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The Sapporo City traffic policeman eyed us up and down dispassionately. Sucking on his yellowed teeth, his gaze fell again onto our carefully drawn hitchhiking sign and he exhaled heavily. "It's no good," he finally announced, "hitchhiking is not a Japanese custom. Japanese people will not stop for you. They will be suspicious, and anyway," he concluded with conviction, "Japanese people are shy of foreigners." Having bestowed these words of wisdom on us, he pointed theatrically back the way we had come. "The train station," he added with an air of finality, "is that way."

We thanked him for his advice with docile politeness and, satisfied that he had done his bit to restore order and sanity to the world, he bid us a curt goodbye and strode off. Thankful that he hadn't thought to confiscate our precious sign, painstakingly inscribed with the kanji characters for our destination, we waited a moment before adopting bright, friendly smiles and boldly confronting the stream of oncoming cars. Within moments a gleaming white Toyota screeched to a halt and a madly grinning young man gestured that we should jump in. We had just scored our first ride!

Hokkaido, the northernmost island of the Japanese archipelago, is the country's 'wild west'. Colonized by the Japanese only in the last 150 years, its rolling farmland and rugged coasts offer a break from traditional Japan's overload of historic sights, and Hokkaido people are known for their resourcefulness and broad outlook on life.

It was in the hope of meeting some of these spirited people - and in search of adventure - that we chose to hitchhike our way around Hokkaido. Beautiful landscapes are great, but for us it is the chance to interact with a place's inhabitants that can really make a trip special.

Our first ride didn't disappoint. The enthusiastic young man who picked us up on the outskirts of modern, sprawling Sapporo surveyed us with delight as we explained that we were heading for a small fishing port halfway up the West Coast. "No problem!" he exclaimed and off we went. He was clearly thrilled to be chauffeuring such 'exotic' passengers and chatted away as he drove. It was only on our arrival in Rumoi, two hours or so up the coast, that we discovered that he had been on a local errand when he picked us up and had thus embarked on a four hour detour solely to deliver us safely to our destination! He asked us to pose with him for a commemorative photo before cheerfully setting off on his long drive home.

The mama-san of the minshuku was taken aback by the sudden arrival of two hitchhiking foreigners. She questioned us on our plans with an air of disbelief, attributed our initial success entirely to luck and was cheerfully pessimistic about our chances of getting much further. Nevertheless, over the evening meal, curiosity compelled her to advise on the drawing of our next sign - for Wakkanai, Japan's northernmost city.

Needless to say, her pessimism was unfounded and we were quickly picked up by an aggressively stylish young woman in a fast, comfortable car. She observed us as one might an interesting but possibly unpredictable animal, but showed no interest in who we were or where we were going and rebuffed our questions with a prim smile. An hour or so later she dropped us off at a coastal village, presenting us with two cans of cold coffee before speeding on her way.

Next were two young men in a pickup truck who insisted on squeezing us and our backpacks next to them in the cramped cab, and listened to our plans to hitchhike around the island with incredulity. "It won't work," they insisted, "no one will pick you up." Interestingly, they remained unconvinced despite their own enthusiasm for giving us a ride. Later, as we came across this reaction time and again, we realized that it stemmed from people liking to believe that they had acted unusually boldly and hospitably picking us up.

A genial older couple shared their lunch with us and asked us to accompany them to the Sarobetsu 'primeval marsh' which forms a natural garden of hundreds of species of wild flowers. Unfortunately, the flowering season, which occurs in June, is short-lived. Now in August there was not a bloom to be seen, just huge expanses of marshy grassland. Refusing to give up so easily, we finally hunted down a single purple lily-like flower and together solemnly admired its fast-fading beauty. Most embarrassed by this disappointment, the couple plied us with canned drinks and bags of snacks and were visibly relieved when their temporary responsibility for us came to an end.

Waiting at a crossroads for our next ride, it started to drizzle and then to rain heavily. Unfortunately the nearby non-functioning vending machine and shuttered shack offered no shelter. Finally we were rescued by a minibus full of rowdy students high on unaccustomed freedom and the rock 'n 'roll that was blaring out so loud that the whole vehicle shook. They performed an emergency stop right in front of us, completing our drenching with a wave of spray, and we gratefully clambered aboard. They treated us to friendly smiles and a can of coffee each, but not a word was exchanged - the music drowned out any attempts, and it never occurred to them to turn it down...

It was a great relief to finally pull into Wakkanai, a small fishing port and Japan's northernmost outpost of civilization. The town, a huddle of low gray buildings, feels like the end of the world, but occasional Russian ferries are a reminder that Siberia lies just beyond the horizon. Wakkanai is the gateway to the dramatically scenic islands of Rebun and Rishiri - a three hour ferry-ride out across the cold gray sea. Even there hitchhiking had its uses, and we were most intrigued by the man in an expensive suit who picked us up in his gleaming black Mercedes Benz. He eyed us possessively as we drove slowly along the island's tortuous lanes and smiled inscrutably at our questions. No one could have been more out of place on those wild windswept islands. A smuggler perhaps?

Returning to Wakkanai, a couple of friendly workmen delivered us to our next stop - Cape Soya, the official northernmost point of Japan. We were treated to a quick bowl of steaming ramen noodles before battling through the wind to the striking granite monument. We strained to make out the mountains of Sakhalin Island, a mere 25 miles (40 kilometers) away, and reflected on the Japanese stranded there after WWII and how close Hokkaido came to falling under Soviet rule.

Crouching out of the biting wind, we prepared our next sign - for the small city of Asahikawa, several hundred kilometers inland and gateway to the Daisetsuzan National Park. Little did we know that we were about to be 'kidnapped'!

The two salarymen in the smart car nodded happily as we explained that our destination was Asahikawa. Several hours comfortably passed during which we chatted and dozed and the driver, Mr. Nakajima, made a couple of rapidly-spoken calls from his mobile phone. On and on we went, past dairy farms, forests and occasional lonely villages, all the time quite unaware that our plans were being derailed by determined Mr. Nakajima and his accomplice.

Finally Mr. Nakajima announced, without a hint of embarrassment, that rather than heading for Asahikawa, he had decided to take us home to his wife and children in Mombetsu, a coastal town a good 150 kilometers out of our way. He had already, he admitted, called his wife and asked her to make up the spare room. Well, what could we do - after all we'd said we were looking for adventure…!

Mombetsu is a small town with a fine new harbor, its claim to fame being the harshness of its winters, during which icebreakers carry sightseers out into the ice floes of the Sea of Okhotsk. It's also a friendly place—everyone from Mr. Nakajima's somewhat bemused family to his colleagues at the office (which he insisted we visit) and the various neighbors and townspeople we were introduced to seemed delighted to see us and keen to press food, drinks and gifts on us. We were quickly integrated into the Nakajima family and shown to our specially prepared room. The daughter performed an impromptu piano recital while the son initiated us into a range of Japanese video games. We were quite overwhelmed by their hospitality.

That evening, Mr. Nakajima glowed with pride as we happily tucked into piles of shrimp, abalone and 'kegani' (hairy crab—a local specialty) in a cozy restaurant tucked away among the lanterns and neon of Mombetsu's tiny entertainment district. We were then ushered across the road and into a hostess bar - a first for us and, it turns out, quite an experience!

Our arrival was clearly the most exciting thing to have happened in sleepy Mombetsu for quite some time. The hostesses, sitting morosely by the bar, became immediately animated, and we were served countless drinks, entreated to dance and begged to perform (by now drunken) renditions of 'Yellow Submarine' and 'My Way'. What the evening cost we dread to think, but Mr. Nakajima—tipsy and in the highest of spirits—didn't seem to care one bit.

The hangovers the following morning weren't much fun, but Mr. Nakajima, obviously used to such revelry, was dressed and ready for work at 7am. His wife then took over responsibility for our entertainment, and together with the children we embarked on a whistle-stop tour of the local sights - the ice floe museum (complete with an 'artic room' were one can experience -30°C), the hilltop viewing tower and the rusting hulks of Russian ships in the harbor, crammed with old fridges, stoves, washing machines and cars for export to Siberia.

Eventually we said goodbye and continued on our journey to Asahikawa and beyond, and although nothing could compare with our experience with the Nakajimas (who we have, incidentally, stayed in touch with), we continued to be delighted and amazed by people who enthusiastically went out of their way to offer us kindness and hospitality and ensure that we arrived safely at our destination. In Hokkaido, it seems, nothing brings out the best in people like a pair of hitchhiking foreigners!

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