We awoke to the sound of sprinklers at 7am. They had the lawn pretty much covered so I just managed to close my tent door before too much rain got in! Then we had to play dodge the sprinklers whilst we unloaded our tents and took them down and moved them to another lawn with no sprinklers to dry off.

After breakfast we headed to the IGA for some lunch and water.

We head on past the post office where I bought some stamps and sent a few bits home that I no longer wanted to carry around. A t-shirt and shorts and some leaflets.

As we left the post office a man came up to us and asked us if we preferred roller top panniers or flip over panniers we have both. In the end we decided that flip over were better and easier to use etc.

He told us a bit about his bike touring etc and about a band that tour on bikes and have the audience peddle them to generate the power. They were called the Ginger Ninjas. He also offered and gave us some useful advice about Cliffs camera lens and possible solutions to getting a new one.

After this we headed of fairly late the climb started pretty much straight away. The rain a little later.

We carried on to Wauconda where we had lunch in a general store and had a good chat with a group of 5 recumbent cyclists. They were very friendly and were riding park of the northern tier route. Hopefully we will be able to stay with them later on in the trip, as they possible live on the route we going to take.

After this and drinking a lot of bottomless coffee we headed out into the rain up to the peak and then down into republic by this time it was pretty rainy so the decent was not that fast, but it was still fun. We stopped a lot for the loo due to all the coffee.

In Republic we found our warmshowers hosts house and had a shower a lovely dinner and learnt a lot about gold mining that still happens in the area and also generally a bit more about the general area.

Its raining outside still its nice to be indoors.

Today despite the rain was a good day we met a lot of lovely friendly people who I don’t think we would have ever met if we were not travelling by bike. I think there is something about a bike with loads of stuff on it that makes people want to talk to you.

Sorry the pictures today aren’t to good it was raining so I didn’t get my camera out much.

So after coffee and granola we left the comfortable house and head off into the heat. Stopping a little down the road at the washwork to check our emails before heading off again.

There was a lot of climbing, we past a parking area for cross country skying.

The downhill was pretty nice and long. Whilst going down I thought it probable made up for the up hill but later on I thought it might be nicer if it was a little longer.

We stopped in a town park which also doubles up as a campsite. A lot of people we driving up and using the 50 cent shower. I am not really sure why maybe it was a really good shower.

We visited a massive wallmart in the next town. It was big and the food was cheap. It wasn’t very nice in there, although it wasn’t too bad really.

We carried on riding and ended up in Tonasket. We rode out of the town but did not find anywhere suitable riding back into the town, Cliff asked a lady watering some plants if she knew of anywhere to camp. She said that cyclists had be camping behind the information centre. So this is where we are for the night. It is pretty pleasant.

So far the mobile phone signal in america has been pretty bad, luckily there is free wifi all over the place.

Today we spent the day in Twisp, buying some food and visiting the washworks Laundry. It was good to get these jobs done.

The weather is now really sunny, hopefully it will stay this way. The town seems nice fairly small but most things that could be needed are here.

The picture attached is of the road we rode on yesterday.

Woken to rain we left Rockport after meaning a puncture on my rear wheel, which delayed us a little.

We headed out of Rockport buying some bread at the general store. Stopping at the Northern Cascades Visitors Centre in Newhalem to eat out lunch. The weather was a bit changeable sometimes good sometimes bad. It got a lot better after our lunch stop. We cycled on and found a steam train that had been used help move stuff for the building a hydroelectric power-station.

After cycling on a little way we heard somebody calling us it was our hosts for our stay in Lake Stevens. They had very kindly come on a drive out and brought us some lunch. We eat some there and then and took some with us. We said our goodbyes and head off.

The climb was long and hard and raining and there was also some down as we were going up which is always depressing. We made it to Rainy Pass 4855 feet 1480 meters. This was a little rest area with quite a bit of snow on the ground. We stopped cycling at about 8pm this is the latest ever. We cooked dinner in the shelter of the toilet, that later became Cliff bedroom. I opted to sleep in my tent.

It was pretty cold at the top of the mountain but I put all my clothes on and it was warm enough.

I slept well I think this mainly due to how tired I was other than the comfort of our surroundings.

TODAY

Coffee was good we cycled down a bit and then up to Washington Pass 5477 feet 1669 meters. We stopped to look at the view it was closed for some construction work but we carefully managed to see the view.

The downhill was good and long, we put more clothes on to keep warm from the wind chill. We arrived in Mazama and had a look around a good but pricey general store. Carrying on to Winthrop which looked like disneyland but I think it was just an old town, and could have done with a roundabout at the big junction. There were a lot of motorbikes in town due to the Tumbleweed Run Motorcycle Ralley.

We carried on Twisp where we are staying with a warmshowers person. The house is a lovely cottage a bit away from the town. We are going to head into the town for some food, beer and wifi.

We are now at the Twisp Pub enjoying some wifi about to eat some food and drink some beer. The pub is pretty nice so far well the water we have got is good.

So far the landscape in america is very big big mountains big rivers, big skys. It some places it looks unreal like a film set almost. The mountains were pretty spectacular and the downhill

In America they make the beer cold. The beer pictured is a Oatmeal Stout, Rolled oats add richness to this smooth dark ale.

Today we started of cycling with our host from Lake Stevens. The first part of the route was alone another new trail that had been recently opened.

We stopped at a small town IGA the same supermarket we shopped at a bit in Australia.

We said good bye to our host, and cycled on highway 530 until we got to Rockport. We were planning to wildcamp but found a reasonably price campsite, after visiting a local store and petrol station.

After a basic pasta dinner we headed to local pub, we were surprised that it had free wifi. There has been limited phone signal so far.

Tomorrow we will head up highway 20 into the mountains. I think it will be lots of climbing.

So far america has been friendly to us, tonight there were a few too many insects. Beer in america is better than I was expecting.

You can see that as we upgraded in Australia we have also upgraded in the USA and now got a car and caravan, hopefully it will make the hills tomorrow a little easier.

Yesterday we started cycling out of Seattle. It looked like a nice city but navigation was pretty hard work, until we got onto the interurban trail. This was a bike path that used to be an old tram track it was fairly well signed and looked pretty new. The route took us north and we headed to Lake Stevens.

In Lake Stevens we are staying with some warmshowers people. After taking a shower we sat down to a lovely meal. The people we are staying with amongst lots of other things that do the catering for the American Adventure Cyclist supported bike tours.

Today we are doing a bit of washing and some route planning as well as well as heading to the Lake Stevens shopping area to get a haircut and maybe some supplies.

We have returned Cliff has no hair and my beard is a little tidier. I have been reading a lot of the adventure cyclists magazine called go the distance it is pretty good read apart from it is very bike focused.

We had another good dinner before bed getting ready to start our ride again tomorrow, it will be the first night camping in a while.

So after spending some time in Tokyo we said good bye to Cliffs father at the airport and boarded our flight to Seattle via LAX. The Singapore airlines flight was very nice on a new massive plane there were a lot of films to pick from and the food was okay. The only annoyance was not having to climb over and sleeping person to get to the toilet.

On my last day in Tokyo I went to the Edo national museum which had a lot of building reconstructions from the Edo period. Thinking I was booking myself on a complimentary group tour I got a free individual tour of the museum which was very informative and saved me the effort of reading the information boards.

At the museum there was also a temporary exhibit on the 100 years transport history of Tokyo all of this was in Japanese so most of it was lost in translation.

So now we are in Seattle and staying with someone from warmshowers who has a great bike shop where we changed our cassettes and chains.

The time difference is a bit crazy so I slept pretty well last night but I think this was more down to tiredness rather than anything else.

Today we are doing a bit of shopping maps etc before heading off tomorrow. We shopped at safeways and are now members it saved us four dollars.

We stop at a fastfood restaurant call Jack in a Box and had a big or maybe it was called massive chicken sandwich before cycling back to our hosts house passing over a bridge which gave us a good view of Seattle city centre.

We are now watching snakes on a plane!

II have spent the last few days in Tokyo. Doing admin and looking around. I found a good English book shop called Good Day Books. Here I trading in a book I brought for a dollar in the boarders closing down sale in Sydney and got 350 yen towards the other books I brought.

We have also booked our flights to the USA now. The original plan was to go to Portland but due to the flight pricing we have settled for Seattle as it was a lot cheaper and is far close. We plan to do the American Adventure Cycle route the Northern Tier, and end up in New York. Due to time we are going to have to use alternative maybe slightly faster than bikes transport to cover part of the distance in the time we have available.

I am currently on a bullet train (Shinkansen). The only way the front of the bullet train can be describe is ‘Kick Ass’ if trains had fights I am pretty sure this one would beat all the other trains hands down. The ticket system is fairly strange but the ticket barriers are very good. I needed to put two tickets in at the same time and you can just place them on top of each other. The subway ticket machines are equally good and you can put the ticket it anyway and it seems to work.

I am going to Kyoto then heading to a small town called Uno so I can get the ferry to Naoshima which is known as an art island.

I am not sure what I am going to do in Kyoto but I hear there is lots to do.

This afternoon i went to the Manga Museum not because I like Manga I have never really looked at it before but mainly because i have not looked at it before! I also went to a design museum.

Last night we arrived in Tokyo. It was hot and very sunny on the ride we must have drunk a lot of water and sports drinks. There was also a nice head wind which really hit when you went over any bridges.

On the way we stopped at a space museum. Which had a lot of information on the Japanese space program.

I forgot to mention that the last night in the tent was so hot that I tried to sleep outside which was a lot cooler but then the insects attached so it was inside the hot and airless tent for me!

We met up with Cliff’s father when we arrived parked the bikes showered and had dinner.

Yesterday was Cliff’s birthday and we went to Disneyworld. It was a good day, with the highlights being getting evacuated from the run away mine train, when it broke down. We had to cross over the track and go out of a back entrance. The buffet lunch was also good.

Today I am doing a bit of admin, washing research into the next leg of the trip and what to do for the next week or so in Tokyo.