March 19

It is pretty easy to pack up when you are mostly packed before you go to bed. We left the hotel at 6:00 and headed past the temple. I think we were the only ones up at this hour. It was so quiet. We have a potentally long hike today so we need to keep on the move. It will be a day without temples. We take a walk thru the forest and then are surprised when we see that there is someone up other than us. A man is taking a photo of a beautiful blooming flower. He doesn’t speak English so he just points to the flower.

When we google the flower it comes up with the name Japanese Jack in the Pulpit. One source says that it is only found on the Island of Shikoku.

We notice quite a few of them and are in awe of their beauty. We walk thru the forests for a ways today. Always glad to see theses signs.

Some of the walk today takes us along the beach. There is a sign warning of only hiking the beaches at low tide. We are glad that we walked the beach when the tide was low

We walked by the beach campground and watched waves roll in. This is known as the surfers beach, but the waves weren’t big enough to surf today.

Even though we had walked some of the trail day before yesterday, one always sees new sights when going in the other direction. We meet more pilgrims today due to the fact we are going against the main way of hiking. When we are hiking the usual way, it is common not to see many pilgrims. Today we have met several Japanese pilgrims who we mainly say “Konichiwa” a greeting of hello. One American who walks towards us asks “Are you Don and Donna? We say yes and then he says I heard about you and was hoping that our paths would cross. This is his second time doing the route and he continues to learn new things. We totally understand why there are many people who come back her and do the route again. We exchange emails. He has some questions about how we are backpacking this route. We tell him that we are finding enough places to legally camp that we feel carrying our camping gear is worth it. We meet Andreas from Germany again. It is always fun to see a familiar face. He is all smiles as his journey is going well. We tell him things not to miss at Temple 38. Not far behind him is Benjamin from France. He speaks English well and tells us that this is his second time around. The first time he walked, but this time he often takes buses. We walk by more fishing villages and watch fisherman as they are taking their fish to a cannery.

We stopped at Lawsons to pick up food for tonight and breakfast tomorrow. On the outside of the store is a staff that we recognize . It belongs to Amy, we haven’t seen her for while and she has plenty of stories to tell us. She has been using the train some. She has a schedule to meet and wants to visit all the temples. There is no right way to do this hike and the acronym HYOH applies. (Hike your Own Hike)This is a long stretch coming up with no stores. We walk by our rest hut that kept us dry and warm the night before last.

It is misty, but too early to stop, we have some miles to make today.

For the remainder of the day we are walking on rural roads. with very little traffic. We are going thru a mountainous area with mostly abandoned houses. There is logging going on in the area. In the distance we can see some clear-cut areas.

We also see what looks like the planting of new trees that have their trunk protected with a white material.We never got close enough to figure out what it was.

Below us is a river that we follow for most of the way up.

We are going to pass a rest hut and plan to check it out for spending the night. When we arrive to it, it won’t work for sleeping so we continue further on to the campground that is marked on the map. Our feet are not happy when we finally see the sign for camping. Like the last time we camped there is no one here, but there is a bathrooms and running water. We check out a place to set up our tent and check out the bathroom. There is a dressing room that is empty. It is beginning to rain so we take shelter inside to see what the weather is going to do. The wind picks up and the rain falls harder. We look at each other and decide that maybe we should just take advantage of this room and sleep inside. We have good cell service and make a plan for the next couple of days. This is one of the longer days that we have hiked sleep is going to feel good.

Accommodation Mihara Campsite

Miles hiked 24