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• Tuesday 15 October 2013
• Weather: Rainy, 25⁰C 
• Temples: Bangai #4 (Sabadaishi – one of the 20 important temples but not considered as part of the 88 temple pilgrimage), 20km
• Accommodation: Camped next to a restaurant and onsen at the services stop in Shishikui, free. 

We woke up at 6am and had a lovely breakfast prepared by Kazu at 6:30. The typhoon was coming today and Kazu thought the ferry from the island back to Shikoku would probably be suspended from midday onwards.

We packed our things, took photos of everyone together, said goodbye to Kazu and started walking to the 7:25am ferry  … Within minutes of leaving, Kazu had caught up to us on his bike and said that the ferry had already been suspended because of the wind and high waves. He offered to take us in his boat instead – which was considerably smaller than the ferry! We donned life jackets, all hung on to each other and Kazu did a terrific job of navigating the high seas – he demonstrated his surfing skills perfectly!

Kazu sends us off with a sing-along

But because the ferry was cancelled (due to the typhoon), he had to take us back to the mainland on his slightly smaller boat!

Back in Mugi town on Shikoku we started walking and our first stop was at Bangai temple #4 (one of 20 important temples, but not considered part of the 88).

It’s going to rain very soon!

A camino sign!

Bangai Temple #4, can you spot my owl mascot?

We had a quick look and just as we were leaving, the typhoon rain began… And never let up! It was too warm to put on wet weather gear so I decided to just get wet, until I got to the point of being soaked through and then I started to get cold. After 20km of walking in heavy rain we stopped at a services station and all decided to treat ourselves to a nice hot lunch in the restaurant rather than walk back to the 7-11 we’d passed a few hundred metres back. It was 12:30pm.

We had a long lunch while trying to dry out and warm up and decided we didn’t want to go back out into the rain. We would stay here the night with free wifi, toilets, an onsen next door and a small undercover section outside next to the restaurant. The only issue was that we couldn’t set up the tents until after the restaurant and services stop had closed (for fear of being moved on)… And it didn’t close until 8pm! So the rest of the day was filled by sleeping on benches inside the services stop, watching the tourist video of the region go around on a loop at least 50 times and trying to find electrical sockets to charge all of our appliances.

At 7pm we took everything to the bathhouse next door and had a relaxing bath. We stayed there for as long as possible then just before 9pm we went back to the spot we’d chosen next to the restaurant and set up our tents in the gale force winds of the typhoon. We’re opposite the sea and as I write this, the sound of the waves crashing and the wind howling is almost deafening!

I’m just hoping the tent survives through the night, and hopefully the typhoon passes and we wake up to a lovely day tomorrow 🙂

Shishikui onsen

Camping next to Shishikui onsen

Day 10, Bangai Temple 4

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