Ozu to Oda, 31.4 km
It was a long slog out of Ozu this morning in the rain. The city seems to extend forever up the valley (not dissimilar to Seiyo yesterday). As we’d stayed in the historic old town, this morning was the busy city road with never ending supermarkets, big box stores and car dealerships. Only the cultural differences made the walk interesting! Eventually we veered off the roads onto a soggy trail, which emerged at the town of Uchiko around about lunchtime – by which time the rain had stopped and we could enjoy the restored historic main street. Enjoyment was assisted by locating a bakery and loading up with a mystery selection of their wares. Bakeries here seem to charge ridiculously low prices!
Scenes from Uchiko:
After Uchiko there was a modest amount of trail, but mostly road walking. However, by this stage most of the traffic had vanished onto roads unknown, and with a wide bike path/footpath, it wasn’t too unpleasant (apart from the fact that we were all plodding along in wet footwear!)
Scenes from the trail:
Our interesting encounter of the day was a couple who lived beside the designated trail (i.e. road) and offered a bench to rest on, iced coffee and a taste of local fruit kaki (a persimmon) which was delicious. They take photos of all the Henros and have photo albums of all who have passed by.
Tonight we are in a small village. This section of the pilgrimage is challenging due to the shortage of places to stay, but we lucked out again and were served yet another amazing meal after the requisite soak in a Japanese bath tub (the next best thing when there’s no onsen nearby!)
