Where do I even start..... I knew it was going to be a rainy day, so I had set up my tent under a gazebo the night before. I was keen to absolutely pump out the cycling today, despite the weather. Raincoat and rain pants on, I set off underneath the pouring rain. First stop was a cafe I found along the coast 10km away. I got to the cafe just before opening time and had a nice call with Mum since it was her birthday. After our call I chatted to a guy from Osaka who was travelling by car, doing the classic Shikoku pilgrimage and surfing along the way. The coffee was great too. Not really wanting to keep going due to the rain, I realised that there was no other option anyway since staying at this cafe wouldn't do anything for me (no food for me to eat for starters). I stopped at the first roadside station I saw, already absolutely soaked by this point. They didn't have any food available yet, but I did get a Route 56 sticker for my helmet. A guy went up to me to have a quick chat too, he was travelling by his little off roader and sleeping in his car. His car was absolutely littered with stickers which I thought was cool. Today was a day where I wanted to make a lot of ground, so no back road detours for me. All Route 56. At about 9 I stopped at another roadside station for 'breakfast'. It was a quick salt seared fish (basically sashimi) rice bowl with miso soup, absolutely delicious. By this point my shoes were so soaked that I was leaving pools of water with every step, it really made me feel bad for going into the restaurant. But continue I did, taking each hill and tunnel in stride. Because I'm on a bicycle I'm not allowed on expressways, which usually means climbing the mountains that said expressways like to avoid. I remember at one point I had to cycle up about 300m of elevation gain, where the road then stayed up there for quite some time. On the way up I passed some construction, which meant I couldn't stop lest I prevent the cars going down the other way from crossing until I was done. Pretty good motivator lol. At that top elevation, I had a convenience store stop for lunch where once again I was soaking the floors with my sopping existence. Seriously, it was like my shoes and socks were actually made of water. Finally taking the decline down, it was quite a beautiful sight. I got to Susaki and noticed there was a Gusto! I thought there was no such thing until Kochi, so I embraced the opportunity to have a good feed and put my clothes and shoes in the dryers of the local coin laundry. The rain was meant to stop in 2h anyway. I spent an hour eating and thought I should get going at 4:30, 45 minutes before the rain was projected to stop. I had another 30km-ish to my campsite anyway. My clothes were dry but my shoes were still soaked besides drying for an hour, only this time they were wet and warm! I wore them without socks, as to not get another pair of socks soaking wet. In my last push, it was getting to peak hour traffic of people heading home from work. So, I was trying to stick to the 'cycle walk' paths. These things are usually not great, as they like to quickly get shit for no reason or sometimes abruptly end. This would end up being my downfall. Taking a downhill on the right side of the road but on a cycle footpath, I was suddenly met with a pole in my way at a turn. I tried to slow down, but it being wet and a hard turn I couldn't absolutely slam on the brakes. I made it through fine, but now the path was narrow with half of it being those classic Japanese gutter tiles. The tiles made a neat line straight through the middle of the thin pathway, about 5cm raised from the ground. My wheel got stuck into there and, any Japan cyclist can attest that in wet conditions that meant it was over for me. I instantly slid out onto my right side and crashed. Thankfully I was on the footpath and not on the road so was not in danger of getting hit. I only got a minor graze on my elbow. My bike, however, was not so fortunate. A spoke on the rear wheel had broke, I'd absolutely scuffed the right side of my handlebars, and now my front brake was rattling. I tried to keep myself in a practical state of mind, there was nothing I could do but make it to the city 25km away. Oh, and the rain never stopped. It continued that day until I went to sleep. I figured I should treat myself to a guest house post fall and not rough a night of camping. I would take it to a repair shop the next day and see what they would say. The guest house I wanted to go to was, however, unavailable for the night. So, original plan then, I camped out! Turns out everything was soaking wet, including my tent, but luckily the topside of my mattress and my sleeping bag were dry which is all that really matters. I sat at the nearby convenience store for dinner and had a nice video call with Lewis to catch up (and special appearance by Selin at the end). I hit the hay at 9:30. Then, at 10:30 I got woken up by a ute passing absolutely BLASTING some message in Japanese over and over. I have no idea what it was saying, and by the time I was awake enough to process what was going on it had gone too far away for my translate app to pick up the audio and translate it. It freaked me out though, as I was worried what if it was a disaster warning? An alarm the blasted for a few minutes nearby. It wasn't a disaster warning though. Knowing Japan, it was probably just some political thing. Or a testing of the alarms. For a country so hellbent on conforming and not making people uncomfortable, they sure like to make loud sounds over PA systems against your will. Well that was my day. Soaking wet all day, crashed my bike, had some good food, got woken up by a PA system blaring in my ear. And I hit my distance record! 115km! Yayy.....