There’s a lot if sea out there …

A bright and sunny day as we left our comfortable hotel in Toyama. Such a tidy town … the streets were adorned in flower pots on street poles … funny – I didn’t even notice them yesterday in the sopping rain.

We are minutes from the castle so a wander with the bikes through the very attractive gardens, with a backdrop of tall modern buildings.

Back towards the coast we are on a cyclepath by the river, it’s a little underwhelming although the river beds have been put to good use with what appears to be a community garden, many garden plots – a few people around … there are a lot of green thumbs in Japan.

We combine the Toyama Bay Coastal cycle path with Komoot today.

The coastal path is intermittent between seaside and fishing villages.

We turn towards a town. A shopping centre has a bakery with the most amazing strawberry cream croissant and pain au chocolat.

We are facing strong headwinds today, fishing ports are interesting to see boats of many sizes, nets drying and all things that go with high end fishing.

We head a little off the coast … rice paddies for kilometres take my attention along with the snow capped mountains ahead to my right.

John is very quiet … I’m sure he is thinking ‘under 20kph is not acceptable’.

‘Would you like to go in front for a while?’ I say …

But, but, but ….

‘No buts!’

A nice cruisey ride drafting behind John in the headwind. I think I proved a point …

More coastline then a serious of tunnels as we rounded the bay. We were fortunate that there are roadworks in this section so traffic was restricted to one lane only … at least the traffic was a little more forgiving. Amazing views from the half covered tunnels … dare I stop!

Somewhere in the day, I realised that my brakepads were a little undesirable … I was lucky to find a bike shop near our guesthouse to replace the front and back pads while we waited (they were extremely worn) … he seems like he knows his stuff … all fixed … more air in the tyres and ready to hit the hills tomorrow.

We are a 5 minute walk from the coast … we sit upon a concrete ledge with beer and wine at the ready … trying to ignore the traffic at our back and watch the sunset.

A meal has been ordered at the guesthouse … life’s good.