Day 10. End of Tokushima. Entered into the Kochi prefecture

Today was day that certainly serves as a milestone. I would early up reach Bangai bekkaku temple 4 Saba Daishi and later on the day reach the border between Tokushima and Kochi prefectures. First of the four prefectures would be soon over(apart from short stint back to temple 1 after finishing all 88) with the second, and according to many the hardest, Kochi prefecture ahead of me.

Kochi prefecture can be summed as long and sparse with very few temples(least temples in all the prefectures) and long distances(it's also longest prefecture!). It has 75km or so and 85km or so distances between 2 temples, longest ones in entire pilgrimage, and if you take detour toward Sukumo passing by Tsukimi shrine like I have been planning another 70km or so between 2 temples. In short. I will be having entire days without temples several times. Change of pace to Tokushima where every day was almost quaranteed to have at least one temple to visit.

Last day had been one like that unexpectedly due to slowing down and not finding lodging further. Original plan had been to go to Saba Daishi yesterday. Today at least I would be visiting one of the extra 20 but tomorrow again no temples. It's lonely walks over highway for a while I think.

I woke up fairly late as breakfast was for 7AM. Didn't have particularly long day ahead so no need to rush too much. As last night delicious though skipped the raw egg with rice thing!

After breakfast with back bag ready to go it was time to go. I paid the quite reasonable 7000 yen bill(frankly doubtful these lodgings are making much profit if any at these prices) and was on my way.

Another day, another tunnel. No rail between me and cars coming from behind. Gulp!

And look! Yet another tunnel.

At least there's decent pedestrian path to walk rather than literally same lane with cars!

I like the effect sun light has from the clouds here. Morning was bit cloudy and very calm.

Aaaand we have yet another tunnel. Today is tunnel day.

Finally I saw the Saba Daishi temple complex!

First stop was fairly short distance(and several tunnels) away at the Bangai Bekkaku 4 Saba Daishi. This is unusual temple in that Honzon is Kobo Daishi himself so as such I'm not sure is there specific main hall and daishi hall here. At least didn't see second. Did have couple other halls though.

Saba Daishi is the unofficial name that it's known but official name is actually Saba Daishi Honbō (Yasakaji)(Mackeral Daishi (Eight Slope Temple) Kōbō Daishi).  Originally built by Gyogi Bosatsu with later visit by Kobo Daishi.

The temple is located on the coast by the national park of Yasaka Yahama. As the name of the park implies, there are 8 slopes and 8 beaches, with Saba Daishi located between the 4th beach and the 5th slope.

Kannon hall.

Horse headed Kannon which is fairly rare Kannon statue as far as I know.

And the mandatory statue of Kobo Daishi.

Nio statues here weren't in standard gate like usual.

And yet another building with Kannon statue to pay respects to.

This is related to birth legend of this temple. Bit unusual and weird one that.

Legend states that while walking the pilgrimage, Kōbō Daishi met a man leading a packhorse loaded with dried mackerel and asked to be given one but the man refused and walked away. Suddenly his horse stumbled and fell, stricken with colic. Remembering that he had heard of a great priest that was supposed to be in the area, and immediately realizing what had happened, he rushed back to find Kōbō Daishi to beg his forgiveness and to ask him to cure his horse.

When he found him, Kōbō Daishi gave him a pot and told the man to bring water from the sea. When he did, Kōbō Daishi performed a service over it and then told the man to make the horse drink it. After drinking the water the horse recovered almost immediately.

Kōbō Daishi again asked for one of the man's mackerel and this time received it. He carried it to the shore, placed it in the water, and said a prayer. When the man saw the fish come to life and swim away, he immediately knelt before Kōbō Daishi and vowed to dedicate his life to Buddhism.

Anyway seems the stamp office lady heard me chant the heart suttra as she gave me compliments on it. Well guess after this many temples you start to pick the rhytm so to speak. Wouldn't count on trying to do it from memory but luckily tradition is to use the suttra book even if you DO know it inside out. Guess to avoid others feeling inadequate!

Wonder whose statue that one is.

Sadler notes in his book that the head priest told him that, while there had indeed been a small hermitage here, the priest had converted it into a full temple and gotten it included as a bangai temple after WWII.

After temple routines I sat down and  made booking for tomorrows lodging about 10km before temple 24. I tried to call the temple 26 for temple lodging but was told they take lodging requests after 9pm so I opted to call later, possibly when I get to today's lodging.

With this time to head toward next lodging that shouldn't be even 20km from here. I had leisured day ahead.

Some sort of restaurant there but too early for it to be open. And no not Finnish flag on sight :(

Gee a tunnel. Who would have thought!

Aaaand more tunnels.

From here it was about 4km to next thing of note that was section where road splits into right and left sides in my map. I was planning to take right one as it leads to konbini's and rest huts for food and rest heading steadily south-west. What ACTUALLY happened is that I took road even more to right heading first right north and then toward west! Whoops. This resulted in some detour out of road 55...well guess that's one way to avoid that highway but not sure extra km's were worth it!

Still feeling I was on right path.

Shrine there. Still thinking it was going to be short day was planning to go there but in the end didn't. And luckily as it turns out.

By now was starting to get BIT worried. I thought I should have been seeing some town scenery by now as map didn't look like it should be THIS rural.

With road continuing forward or turn left which felt weird and couldn't find anything on map that made sense here I got sinking feeling(hadn't been seeing road markers either for a long time) so I "cheated" and took out phone's map and GPS location and realized to my horror what had happened. WHOOPS!

Luckily I didn't have to go back as I could simply turn left, go through tunnel(completed late 2012) and turn right and end up with route 55 again.

Wonder if I was first pilgrim to go through that road? Not much reason to go there. Trust me to get lost in almost straight road!

The brand new tunnel.

After rejoining the route 55 and figuring out that I'm still before the konbinis I went toward first Lawson.

But after the unintended detour took a break on this spot.

Arriving to Lawson I bought some food I then proceeded to rest hut #1(so guess this was first rest hut built) and stopped for a break. I applied some taping to foot to prevent blisters, ate, left name slip, drank one of the free drinks offered(some sort of vitamin heavy(presumably) fruit tasting drink. Japanese love these kind of energy drinks).

Quite nice rest hut all in all.

From here it was more walking, about 7km or so, to the next konbini that would be one where I really need to load up on items. For next 2 days there ain't going to be much in terms of konbinis or food in general! One konbini per day but often at the end so I really wish to have enough to keep me going.

Sure looks church like but not sure what it was. But it was nicely framed by the mountain beh

Walking over bridge that crosses over river splitting Kaiyo town.

Wonder if this is bigger river in summer?

Not sure what NASA has got to do with this. Some sort of amusement park or something.

This was nice little bay I was walking along.

This was quite a surreal moment. According to map this is dead-end bay. What that big ship is there sideways blocking it? Took a while for the ship to turn so that it could actually go somewhere!

Around here I met first and only other pilgrim of today. Men in his thirties or so doing the reverse walk.

Seeing again buildings I knew the konbini I'm aiming for is fairly close. Well close as in within 1 hour walking! For a walker that feels close.

Those tsunami protectors(?) make me think of photographs of Normandy beach for some reason.

Getting to the konbini I first called the lodging as per promise(she had been bit nervous accepting me due to lack of phone number she could call to) and then bought enough food stuff to get me by for now(well too much as it turned out).

Alas, or maybe luckily, forgot to turn right here for slight detour for Bangai spot. Maybe good to avoid extra distance but it would have been maybe 200-300m loss only. Ah well Bu the time I noticed it it was too late to really turn back.

Sometimes little humble chair like this will do juuuust fine for a rest!

Interesting looking building.

Wonder what this was? Hotel? Sure looks interesting looking.

And this is it! This is the tunnel that would mark end of the Tokushima.

Nice comfortable one. Like nice little good bye gift from the Tokushima.

Aaand I'm at the border between Tokushima and Kochi. One prefecture done, 3 more to go.

I was now in the Kochi, the land of the devils...Ominous old nickname...

Here it was just walking along coast line seeing some fishing ports and beach until about 4km or so arrived to Toyo town next to Ikumi beach. Here was my lodging for tonight picked mainly on the account of being last one for a while. Figured next day would be shorter in case I would end up having further than I hoped lodging after all for next day.

Welcome to the land of devils eh?-) Hopefully this won't be as tough experience as I have read it to be.

Arriving to Toyo(o's long) town.

Wish for safe traffic by local Daishi!

Not THAT wide pedestrian way so when you see a car coming this way it makes heart race for sure.

Ikumi beach. Not quite sure why but on pilgrims accounts this name keeps popping up. Maybe just because after that it's like 20km+ without lodgings so natural stopping place.

Finding the Minshuku took some work but asking couple locals I got good enough directions to find it. Weather was getting cloudy and the Biker Aunt had warned that forecast on monday had predicted rain on thursday...

Minshuku is...well old! You can see it has seen better days but it's serviceable. Don't expect luxury stay though. Old lady running was friendly enough though as of writing haven't had much contact with her yet as I went straight to rest to room(26km on asphalt gets on your feet), then to bath and back to rest, put some taping and take notes. We'll see how dinner goes at 6PM.

Yeah I'm not most organized guest around usually leaving bags just somewhere to get weight out of shoulders. I usually tidy up a bit once I feel like alive again after bath and dinner.

Minshuku might be old building but meal was good and the lady was quite talkative during it so I had quite a pleasant night. First impression wasn't that great but meal and company was so nice that I could see myself staying here again for that matter. Oh and bath was quite good as well.

Got lodging to temple 26 so it's official now. My pilgrimage now takes pretty much day longer than planned but that's why I had the extra days. Hopefully this helps my feet recover. There are some 30km days I can't really avoid.

Today ended up 26km due to the "scenic route" I took in the morning.