2016 Trip Summary

Total Distance: 116.8 miles
Total Temples: 31-37
Gifts Received: Deck of cards, rice cakes, box lunch, walking stick/mug coasters


This was a great trip.  Devoid of any real drama, we walked further and for more days then any trip before.  The lodging was good and the weather was nice for the most part.  Heck, maybe it was too nice of a trip, not enough disasters to tell about after we got home.


Here are some photos from our last day in Kyoto.

 Stayed at a capsule hotel

Golden Temple 

Famous rock garden at Ryoanji 

English class on a field trip interviewing folks about their time in Japan

Day Eight 2016

Distance: 11.6 Miles
Temples: 38
Lodging: Kyoto First Class Cabin

Our final walking day of 2016 took us to the south west tip of Shikoku, Cape Ashizuri, and the temple there.  Final days are always a little bittersweet and it's hard to stay focused on the walk when you're also close to heading back home.  The walk was very nice though and the weather was lovely.

Daybreak from our room 

 We walked along the beach a bit

 Driftwood trail marker

These flowers were everywhere 

Japanese ATMs have a great union 

Two-way road 

No really, buses use this road 

There was a place to prop up your camera at the viewpoint 

 The tip of the cape is semi-tropical

Day Seven 2016

Distance: 18 miles

Temples: None

Lodging: Kumomo

Day seven was uncharted territory, all my other walking trips had only been six days of walking.  It was also our only rainy day, and boy did it ever rain.  

 Morning view from our room

After getting blisters on the previous day Aldin decided it was best to only walk part of the day so that he could be healed up for day eight.  After a few miles of walking we split up.  The plan was for Aldin to take a train to a bus to a convience store where we would meet up after lunch... and it worked perfectly.  It may be the riskiest thing we did all trip. :-)

I got quite wet, but after walking through a typhoon on the last trip I was prepared.

Midday I walked though a very long tunnel.  It was nice to be out of the rain but the cars were annoying.

The cherry blossoms were already starting

After meeting back up we walked the last few miles to our lodging, a cheery little place run by a nice family.  They dried out our shoes and hung up a line for all our wet clothing.

Day Six 2016

Distance: 19 21 miles
Temples: None
Lodging: Minshuku Hinode

Day six was planned as the long day, starting with loosing all the elevation that we gained on day five and then continuing on along the coast until we reached our lodging, 19 miles down the road.  Due to an error I made calculating distance what I thought was going to be a 19 mile day was actually a 21 mile day.  That turned out to be about two miles too many.

This tunnel was long and dark enough that walking through it gave me vertigo

 We finally made it in, worn out and sore, and enjoyed a very nice stay.  However the last few miles had done a number on Aldin's feet and he had a few blisters.

Day Five 2016

Distance: 13 Miles
Temples: 37
Lodging: Temple 37

Day five was much shorter but also had significant elevation gain.  The weather continued to be lovely and our destination and lodging for the day was temple 37.

Mmmmm strawberries for breakfast too

 We didn't see any birdsand beasts, sadly

 Do some trail maintenance while you're here?

Temple 37 was nice, with the expected enormous communal bath, but they did not provide food with our lodging.  Maybe there's not enough demand in the off season.  So we headed into town where we had some Korean BBQ followed by cheap calories from the grocery store.