October 4, 2019 - Temple 38, Kongofukuji
Because of the rain of the previous day I had left Shimanto quite late. Almost lunchtime. Despite this I did manage to complete nearly 20 km but that meant I had push myself so hard in the last couple of hours. I think that was why I was worn out at the end of the day. After resting and just before going to bed, I went to the urinal but there was not much to come out. Normally I don’t like tea, especially the green matcha types. The iced tea that the accommodation people had provided was really quite lovely to taste. I woke around midnight but slept again till 06:00
I had an early breakfast and left the accommodation just after 07:00, walking over the bridge to begin potentially 25 km on highway 321 to Kongofukuji, temple 38. I had been having a little trouble with the weight of the pack the previous few days. I think it was because when the shoulder straps get wet the buckles slip. And I’ve been sweating a lot in the humid heat.
As I walked through the morning my brain is awake enough to notice things:
There are some roadworks happening at the top of a gentle hill approaching a little coastal town. One of the workers is there holding his orange flag, dressed in his helmet and his road safety gear. Bored out of his mind when I first saw him as he was kicking branches into the scrub by the roadside.
Whenever I see buses coming toward me there always seems to be a young man in the front passenger seat, arms crossed, asleep.
I am starting to see more Henro on the path as the flow is two way in some places here. Kongofukuji is one of the few places where the pilgrimage path makes a spur off the general loop around Shikoku so becomes a two way path.
At 10:00 I find a bus stop in Iburi and take my shoes and socks off, to lay down for a rest. As usual I am soaked from the mornings exertions. While I lay there a local guy comes up and asks to take a photo of me. I don’t think its because I’m ungraciously taking up all of the only bench seat in the bus stop. I think its just because I'm an oddity.
Not far from the bus stop is the start of the beach road. As I stand looking across the little river flats in the shade it is lovely and cool. The water is clear, not very deep, flowing fairly fast. There are lots of fish swimming up and down the river and there is a paved section which seems to act as a sort of a weir. I cross the little river to a short piece of shingle beach. The beach is incredibly littered with flotsam. Mounds of driftwood, with a sadly large proportion of plastics. It doesn't seem that this could be the path but at the end of the beach I find a Jizo statue and some other signs. Crossing a bridge made of two large, rusted pieces of angle iron thrown across a creek and I am away from the sea and following a trail through a forest again. The book says less than a kilometre till I meet the eastern coast road, but it seems a lot longer till I break out onto local road 27. Following this for another eight or so kilometres should lead me to the door of Kongofukuji. Which also means I’ve already covered more than 15 kilometres, good going for me.
The rest of the afternoon unrolled as I walked along the small local road on the eastern side of Cape Ashizuri. With stops at various places. Kubotsu, the little sea side town with a fishing boat marina and pungent fish sheds is where I stopped for lunch. Sitting on a concrete block foundation, a good distance from the sheds, I ate the salty onigiri which the people at Anshuku accommodation had given me. It had a umiboshi plum in its centre, very sour, but a taste I am acquiring.
A few kilometres past Kubotsu is a locally constructed Henro hut. I explored it for a bit, but it was too damp and mossy for an extended stay for me. If it had been drier I think it would have been a fine place to rest. Now not much more than an hour away from Kongofukuji, I pushed on, reaching it with an hour to spare before closing time. I wasted a little of that hour reporting to the information centre who were able to book me a place at a “Youth Hostel” nearby.
So, in the late afternoon of the fourth day of walking since visiting temple 37, I was now at temple 38.
In the last hour of the day before the temple closed, I simply sat and took in the peace and beauty of the temple grounds. I felt it was one of the best temples I had seen so far and was such a reward at the end of such a long period of templeless walking. This opinion could have been coloured by the relief of getting to such a remote location, though I think not by a lot.
During the hour I was there, no less than three loaded Henro buses turned up! The Henro cargo of one of those buses were a serious cut above the average of similar groups I had seen. Almost everyone from the bus was wearing an outfit of entirely white, head to toe. Their prayers were done in a more formal way and included much more than the usual Heart Sutra that I was used to hear groups chanting. When I followed up the stairs of the temple behind them I saw, rather than a sprinkling of coloured osamefude amongst a sea of the usual white, a large proportion of the ones they left behind were red. Meaning they were mostly veterans of at least eight pilgrimages.
As I left the temple to find my accommodation I met Mimi. She was very friendly and let me scratch her ears. Her mistress said she was a temple dog. I’m not sure what elevates her to the rank of temple dog, other than visiting a lot. Going west from the temple the township of Ashizuri cant be missed and the youth hostel was one of the first buildings I saw. I was thankful I didn’t have to walk much further. Once again I was pretty tired. After I had my shower I laid down on the futons which I had to lay out of the cupboard myself. I read a little bit, had an energy jelly and small tin of chicken for tea then I fell asleep almost straight away, waking up after 20:00 to message U.. back in Australia with my daily report and the news I had passed the 500km mark measured from temple 1, Back in Tokushima.
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