Ichinomiyacho to Shido, 27.4 km
The walk this morning was, for the first part, about what you’d expect when you need to traverse a major city. Max wasn’t feeling well so opted to start the day a bit later, and visited the Ritsurin gardens with Susan, before catching up with Sam and I at the bottom of the hill that leads to Temple 84. The cross town section improved somewhat once the path took us alongside the river – although it is sometimes hard to differentiate between rivers, canals, irrigation channels, and drains. The one we passed by had lots offish, turtles, and inevitably, garbage.
Once we left the city, the path up through the forest was challenging, but worth the effort, as there is a spectacular view over the City and the entire coast from the top. Also souvenir stands and expensive places to eat because it’s accessible to the tourist buses!
The temple complex of Yashimaji (Temple 84)was very nice as well, but one tour group who arrived at the same time forgot that it was a religious site and were disrespectful in their ignorance of this. A tad disappointing (spoken as a former tour leader!)
We then had a very steep descent down the other side – by choice, as there was a gentler but significantly longer option – before ascending to Temple 85, Yakuriji. There is a cog railway, but once you’ve reached the base station you’ve already done half of the climb, so you may as well keep going! The vertical gain was only 220m, but after 280m (up and down) for the previous temple, the legs were feeling a bit tired.
The Temple is dramatically set up against the cliffs – a setting made even more dramatic by a sudden change in the weather, with dark clouds closing in rapidly and rain starting to fall
Descending from the temple the rain started, so we were forced to deploy ponchos, umbrellas and rain covers for our hats. The dark skies also meant walking in near darkness, not the ideal situation on roads that often don’t have sidewalks. The forecast for tomorrow is more sunshine, which will be ideal for our final climb to the last temple, #88!
