Aoba Park Campground (Chitose City, Hokkaido, Japan)

Aoba Park Picnic Grounds (Campground) is at the southern end of central Chitose City, only 5km from Sapporo International Airport. If you’re arriving to or leaving Hokkaido by air with a bike, it would be a nice spot to stay the night after or before a flight. Or, just for a nice get away in the Sapporo region.

Chitose City is hardly high on a tourist’s list of places to see. Granted, if you’re coming by airplane to Hokkaido, Japan’s northern-most island, it is difficult to avoid it. It is home to ‘Sapporo’ airport. But in reality, Sapporo’s airport is actually in Chitose City, a solid 30 minutes (40km) by express train from central Sapporo.

In any case, Chitose City itself is rarely anything other than a transit location for most tourists, both Japanese and non-Japanese. Sure, there’s Lake Shikotsu, which is officially (just) within the city limits. This pristine caldera lake is home to plenty of hiking, skiing, and camping options. But it is so far from the city center itself, that it is difficult to really consider it part of the city.

The point is, Chitose City itself is a bit of an enigma. It is easy just to think of the place as somewhere where commuters and airport staff begrudgingly house themselves during non-working hours. But once one starts to poke and probe at its mysterious shell, it starts revealing some startlingly beautiful locations well within the urban sprawl. One such place is the colossal Aoba Park.

This sprawling 1km² (102.3ha) park is home to jaw-droppingly well-equipped track and field ovals, tennis courts, soccer fields, baseball fields, and a huge swathe of wild forest.

Tucked away in the south-western corner of the park is the Aoba Park Picnic Area (aoba kouen pikunikku hiroba, 青葉公園ピクニック広場). The name is a little misleading, because it is as much a campground as it is a picnic area. BBQ facilities can be rented between the hours of 9am and 5pm for not much more than 100yen, but beyond those hours, campers can set up tents on raised tent plots for 300yen (Chitose City citizens) or 600yen (visitors from outside Chitose). There is a very nice onsen (Japanese hot spring) just 15 minutes walk from the campground too (open till 10:30pm); perfect for a soak after setting up the tents. The onsen is right next to the Chitose Inter Golf Club.

The staff are friendly (especially the effervescent Mr. Kutsuwa), and the little BBQ in the photo above is supplied free with the campground fee (charcoal not included).

The campground happens to be less than 15 minutes from where we live in Chitose, so we decided to load up our bikes with camping and BBQ equipment and stay a Saturday night there with some friends.

We were at the campground on the 23rd of May. “This is still very early in the year for camping,” said the enthusiastic Mr. Kutsuwa. He said there had been a couple of travelers stay earlier, but the busiest season won’t start till June.

Being late May, Mr. Kutsuwa was slowly making his way around the campsites, clearing twigs and leaves from tentsites that had accumulated over winter. One of those campsites was the kabutomushi (rhinoceros beetle) site; all the sites had insect names. This site had tentsites covered in the most amazing layer of soft moss. We quickly opted for this spot and set up camp.

By 6pm we had tents set up, our charcoal BBQ hot, and the drinks and food ready.

No one had a wine bottle cork removal implement with them, so I did as I have before, using my Leatherman. The steps are as follows: Find a wood screw (there is always one somewhere in a campground), remove it from whatever wood it is currently screwed into, screw it into the cork, grab the screw head with the pliers on the Leatherman, and pull. Cork is now removed. (Return the screw to previous location.)

Before long it was night time and time for an onsen. Walking through a pitch black dark park is always so exciting…

The next morning broke with clear skies and no wind. Everyone in good spirits.

Breakfast consisted of BBQ goodness…

Including Japanese imo-mochi (mashed potato with potato starch shallow fried, with a dash of soy sauce)…

And of course coffee brewed in a mokapot atop a beer can alcohol stove, the stove made the day before.

The perfect spot for an overnight weekend adventure.