8 March 2025 - Day 6 - Temples 20 - 21 - two hard beauties - 29,10 km, 1496 m altitude gain

Our hostess has made us a yummy breakfast and given us an onigiri (rice ball) and an egg for the road so Andre and I walked off at 7 to meet our destiny: 2 temples on top of two mountains facing each other.

But first we had to walk about 10 km along a much used road and here we ran into our friend Nicolas who shared some of the time with us.

The big road became a small road and the small road became a trail that got steeper every few meters and so we went into the mountain forest again. The final trail was only about 3 km long but on this short distance it gained about 500 meters in altitude.

After what felt like an eternity we finally arrived at Kakurinji the Crane Temple and visited and paid our respects to this mountain beauty. We also met Sam the Australian again who joined us for the difficult descent and ensuing ascent to Tairyuji.

The beginning of the second ascent seemed too easy and so it was, the last 2 km felt like 20 and were again extremely steep. After reaching the gate of Temple 21, the climbing still continued and when we finally got there, the very first thing I did was get a Coke out of the vending machine to get some strength back!

Tairyuji could have been built for me, it’s the temple of the Big Dragon, needless to say that I loved it! We took a stroll around the quite big place but it was again getting cold and we had 11 more kilometres to walk, so the three of us pushed on.

The easy walk towards Temple 22 and my accommodation for tonight turned out to be interrupted by the need to climb and descend yet another mountain pass. I hadn’t expected this and was extremely happy for the company which really helped me through this rough part.

After 29 km and 1500 m of altitude gain, I finally arrived at my inn at 17:15 where I immediately took a shower followed by a dip in the hot bath to get some energy back into my body.

Dinner was again a treat, it was funny to be the only westerner with 6 Japanese guests.

As always, thanks for following me on my trip!

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