• Shikoku 88 Day 13
• 64.12km with 638m elevation gain
• Overall progress: 709.52km cycled, 40 temples visited

Waking up and looking outside this morning, it was definitely breezy but not raining. I could see why sea kayaking hadn’t been a go today for the Japanese guy from Toyohashi. My legs felt a bit dead, but I’m not sure if it’s from riding in the rain yesterday or the big 100km day. After being unable to find one to buy, I’ve crafted my own teru teru bōzu though so I’m hoping for no further rain on this trip!

I checked out and headed for the conbini to get some breakfast before leaving Sukumo. After a brief kilometre with a tailwind, I turned into the headwind. These signs didn’t look so reassuring for the 60km cycle ahead, but the German guy’s guidebook said today was a pretty easy day.

A more exciting sign was hiding just in front of this tunnel though, indicating I’d crossed into Ehime prefecture!

Not long after this the footpath/cycleway disappeared, and coming round a bend I saw a huge gust of wind flatten the trees beside the road. I pulled over as a massive truck went past. Hmm, time to do some kokoro no junbi and also tie my hat very securely to the back of the bike. Today I would spend almost the whole day on route 56, and this morning it was busy with a narrow shoulder. The headwind was a reasonably relentless 7-10 metres per second or 25-35 kilometres per hour, with stronger gusts. Where possible, I stuck to the footpath so I didn’t end up blown over and flattened under a truck. It was slower going but at least a bit safer.

Visiting temple 40 was a welcome break, and I was pleased to see some blue in its colour scheme. The attendant in the stamp office was nice too. A Japanese grandpa came to compliment my koinobori in the car park, have a yarn, and then asked where my husband or boyfriend was. The koinobori then had to come off for the day as the wind had already dealt to one of the strings.

I had some food at the temple and battled on. There were occasional pretty coastal views, and amazingly a few special separate tunnels for cyclists and pedestrians! In the far distance of one I saw the silhouette of a bulky bike, and sure enough it was an older British cycle tourist who’d just arrived from Vietnam. He had a bit of a culture shock and I did my best to answer some questions about Japanese culture, but mostly I was envious that he was enjoying a tail wind today.

Just when I needed some kind of pick me up, the one and only conbini for ages was apparently closed with carpet cleaning companies hard at work after presumably some kind of catastrophic issue. Japanese conbini are never closed, and I was gutted. As so often seems to happen on this journey, just when I really needed it, something amazing appeared just 200 meters down the road. In the car park of the municipal office was a little portacabin with rest stop, just for pilgrims.

It was such a welcome respite from the draining wind, and I was very grateful for the portaloo too. I had a quick lie down, a sugary tea from the vending machine, and recharged a bit for the 37km to go. So much for the easy day I thought as my hopes of visiting Uwajima castle this afternoon rapidly evaporated. With the footpath continuing, I decided I would listen to music for the first time on the trip to help.

It did help and the road twisted and turned a little more around some bays making the wind not so bad. The pearl farm area was interesting to look at too. At some point it got cold though and the jacket went on. A hot toasted sandwich from Family Mart was a nice change from onigiri, and I tried to keep the fluids up. My front bag fell off after a big bump though, then throw in a couple of uncomfortable tunnels, and a busy city intersection that insisted cyclists dismount and push bikes up and over on an overbridge bridge – the last leg was certainly character building. I decided that a strong headwind was worse than riding in the rain.

When I finally got there my hotel was awesome though, with free mandarin juice and citrus fruit in the lobby, a “bath salt buffet”, a nice bike pump, and bike parking just a few metres away. It actually wasn’t me, but my best friend Judy who’d chosen this hotel. Before the trip I’d had so much to do and was pretty stressed about booking accommodation, especially around Golden Week. With only about half of it done, I asked if she could help and we spent an afternoon together. I worked on the bike route while she searched for good accommodation that fitted my plans. She then kept going and by that night had found great options for every night I was still missing. It was such a big help.

There was a popular yakitori restaurant just twenty metres away where I had a filling dinner while watching TV. Hilariously, the Japanese travel show was a NZ special featuring a retired sumo wrestler offering $1000 to anyone who could take him on and win. They were set up on the Auckland waterfront, and although a sheep shearer and others tried to no avail, eventually a strong man competitor won the prize.

I also helped the kind but busy waitress and a Taiwanese couple communicate an order. It was a fun end to the day before I went back to the hotel and did some washing, had a bath, and carefully checked tomorrow’s route.