Erimo Town

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Erimo Town, at the southern tip of the Hidaka region where the Hidaka Mountain Range plunges into the Pacific, is famous for Cape Erimo — a spectacular landscape of wind, waves, and rock. A reef stretches nearly 8 kilometers from the cape into the Pacific, and Erimo is one of Japan's windiest spots, with an average wind speed exceeding 10 m/s year-round. The 'Kaze no Yakata' (Wind Hall) lets visitors experience simulated 25 m/s gales in a popular hands-on exhibit. Around 600 spotted seals (Zenikataseal) inhabit the rocky reefs near the cape, visible through binoculars resting on the sun-warmed rocks. Erimo is also one of Hokkaido's premier sources of Hidaka kelp, prized by Japan's top chefs. The recovery of Hyakuninhama beach — once deserted and sandblasted into near-desert, brought back to life by a community-wide tree-planting movement — is one of Hokkaido's most remarkable ecological redemption stories.