Day 15

Day 15, August 17

I left early with Inoue-san to have breakfast at a convenience store and go to temple #80, Kokubunji. Kokubunji has a friendly cat that welcomes the visitors and keeps meowing at them until they give up some food or scratch it's head.

With Inoue-san before departing the ryokan

Friendly cat that helps you with getting your book signed at Kokubunji

Afterwards, Inoue-san and I parted ways...I had two temples up on a hillside to finish before heading to the flatlands again. The last temple, #88 Ōkuboji was a hill climb to 450m and my plan was to finish the day with that, then on the next morning take in the last 3 temples as I cycled back to Takamatsu to catch the train.

View of Seto Inland Sea from Shiromineji

The bad omens started showing up when I got on my bike and realized the rear tire was low. Must be a slow leak, so I pumped it up and headed up to temple #81, Shiromineji. After visiting the temple I double checked the tire...it was low again...and thought about replacing with a new tube I brought along. As I took out the new tube, I realized I had bought one with the wrong valve! So now I had no choice but to keep filling the tube up with air and hope to make it down to a bike shop. At #82, Negoroji, after another quick tire check I realized there was an area on the tire where the tube was starting to poke through the tire. Great, now I needed to desperately replace both tire and tube. My hopes of making it back down from the 250m tall hill were dashed when a few minutes after leaving the temple my tire completely blew out. No other option but to call a cab, and find a bike shop. Luckily the cabbie who came was extremely helpful and drove me around with my bike roped into the trunk until we found a shop that carried the correct size tires (not an easy task). The cabbie even gave me a discount, switching off his meter a kilometer or so before the bike shop. The repair, with cab ride,

ended up setting me back 13,000 yen, but I was back on the road and still had a chance to get to Ōkuboji before it closed.

I did manage to make it to Okuboji before they closed, after a long hard climb, and was able to find a room at a very nice ryokan back down by the bay. 95 km all told, not including my taxi ride. I was dead tired and crashed after a bath and a beer. Tomorrow, the last day, should be easy with only 3 temples and no hills as I work my way back to Takamatsu.

Last of the mountain temples (and last temple), #88 Ōkuboji