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- Saturday 12 October 2013
- Weather: Hot & Humid, 28⁰C
- Temple: 22, (Byodoji) 24km
- Accommodation: Campsite Ebisuhama, 0884-77-0559 (past Tainohama beach), ¥300
Our traditional Japanese breakfast was at 6:30am and today included natto (fermented soybeans); a little cruel to serve it to foreigners. It’s like giving someone vegemite or marmite, an acquired taste! 😉
Breakfast at Sazanka
We were staying in a pension next to Temple 22 so we left our packed bags there and went to the temple for 7am when it opened. It was quite a small but very atmospheric temple set into the hills.
Temple 22, Byodoji
Temple 22, Byodoji
The Henro trail was taking us to the beach today and for the next week or so runs parallel to it so hopefully there’ll be lots of swimming opportunities.
Our main concern was where to get food as there were no shops near the campsite we had planned on staying at. The pension gave us rice balls to take for lunch so we just needed to find something for dinner to take to the campsite.
Jizo statues just after Temple 22
‘Kiken mamushi chu-ii’ – danger, mamushi snake warning. (katakana and kanji)
It was the first time on the Henro trail to walk through road tunnels and we had 4 today. The first had a footpath and barrier between you and the traffic; the rest had just a narrow path.
Our first tunnel!
At least this tunnel has a footpath and barrier!
This tunnel doesn’t have a barrier between the walkers and cars!
Our guidebook mentioned a nice beach called Tainohana and we arrived there around midday. We passed a supermarket about 1 km before the beach so we bought some sashimi and beers (to go with our rice balls) and had a picnic at the beach before going for a swim to cool down. The sea was very mild and we were the only ones there except a fisherman on the rocks.
A wooden pilgim statue!
Another wooden pilgim statue!
Taking a dip in the Pacific
It was a beautiful, deserted beach
As we didn’t know of anywhere else to buy food for dinner we decided to leave our bags at the beach and walk back to the supermarket. Dave was a little worried that our bags might be stolen and I was kinda hoping mine would be so I wouldn’t have to carry it anymore! … We bought dinner and got back to the beach about an hour later; our bags were still there, untouched.
We had 5 more kilometres to walk to get to the campsite and we came across a dead mamushi snake on the road – it’s the venomous snake we’ve been told to be careful of and there are many signs along the trail warning Henros of them. Then we walked through a tiny village and an old lady was standing outside her house waiting for us to walk past so she could give us ‘osettai’ – it was a yuzu juice and was very refreshing. We chatted for a bit and continued onto the campsite.
The campsite was opposite the beach and had grass, toilets and showers… perfect.
The sunset was at about 5:30pm so we had an early dinner and because of the mozzies were in the tent by 7pm. We started watching the Breaking Bad series on Dave’s iPad in the tent – he’s been complaining about carrying it and not watching it! 1 episode down, 5 seasons to go!
Ebisuhama beach
Ebisuhama campsite, 300yen
Day 7, Temple 22
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