Ofune is a Jomon settlement on the southern tip of Hokkaido, in the hills above Hakodate, and it is a lot bigger than the signboards make it look. The Jomon were hunter-gatherers who lived in the northern forests of Japan for something like ten thousand years, long before rice farming, and they built a settled life around chestnuts, fish, deer and the odd well-travelled trade good. Ofune was inhabited for centuries and is now part of the Jomon Prehistoric Sites in Northern Japan, which UNESCO recognised in 2021. Reconstructed pit houses hold the grass in place, and the scale of the pits tells you someone intended to stay.
Hokkaido itself changes how you ride. The roads are wider and emptier than on the main island, and the cadence is long straights, gentle bends and rolling forest. Near Hakodate they tighten, particularly on the road climbing around the old volcano of Komagatake. Rubber matters here because the tarmac cools fast, even in July, and fog from the Tsugaru Strait can drift in without warning. Deer are the real hazard on rural roads at dusk, and in autumn you will see warning signs showing a leaping stag every few kilometres. Pay attention to them.
Hakodate itself is the base. It sits on a narrow isthmus with a harbour on one side and the open sea on the other, and it was one of the first Japanese ports opened to foreign ships in the 1850s. Red brick warehouses survive along the waterfront, and the night view from the top of Mount Hakodate is one of the famous ones in the country. Ferries from Aomori arrive here, so it is where many motorcyclists step onto Hokkaido for the first time. Fuel is plentiful in the city and along the main roads, though small stations in the hills can close early.
Eat squid here if you eat anything. The morning market near the station sells it so fresh that it is still moving, and the salt ramen of Hakodate is the local answer to richer bowls elsewhere. Honcho, the nearest bigger town to Ofune, is quieter, with a few shops and a convenience store, and it has what you need. In summer the light lasts late, and it is a gentle thing to be at the site near evening, when the grass has gone gold and the only sound is wind.