Yesterday I had another rest day. This one wasn't on a whim though, I had booked two nights from the beginning. It turned out to be good timing, because it rained almost all day. I spent the morning at the roadside station stealing their wifi to all Steph, and then the evening at a cafe stealing their wifi to download videos. I also got to charge my stuff there and did some video editing. This morning I woke up around 6:30 but it was still raining. The rain stopped about 30-60 minutes later and I got up and got ready. The first ride was to the tourist information centre, up about 200m elevation. I got a coffee and then decided to ride up the western side of the national park as far as I could go, knowing I'd have to backtrack to the information centre again afterwards. It started with an immediate descent all the way back to sea level, just to climb up again. At the end of the road, and the top of the climb, was a hike in bear territory. It was very guided though, and they made us watch a safety video beforehand. The walk was quite nice, it was about 3km through the 5 lakes of Shiretoko. After that I cycled back to the information centre (redoing the elevation AGAIN). I got a coffee and watched their cinematic documentary screening about the national park at a little theatre they had there. It made me want to get into nature videography, it seems so fun! From there it was a 600m ascent and descent down the other side. The ascent was pretty brutal, but I embraced my inner tortoise and took it slow and steady. I saw so many deers today. They often were barely phased by me! I also so a fox which seemed very hungry, eating bugs off the road. By the top of the mountain I was in clouds, and the descent was entirely through fog. Some of the forest in the fog looked creepy, but in a cool way. At the campsite I finally had use for my dried rice and canned fish that I've been holding on to for weeks by now. I had a brief convo with another Aussie bikepacker, who had started in Sapporo and is travelling the other way. He's on day 22, which might be a good indicator for how long I've got left of my own trip.