Vagrants

So the rain held off through the daytime on Sunday giving us gorgeous weather for the ultramarathon. The rain returned on Sunday night so between the sound of the rain pattering on the tarpaulin roof of our tent and the incessant pestering of bugs, it was a pretty sleepless night for us all. We got up at 0600 to dismantle the tent. We just threw everything into the back of Kimmy's car, in absolute chaos, then drove to a petrol station to buy some petrol and put our gear into some semblance of order while under the petrol station's canopy. I doubt it has ever taken any customers so long to buy a few liters of petrol.

Later, we stopped off for another onsen. By now, the sun was shining and it was quite hot so, as you can see, we took advantage of some barriers in the car park of the onsen to hang our sleeping bags, ground sheets, mattresses, tarpaulin ...... pretty much everything, in fact ..... out to dry. I think the owners of the onsen must have been glad to see the back of us rag-a-muffins.

We stopped off at a few service stations on the way back to Hikone Station where Kimmy dropped us off before driving to her home. Randy rode the train with me as far as Kyoto and I carried on to Osaka. I got back home at about 1930, happy to see my family once more and looking forward to spending a night in a dry bed with no bugs. But, despite that, I don't regret a single thing' it was a fantastic experience and I can't wait to do it again - hopefully, without the rain, though.