We knew today wasn't good to be particularly enjoyable even before we hit the sack last night.  The weather prediction was dire and the road to Sapporo would be a narrow, busy and in poor repair.  And that's how it turned out to be.

It started raining yesterday evening while we were having supper at the hotel at the Onsen.  Raining is a bit of an understatement.  By the time we got back to our tent we were drenched.  Soon afterwards the rain stopped and the rest of the night was mostly dry.

On waking up this morning we found that the campsite had been transformed into a marsh but our tent had managed to keep up dry enough.  Just as we were loading the bikes, Leigh noticed that her bicycles rear wheel was flat - the first one of the trip.  I couldn't manage to find the cause so I was a bit worried when fitting a replacement tube but it has held up through today.

As we set off, the rain started again and continued for the more than thirty kilometers.  At times it felt that we were caught in the U-bend of a flushing toilet with the rain teeming down and large trucks whizzing close by.

Then at around the halfway mark, the rain stopped and we started to dry out.  We took a few breaks to wring out socks and tip the water from our shoes - Goretex isn't waterproof if the water gets in via your socks.

We got to our hotel at about two thirty, pretty tired and ready for a rest.  We will spend the next three nights here.  Lots of work to get done as well as some site seeing.