The weather is awesome today! I woke up around 7AM, packed my stuff and fixed my bicycle's brakes. The cyclocomp started working again without me having to do anything, but the brakes still don't work very well, even after tightening the cable. I did actually wear out the blocks on the downhill. They're a bit unresponsive, but they should still work fine for a couple hundred kilometers. If it gets too bad I have replacement blocks with me so it should be no problem.
Departing from Owase I turned back to route 42 and continued my voyage south, expecting an easy ride along the ocean (Owase is situated next to the ocean). I was very wrong. What I thought would be an easy ride turned out to be at least as difficult as the climb towards the Fuji five lakes. At least this time the climb was shorter, but I climbed about 300-400 meters according to my altimeter. In return though, the view around me was absolutely stunning, with lots of beautiful natural areas, mountains, hills, waterfalls, forests etc. For the first few kilometers I was able to enjoy it. After that the road got too steep and I could only focus on suffering myself uphill.
The uphill was indeed horrible, also because the weather was great. Climbing up while bathing in the hot spring sun is not exactly easy, and it got worse because I forgot to fill up my water bottles and there wasn't a vending machine in sight. The first 10 kilometers took over an hour, and I had no water. Finally though, I reached the top: a 2 kilometer long tunnel. After that the road started to go downhill, and I enjoyed myself more than I did so far on this trip. High speed, beautiful scenery, great weather. 3 good!
I'm at a small seaside restaurant right now, taking a break for 2 hours to avoid the afternoon sun. If I stay in the sun too much my face will burn up again, so I'll start cycling again a bit later. I'm planning to camp tonight, so I don't have any particular goal for today. I can stop anywhere.
More later!