• Shikoku 88 Day 18
• 65.19km with 231m of elevation gain
• Overall progress: 944.44km of 1200km ish, 57 of 88 temples.

Unlike the rubbish bin message earlier in my trip suggesting in English that I should contemplate my life, it was nice my bathroom soap had this more positive message for me. I had stayed in the ‘Matsuyama Smile Hotel’ after all.

After doing my best with the hotel breakfast buffet eatathon, I was just putting the pannier bags on my bike when a North American man offered to help. He seemed to be a walking pilgrim, and admired my Trek 520 bike before telling me that his ex wife had been riding the exact same bike when they’d been travelling Japan in the past. She’d been hit by a drunk driver and the bike had been totalled, but apparently had protected her. His new partner stood awkwardly in the background as he cheerfully told me this story. It wasn’t quite as uplifting as the soap message.

It was a reasonably nice ride out of Matsuyama city, and I was a little relieved to leave the city behind. This golf driving range was a bit different to any others I’d seen.

Temple number 52 Taisanji 太山寺 had quite a long walk up to it, and was the first of two temples with this name today! The main hall of the temple was built in 1305 and I was still finding it hard to comprehend stats like this coming from Aotearoa New Zealand.

I was happy to run into Nishida-san at my next stop Enmyoji 圓明寺, and gave him the mini Snickers bar I’d bought for him yesterday. In the carpark I ended up chatting to a fellow cycling pilgrim who turned out to be a long distance triathlete into ultra events. He’d been around Shikoku more than once before, and explained to me it was a popular way to train for endurance athletes. That sounded pretty cool to me. He zoomed off in the other direction, planning a few hundred kilometres for the day.

Today I was heading to Imabari, on the Inland Sea. It’s famous for being one end of the Shimanami Kaido – a cycle route with stunning coastal scenery. Even though I didn’t have time to add this route on, I was still hoping to see some nice coastal views today. The first taste of it was stunning with the islands in the distance looking like a screenprint and the sea a lovely colour. But with 50 km to go I didn’t bother stopping to take a photo as I thought there would be plenty of chances to come!

While I did stop for lunch at quite a scenic spot up a pathway opposite a michi no eki roadside station, that was pretty much it for the day. The coastal road — my only real option — was busy, the onshore breeze was stiff, and when there was a shoulder it was full of shitty squirrelly gravel or bumpy asphalt. There were big oil refineries and factory chimneys belching smoke, and I mused that riding Te Aka Ōtākou in Dunedin and Te Ara Ihutai in Christchurch as training for this trip was a mistake. No coastal cycling was probably ever going to be quite as awesome as Te Aka Ōtākou!

I stopped for a break in a park to eat a giant miscellaneous citrus fruit, but there seemed to be lots of flies and the ‘meh’ vibe continued.

I did make it to Imabari in decent time though and first up here was number 54 Enmeiji 延命寺. The woman in the stamp office was kind and chatted to me, as was another woman in the small shop next door. Here I was excited to find a sturdy holder for my incense sticks covered in pretty Japanese paper that would be much better than my current container. Two small things but together they gave me a lift and had me smiling again.

Right in the centre of the small city of Imabari is temple 55 Nankobo 南光坊. It has quite the history – initially Oyamazumi Shrine built in 594, and then designated a pilgrimage temple by Kobo Daishi, then separated from the shrine completely in 1868 after the government orders to separate Shinto and Buddhism. It was almost destroyed in air raids at the end of the war in 1945.

As I was pulling out of the temple I had a Mexican standoff with a small car where we were both gesturing for each other to go ahead. Vaguely annoyed as time slipped away on me again, the car then pulled over in front of me and a grandpa got out to fish in the boot for something. Turning around with a big grin, he gave me a bottle of water as an osettai gift. It happened to be just what I needed and I immediately felt bad for being impatient!

After dropping my bags at tonight’s hostel nearby, I hustled through a visit to Taisanji 泰山寺 on the other side of town.

Then it was up a hill to temple 57 Eifukuji 栄福寺, where I pulled in with just 20 minutes to spare before the 5pm closing time. It had a peaceful atmosphere, surrounded by bamboo on the edge of a patch of forest. I realised while facing the Daishido building, reading the Heart Sutra, that in the late afternoon light I could see Kobo Daishi standing beside my reflection.

I finally caught the 5pm ‘time to go home’ music on camera, playing over the town speakers, and then rode back through the outskirts to the city centre. Having seen so many dilapidated houses that I hadn’t got photos of, I thought this one deserved a photo.

Tonight I was staying in Cycle no Ie – a hostel that specialises in hosting cyclists. It was just opposite the train station where vast numbers of rental bikes were parked outside and there seemed to be some kind of free cycle wash that I was too late for. My host admired Big Red and told me about a few of his cycling adventures, before giving a very detailed run down on the meal and onsen options nearby. A unique type of yakitori was famous, and I set off hopefully but was soon trudging around dark streets realising it was further than I thought. Plan A, changed to B, then to C as places were closed and in the end a fish ramen shop saved me from starvation. The onsen was on the other side of the train station and the restaurant there had been too busy. I had quite a nice dip, but it was pretty full of Golden Week tourists and I wasn’t brave enough to try the mandarin-themed sauna. For the last three days I’d been sure it was the last day of Golden Week… I think today was actually the day!?

My legs felt a bit dead by the time I got back to the hostel. My room mate for the night was a young Irish woman who’d been working for a Japanese company north of Tokyo. She had some good stories of attempting some hiking in the mountains of Shikoku and happened to be working on the new SCMaglev bullet train that will travel 500-600km/h. Another cool room mate! She’d had a bit of culture shock and didn’t speak much Japanese yet, but I admired her adventurous spirit.

Unfortunately tonight I realised I was supposed to have visited one more temple today, according to the German guy’s bike guidebook. On top of this, one of tomorrow’s temples was fast looking like a logistical nightmare. Described in both guidebooks as one you should ‘get a bus from the train station’ for, when googling to check I’d learnt that it’s two buses and the first only goes twice a day. The facebook group didn’t shed much light on it, other than it was difficult. I went to bed having no idea how I was going to get to Yokomineji, but apologised to my room mate that I’d probably be up early!