I woke up a lot last night, I kept hearing noises. There were high pitched animal cries echoing throughout the mountains, I'm pretty sure they were deers! I think hearing animals so loudly while I'm alone kept triggering my survival instinct and waking me up. That being said, there was certainly no danger! I took my time after waking up since I woke up at 5:15am. My instant rice takes an hour to 'cook' when using cold water, so I just slowly packed my stuff and chilled out. Half way through eating some workers rocked up, and soon there were about 5 cars and 8 guys with chainsaws and trimmers, shaping the garden and rock face plants. I took that as my cue to leave, finally finishing my breakfast. I stopped at a roadside station fairly quickly to have a coffee. I still felt like I was waking up, and it was taking a while to muster the courage to tackle today's cycling. That's because I knew I was going over a mountain pass. I could've taken a tunnel. It was a slight decline the whole way down the tunnel, a nice easy cut through the mountain. But then what's the point of cycling Japan to see the walls of a tunnel? So, after what felt like honestly the most difficult part of the day cycling that 30 minutes to even get to the tunnel, I turned left up the closed off road. The road was partially closed because it was a no way through road. The signs said that you couldn't pass to the other side at the top, but online it said it's now a hiking trail that used to be the road before the tunnel was built. So, I took my chances. The climb was difficult at first, but then it actually leveled out and took me through a nice scenic route along the side of the mountain. At the top there were loads of parked cars. It turns out where the road 'ends' is the starting point for a day hike across the mountains. Being a Saturday, there were loads of people out to do the hike. I wish I had time to do it too! I lifted my bike over the fence to the other side of the barricade, time to ake the downhill. As I started descending I realised that my brakes were way too loose for this. No problem, I stopped to tighten them. By the time I was finished, a hiker walking down that I saw at the top had caught up to me again. I passed him for a second time, zooming down the mountain again. I think stopped to take some footage of me riding down. By the time I finished packing up my camera, that same guy passed me again. I got on my bike and overtook the hiker for a third time. On my way down I saw two guys with big bug catching nets. I won't lie, I didn't even know anybody over the age of 4 went bug catching. These guys must've been real enthusiasts. It reminded me of the Pokemon games, which always had those bug catching Pokemon trainers. I made some connections. Maybe there were bug catchers in the original Pokemon, because bug catching is actually a popular hobby in Japan? I wouldn't even think to make those characters, but maybe for the Japanese creators it was an obvious choice. Wait, there are also lots of fishermen in the Pokemon games. Japanese people bloody love fishing, I've never seen a culture so dedicated to fishing before. Suddenly the Pokemon games seem a lot more Japanese to me now. Anyway, after that train of thought I made it to the big gate at the bottom, this one was kind of hard to get my bike around but I got there eventually. And just like that, I had passed the 'closed' road and was back in the main road! The next section wasn't really much to write home about. I was into civilisation again. Towards the end, I was on a big stretch of road closed off to cars. It was a 10km(ish) long, thin island running through the middle of the massive river. At one point I saw a group of people launching two planes that had no engine into the air with a massive rope pulley system. They would glide them around for 5 minutes then land them. I get the feeling it was some kind of pilot competition, or some test. I didn't even know you could fly an engine-less aeroplane with nothing but a rope to launch it! My campsite turned out to be a day camping only spot. It was meant to be a relaxing afternoon with onsens, food and an easy camping spot. Instead I had to cycle even further to find an internet cafe to stay at, since I had no camping options. I got to the internet cafe at 8pm after having dinner at Joyfull. Oh well, sometimes that happens!