Thinking Allowed: Day 94-96: Kashima to Kitanada

Day 94: Kashima to Matsuyama

Hours walked: 7:40-5:00

Distance walked: 28 km

Cumulative: 2,087 km

Everyone slept well on our campsite island, and we speedily packed up to make the 7:30 am ferry. After swinging by a convenience store for breakfast, we gratefully joined a beautiful little coastal road for the first hour. A few locals were out walking and said hello. The water was crystal-clear, the sky was bright blue again, basically life was peaches and cream right then.

Eventually we returned to the main road, and hiked steadily to our last two temples. We’ve loved being on the 88 Temples path, though for us it turned out to be the 18 Temples. We gonged the final gong, lit a found candle, bought a bandanna for a keepsake - and it was over! Every one of us had a good time, chances are good we will be back one day for the other 70.

Then we walked towards Matsuyama. Jakob tripped quite badly on a nasty curb and wrenched his back. Nothing drastic, but it turned our planned Indian feast into a low key supermarket dinner in. Good thing tomorrow is a rest day so he can recuperate…

Land of the setting sun

Happy to be camping

Zadie too!

This trail has a remarkable number of babies on the statues

Day 95: Matsuyama

Hours walked: -

Distance walked: 0 km

Cumulative: 2,087 km

“I never fold.” - Zadie, talking about her poker strategy vs. Sophia. She is an ice-cold player.

We took a rest day to mark the end of the 88 Temples walk. Aurora got to sleep in until 7, and we all had a very slow morning. Tamar and Jakob did a crossword at a coffee shop, and then eventually we lazily set out for Matsuyama Castle.

The walk up to the Castle was great - we climbed a steep hill, with massive granite walls from the 1600s looming above us at every turn. At the top, we could look out at the sprawling city in every direction. Jakob and Aurora took in the view (and sneakily ate soft serve) while the others went into the castle proper and dressed up as samurai.

Tamar, Aurora and Sophia got fancy vegan set menus for lunch, while Hanamaru sufficed for the less discerning ones. Then five of us hit up a playground while Tamar and Aurora stayed in and got things done. The kids played cards (Poker has layers upon layers of negotiation and psych games. Zadie goes, “what if I said, ‘all in?’” in this perfect silky voice, then gauges Sophia’s reaction before deciding what she is *actually* betting. We did laundry, dried our tent flies, bought warm hats, had authentic Nepali food for dinner, failed abjectly at a claw machine, and tried to plan until pretty late.

Samurai Tova!

Samurai Sophia!

Levi keeps getting bigger!

Having fun at the top of Matsuyama Castle

Tamar’s gourmet lunch

Day 96: Matsuyama to Kitanada

Hours walked: 8:00-4:00

Distance walked: 27 km

Cumulative: 2,114 km

Back on the road! We woke up very early and packed up before the Comfort Inn breakfast. This was generally yummy, the highlight being fresh waffles and the lowlight being the mackerel eggplant glop, whose ground beef was only noticed by Jakob as he spooned up the last bite. Yuck.

We are on the 378 for a couple of days, all the way to Yawatahama. One long stretch had no sidewalk, but otherwise we like the seaside way: the air smells salty and the waves glitter beside us as we walk along.

As we reached a construction zone, a stocky figure came towards us. It was our first fellow cross-country hiker! Yoichi Yamada has been walking around Japan for *five years*, and is about 60% done. He was an exuberant, grinning guy, and despite language barriers we were all clearly thrilled to meet each other. He will soon finish walking for the year, and spend the winter working at a hot spring (or maybe picking clementines.)

We ate lunch at a nice beach spot, resting by a white-sand beach under a blue sky as we ate sushi, unripe kiwis, and sweet almond loaf.

Later we had another encounter: an effusive elderly couple pulled over to present us with a gorgeous box of chocolates! It was the size of a coffee table book and wrapped in red tissue paper. They took lots of photos with us while Levi had a complete tantrum.

We had to train back a bit to a campsite. The Yosan Line is hard up against the coastline, a very popular train for sightseers. It rattled along above the water, cherry tree branches slapping the windows as we passed.

Finally we climbed up to Futami Sea Wind campsite where we stayed in a cabin. The red box of chocolates was delish. We felt victorious to have dodged a cold, windy night, but then the temperature dropped like a stone and we froze all night.