Komatsu to Saijo City, 31.6 km
One of the toughest days of the walk so far, but eased somewhat by our host of last night, Taniguchi-san, shuttling our back packs to our next hotel. This was even more critical as that next hotel was off-route, adding extra kilometres to an already challenging day.
The first two temples for the day were memorable for the wrong reasons, not helped by both being urban temples. Hojuji (T62) is small and adjacent to the main road. Apparently it was relocated many years ago to allow for the construction of the railway, but nit sure putting it beside the highway was the best option. Kooji (T61) is further off the beaten track, but its main temple is on the second level of an imposing concrete block, and has rows of theatre style seats on three sides making it feel like a venue for some revivalist meeting rather than for Buddhist prayer
Keen observers will have noticed that these temples are not in numeric order, so we continued our routing hack by climbing the hill to Temple 60, Yokomineji. It was a beautiful forest walk, with bird life and peekaboo views of the mountains. Of course there is also a road almost to the temple, so after a couple of very sweaty hours struggling up the 980m incline, you meet the henros on wheels huffing and puffing their way up from the car park!
The way down was partly retracing our steps, but the paths diverge and by doing the temples in this order saves considerable time and effort. Hidden in this back valley was a massive rock quarry (out if sight is out of mind) which while still in full production, is littered with massive, rusting machinery and many complicated conveyor belt systems. Very puzzling why the old machinery hasn’t been dismantled, but that probably applies to all the old cars that litter Shikoku!
Temple 63, Kichijoji, was another roadside attraction, but slightly more loved than 62! The streets in the vicinity were a hive of activity as people prepared their “floats” for yet another festival. It is on Friday, so while we suffer the resulting accommodation challenges, we won’t get to see the parade!
Temple 64, Maegamiji, is at the entrance to a beautiful forested valley, and is one of our favourite temples so far. Of course it helped that we arrived shortly before closing time when the temple complex was virtually empty.
Unfortunately we still had a few kilometres to go to get to our hotel in Saijo City. Sam and Max took the train for one stop, while I walked the last 4 kilometres, speed walking to beat the threatening rain clouds.
