanctuary was closed on that particular day so I opted for the Kushiro Marshland Observatory instead. There is a 3km boardwalk that brings you to various viewing points overlooking these wetlands. I’m pretty sure it would have been an interesting sight during summer when the landscape is covered in green. In winter a totally different scenery.

We paid ¥100 to use the binoculars and I managed to spot a pair of wild deers, a stag and his doe. It was a lovely find. Actually the view is truly mesmerizing and one can spend a fortune just observing nature at its wildest like this. Remind myself to invest in a pair of binoculars in future when I go nature walking. I also spotted a sleeping fox on our way to Lake Akan which is probably a really rare catch. I really love foxes, one of my favorite animals both in reality and in fantasy. After this, we made a brief stop in Kushiro before heading back to Obihiro.

By this time, I was starting to get turn feverish after being in the cold for too long. Theo stepped on the pedal hoping to get me back to the comforts of our hotel room but ended up we were stopped by the highway police and reprimanded by the lady police. She couldn’t speak English so had to use cute hand gestures to warn us. I really tried to take her seriously.