Thank you both for your insights. At the moment It looks like we will be doing some day walks from Dana but we’re hoping we might get lucky and find someone who will take us on, tell us where water can be found and hopefully feed us. Fingers crossed. We have winter sleeping bags, mosquito nets and supplies so if we’re feeling adventurous we might go it alone for a night. Thanks everyone...

Those hotel encounters with the police were definitely interesting. I was totally confused the first time it happened. I was sleeping with ear plugs inserted, so I guess I didn't notice the first few times they banged on my door. Then they got serious. There were two large hinged windows beside the door, and the police swung those windows up and then tried to stick their arms through the bars. They pushed the curtains aside with their fingers and swung their flashlights all around the room and started shouting. This woke me up, but I was still half asleep and stumbling around inside my mosquito net and trying to figure out what was going on. It took me some time to get dressed and make my way to the door and open it. By then, half the local police force appeared to have assembled there. I'm not sure who was more stunned - me or them.

I didn't really know what was going on until much later. None of the police on these raids spoke English, and no one at the hotel did either. The hotel staff certainly never made an appearance or offered to intercede. I think they just kept their heads down and let the police do their thing. I just happened to know a detective on the local force (from when I reported having my smartphone stolen), and she explained how the police were making sure that couples in these hotels were married.

I'm not sure if just these hotels were targeted specifically or if the police went to all the hotels on a schedule or something. There was nothing particularly unsavory about the hotels I was in. They were on the low-budget end of things but still quite nice, I thought. At least I knew what was going on after the first time it happened. The other times, I could hang back a bit and just enjoy all the activity. The hotels appeared to be cleared out and empty after these raids except for me. People were either loaded onto the trucks and taken to the police station or went to other hotels. It was all very strange.

The other times I had the most encounters with the police were in coastal towns like Tanjungbalai. I had actually arrived in Tanjungbalai by ferry, and my luggage was torn apart and searched carefully. To do this, they took me to a private room and they asked me tons of questions and even went through my smartphone looking at the pictures I had taken and that sort of thing. As far as I could tell, they were looking for proof that I was the tourist I claimed to be. They wanted to see the selfies and photos of tourist sites that a true tourist would take. Luckily, I had a fair number of those from Malaysia.

I spoke to the police a number of times after that, and I learned that there was a lot of smuggling by boat on this coast between Sumatra and Malaysia (smuggling of goods and illegal workers). And so they were quite alert to anything out of the ordinary. And I guess I fit that bill everywhere I went.

No, my extension was at the immigration office in Siantar, not Medan. The moment they handed me the payment form to take to the bank, I knew there would be trouble. I asked the immigration officers if I would need my passport at the bank, and they assured me that I wouldn't. I doubted that, and, of course, the first thing they wanted at the bank was my passport.

Hey thanks for the suggestions. Appreciate it very much.
So, as of right now, we've booked campgrounds in Jasper and Banff for the trip already and a car is also booked (It didn't turn out to be that expensive). So, we've got transport and a place to stay. But we'd be lacking amenities in the campgrounds. But we'll try our best to cope with that with the budget we have. All of us have decent sleeping bags and a tent so we should be good there as well.

But other than that, any other suggestions to help us prepare for the trip would be awesome and we'd very much appreciate a locals advice on how to spend our time there. Thanks very much x

Thanks again for the tips.

I have a compass, and I now have maps for Daisetsuzan. Don't know if I want to navigate exclusively with them in the middle of a fog storm though! I'm basically praying for good weather, so all this planning doesn't go to waste. Anyway. And I think we're going to try and share a sleeping bag, rather than buying another one just for a couple of nights. So we really need nice weather. :-)

How do you generally do vis-a-vis estimated trail times in Japan?

I normally beat them easily enough, but I'll have a heavy pack this time around, so will need to rest relatively frequently. It's not going to be like my run up and down Fuji last year! It seems there's a campsite on the way to Kurodake, so we'll get there (ensha'allah), see how we're feeling, and decide if we're up for moving on. We'll bring enough supplies for 2 and a half days on the mountain, just in case, I think.

I don't travel with a stove, so no fuel, and no boiling water. I'll check up on my tablets (I don't think they're actually iodine) and see what they're supposed to kill.

Moving on to Shiretoko:

I've found two lovely day hikes that I'm interested in. Probably just one. They are:

Iozan - Can be hiked as a day-hike from the Kamuiwakka waterfalls trailhead. Technically you're supposed to get permission in advance, but I believe you can also just turn up and write your name at the gate. Access is only by shuttle bus, which gives serious time limits. Alternatively if we were feeling nuts, we'd walk on to Mt. Rausu. I think that trail is open? We'd then have to try and hitchhike back to our car though.

Rausu - Can be hiked as a day-hike from Iwaobetsu Onsen. We can drive there, and park the car freely, it seems.

Any thoughts on which mountain might be more rewarding if we were only to do one? I assume bears are likely on either hike.

Shorter hikes include around the 5 lakes, and perhaps something off the 334? I'm a little confused, to be honest. Getting information on hiking in the park seems a little complicated.

Every evening at sunset, a long line of large flying foxes (aka megabats) fly languorously north to south at about 50 m above ground - like punters returning from their factories to their houses in the burbs.

They are native to the Wide Brown Land, but are non-marsupial mammals.

They sleep upside-down, so having a pouch might be a little problematic. There are about 130 placental mammals native to the place (mostly bats and rodents).

Still 30° each day and sunny - quieter here now ... some schools return today after the summer break.

With 10-12 full(?) days you can stay for two days at some places. This gives you some flexibility, like chosing to drive 75 km back or forward from the “staying” site in order to spend more time at a place passed the day before, skippinge spending much time in the “staying” village or to compensate for having the day before spoiled by terrible weather.
Not booking every place also depends om you being prepared to have to stay on a costly luxury place as well as a primitive sleeping bag accommodation if that happens to be the only vacancy. This said the situation in July is bad due to the exploring popularity of Iceland by tourists. A popularity that har grown at incredible rates during the last 10 years

I have not been too impressed with the old lp central asia, maybe this one is better. Brandt Kyrgyzstan guidebook is decent.

ATMs are fairly common. I would suspect there is an ATM in naryn, the other places mentioned there are plenty. You might find some ATMs don't work with maestro, but you will be able to find one.

The western bus station is relatively central and on the main highway going through Bishkek. I'm sure you can find a ride from other places, but "western bus station" (autovokzal) is probably your best bet as it's easy and there are lots of departures. Shared taxi is probably a better option that mashrutka to get to kochkor as mashrutka don't seem to be regular, and shared taxi is cheap and fast.

Yes you can rent sleeping bags.