On the road again... to Akanko Spa

Maybe we should have checked the GPS for an estimate of travel time to Lake Akan National Park before we had a long leisurely breakfast in Sapporo. It turns out the the GPS estimates the trip time to be about 6 and a half hours and up to 10 if you choose a dodgy route. Bugger me it is only 320km. Damn these ridiculously low Japanese speed limits.
When we hit the road we realise that in Hokkaido most everybody ignores the speed limit, even with snow and ice all around. In 80 kay zones the the flow seems to be in excess of 100 kay. Cool. We may be able to do this trip in less than 7 hours. As long as we don't miss the speed cameras that is. The fine is 300,000 yen or over $3000.
Apart from being on the look out for giant bears it is a pretty uneventful trip. We stop a couple of times at Lawson Stations (Japanese convenience stores) to stock up on junk food and we end up doing the trip in a bit over 5 hours and not the 7 hours we were dreading. We had to get to the ryokan/hotel before 7pm or we'd miss dinner.