High Class Accommodation

So this was home for us while we were at Nikko. Here we are erecting our tent. At this point the rain was not too heavy. However, soon after getting the tent erected the rain became torrential. The tarpaulin which you can see was not as big as he expected and was not enough to cover the tent and prevent water from leaking in. And leak in it did. A lot. We soon had big puddles inside the tent, wet sleeping bags, wet mats ..... pretty much wet everything. So we went to a home centre and bought a massive tarpaulin which covered the tent, prevented any more water from coming in and Randy did an excellent job mopping up all the puddles on the floor of tent using a towel.

It was just a three minute walk from here to the starting point of the ultramarathon and the place where we went to sign in at 1300. After signing in we went for a meal at a rather fancy restaurant - somewhat incongruous for a bunch of guys sleeping under tarpaulin - and then to the sublimely beautiful temple at Nikko, famous for the hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil monkeys. Entrance to the temple was free to anyone running the ultramarathon, so that was cool.

After visiting the temple we went to an onsen to loosen up and refresh before the start of tomorrow's ultramarathon. Despite the bugs that managed to get into the tent, I slept surprisingly well.