Stage 6: Kasuura- Yuke, T20 - T22, 34 kms, Sun, Sun, Sun! 23

Kōbō Daishi Must Have Been There?

I seem to be having trouble posting tonight. It's been a long, excellent day, but this post will take a while to complete. I've loaded a few photos from today and will complete the commentary tomorrow. I need to get some sleep! A short day tomorrow, so will have time to fill this out and add a new post.  

So it's the next day and I'm going to see if I can get this to post properly. I'm writing it as if it was just today.  

So we were up at 5:30 and on our way early. We had a good breakfast and we would need it. We were pretty tired yesterday after all the road walking, but today we seem to have found new energy and it showed. If this was the Tour de France, they would be taking samples for testing! I don't know why, but I've experienced this on many walks, one day you are dragging the next much stronger. You learn to accept this and know it will all work out. The first climb  was steep and about 500 metres, but we found our pace and I just stopped twice to take these two photos.

 

 

I waited for Annemarie at the top and then we looked at this very nice T20 Kakurinji. It is special because of the white cranes.

 

 

A very steep descent,

 

but flowers lower down.

 

At the bottom of the 500 metre descent we crossed a high bridge with a fast flowing river underneath, the Nama River. Then a walk up, up and up a beautiful, but steep valley

 

 

 

Then it becMe really steep as we climbed to 600 metres, but once reaching the top...totally worth it. 

 

Temple 21, Tairyūji was so peaceful and without tourists because it was high and the only way up is by gondola, unless you hike it:). They say it's much like Koyasan where we went to KD's memorial with the tall cedar trees, and it had that feel. Very nice place and we lingered for over an hour. That's quite unusual for us. My favourite temple so far. I could have stayed longer, but miles to go before we rest.

 

After our temple experience we climbed higher to the spot where there is a huge statue of KD. I climbed out to see it...there were ropes to hold on to so a bit of fun.

 

 

 

We then hiked a route I'd read about. Almost all Henro go back down the road from T21, but this hike was supposed to be good. And it was!

 

Parts of the trail were pretty scrambled,but we managed ok. On an innocent part of the trail I walked through some dried leaves and quite unexpectedly turned my ankle hard. Drugs and a tightening of my boot permitted us to carry on. Had I not had higher boots to support, my Henro would have ended right there...no question. 

 

Down at the bottom we finally found some refreshment. I took a minimal amount of water for the climbs and I was out by the time I reached the second summit. I was really surprised, but I'm learning to hydrate better, so I guess I underestimated.  I was going to buy some more water from the vending machines at the top, but they were both completely sold out! Annemarie had some extra water which we shared during our two and a half hour descent.  We were very happy to find this at the bottom!

 

We had a third, but lower climb and then started the final descent to T22 Byōdōji where KD reportedly dug a well with his staff and white milky water came out which cured people with leg problems. There are old canes and casts around.this is at the top of the third climb. Thought you would like this Caitlin.

 

 

On way to T22.

 

T22, and the bus tours arrived.

 

 

And now the real fun began. We had thought to take the train down to Yuke where we were staying, this town being sold out. I thought it would be a nice walk and I also thought it would be just 11 kms, and we had two hours, so no problem. However, this didn't turn out to be the case when we left T22 at 3:00pm. It started as a very nice walk and we began to see our first rice paddies being planted! 

 

By machine! This isn't Vietnam or Indonesia!

 

We came across a construction site and the guard there wasn't prepared to answer my simple route question about which way we should go with the Henro changed by the construction. Unusual by Japanese standards. So we walked on, and up. This beautiful scene greeted us, so not bad..

 

We were thinking that we must be lost when we spotted an older couple with a small pick up truck and when we told them where we wanted to go to they were shocked that we would walk that far, or that seemed the gist. They offered to put us in the back of their truck and drive us, but we said no thanks and carried on. Wish I had a photo, they were very kind. We hiked and winked along a very windy road, up and down wondering when we would see the elusive Highway 55? Finally we found it, but way above us. I talked with a helpful truck driver who climbed down out of his cab and helped to get us going in the right direction. He told us in Japanese that he had been on the 88 Temple route 4 times, we think having walked it once. Anyway, another helpful person. We walked along the very busy 55 and passed through two long tunnels. So noisy inside, and next time the ear buds and music will happen as I've many tunnels ahead in the coming weeks.

 

The second one was a bit frightening, no guard rail with the trucks roaring past from directly behind us!

 

Running out of time to make it to our accommodation we pushed on. Both feeling strong and having found our rhythm it felt very good! I always find that it takes about a week to get to this point.

 

Annemarie told me to hike ahead to get to the guest house in time, but just then a car pulled up and the driver asked me, "are you Geoff?".  I was. Another Japanese Henro had called for a ride, and he saw us as he was driving past and stopped and collected us. It had been a very long 10 hours on the trail with two high climbs and many kilometres...so we accepted...happily! The view from our small place tonight.

 

A wonderful meal, great host and a welcome bed. If only the internet worked better, but I think I've figured it out. I posted later than usual and the bandwidth was taken by people at home streaming, etc. Lesson learned!