Day 4Tonight the rats were not put on the spit again, although it was touch and go with the heavy shower from Bled on a 10km gravel road followed by a hill with an 18% gradient. The day set off nicely with a roll down a beautiful valley full of quaint villages on the road from Bohinje. At the end of the valley I was thinking about rain and then realised that I had left my rain jacket on the pension. A quick phone call to TrekTrek office and they obligingly had their baggage driver drop it off in Bled for me at the Restaurant Panorama where we had planned to lunch. The lunch was preceded by a long hard ... read more

Day 2 What a disaster, arrived safely yesterday and on time in Ljubljana only to be told that our bikes had not arrived with us due to insufficient room in the hold. We were told that there were three planes coming tomorrow and that they would try and squeeze them in a few at a time. However, following our free day in Ljubljana we found that nothing had happened. We are now marooned but luckily the Hotel Zaplata at Preddvor is a really nice place with good food and a view to die for. The group are a good bunch and are taking the problem well. The five with bikes are setting off as planned and the remaining eleven are awaiting the bikes, which are promised by lunch time, but seeing is believing, despite the good ... read more

Day 14 Iwaobetsu to Abashiri. Simple buffet breakfast with soup, toast, cold noodles in mayonnaise, yoghurt and a few unknowns. Sunny and high 20's again - not complaining. Out of the door and straight up the hill for 2 miles at 7%. This was followed by a descent back to the coast, which we followed for 20 miles. The first town of Utoro was very nice with a fishing harbour and large brown rocks standing in the sea near the coast. It reminded me of the East coast at Scarborough and Whitby. Along the way there were also some quite good waterfalls streaming down into the sea, one spectacular one called Oshin Koshin. Cormorants were also seen basking on rocks close by and waiting for a bite to eat. I managed to get quite a good ... read more

Day 12 Rausu Hot again this morning with blue sky and a need for serious sun cream application. 32 degrees C on the road with a little breeze. Reasonably flat run but still climbed 490 m in 72 miles and burnt 1,200 calories. As we headed East towards the coast a mist settled in which felt like drizzle at one point. At 11.30 the sun came out again and the temperature back up to 30 as we followed the coast North to our destination of Rausu, which is as far as the continuous road goes. The coast is full of fishing villages and kelp farmers, who leave large nets out at sea for the kelp to attach to then winch them in. We decided to go another 15 miles up the coast to the end of ... read more

Abashiri to Lake Kussahoro. The forecast for today was correct. 6am was brilliant sunshine which turned to rain by 7 and visibility down to 200m. Is it to be sun cream or goose grease today? Everyone is ready to go and get it over with, although it is warmer than Lancashire rain - I hope. Since no one wants to mess with maps in the rain we all follow Peter, who has Ken's Garmin loaded with the route. It is a miserable start on busy roads with tramlines holding loads of water, which we threw up at ourselves with our mudguardless bikes or the traffic threw it at us from the side. None of these was nice. The rain eased off slightly as the morning wore on and it was acceptable, even when we hid under ... read more