Hamamatsu to Hakodate

And so ends a second huge day of cycling, eighty odd kms south to the port city of Hakodate.  It didn't rain this time fortunately, and the terrain was somewhat more forgiving, but we hadn't recovered sufficiently from the day before so we were glad to see the end of it when we arrived in the city.  It was a great route, starting along the coast then seeing Mount Komagatake on the horizon which we proceeded to ride around, them descending down to the coast again before heading into Hakodate.  The kids munched on tomatoes and cucumbers from roadside stalls during the journey, and we stopped at the omnipresent vending machines for drinks.
Hakodate is a nice spread out city, and there were many old buildings and manicured pines lining the roadsides.  We spent a few days in the city, shopping, sightseeing, and visiting a fabulous children's indoor playground.  It was full of the highest quality wooden toys and play equipment and gave Bron and I an opportunity to actually relax while the kids wore themselves out.
We also ate sea snails at a market, and enjoyed meeting fans of the J-ROCK group GLAY who had come to the city for a big concert. 

Toyoura to Hamamatsu

And so ends a very big day of cycling, rain, and wind.  We left early in the knowledge that we had a long way to go towards the next campsite, and the first ten kms were savage for our legs.  We followed a long tunnel-strewn cliff hugging road, working against a headwind and constant changes in elevation.  Of course, there is often an inverse relationship between ride difficulty and reward, and this was certainly the case here.  As the road was chiseled from the cliffs, we had the ocean practically beneath our left handgrips - it made for great incentive on the frequent hills.
It took us ages to get over the hills, and then it was onto a very flat and very straight beach side road that skirted Uchiura Bay.  The wind coming off the sea was strong, and it was bucketing down by this point.  The kids were warm and dry in the Chariot and our gear was all safe in our drybags, but we were soaked through and very cold despite the days exertions when we finally made camp at Hamamatsu.  The campsite was set up for car campers and the facilities were good, particularly the warm showers which were very welcome.  There was also a great ice creamery nearby that we stopped at on the way where we had cream cheese flavoured ice cream - which was scrumptious!