Day 48: the circle is competed, I arrived back at T1 and thus my journey is finally over

Today I walked 29 km (final total: 1062 km) back to T1 Ryozenji, where my o-Henro journey started on September 27th 2023.

The day began with heavy rain and cold temperatures at 7 degrees Celsius. About noon time the rain stopped and in the afternoon, when I finished the day some blue sky could be seen and impressive clouds made it finally a good day to end.

A good moment and a surprise was, that I meet 2 Japanese  men at Ryozenji again to whom I had an important connection. It were exactly those two men who encouraged and supported me, when I was exhausted and slowly walked up the steep hills to Shosanji on day 3. I walked jointly with them down the hill and saw them later on during the long journey a couple of times.

Danjo Masayki and me at Ryozenji (T1)

Morimoto Hirokazu and me at T1

An young Austrian couple whom I met also a few times at the end of the tour

A rainy start of the day at Horinji

Back at Anrakuji temple, were I stayed the first night of my journey

Later in the day the clouds partly disappeared and it got a nice afternoon

On my way to „German House“

German House in Naruto (my second and successful attempt to visit)

Green lines lead the pilgrims from and to Ryozenji temple 

Green lines lead the new and “old” o-Henro walkers to or from  Ryozenji back to the train station going to Tokushima, where I will stay tonight and tomorrow as well. Most probably the people living in the area, are enervated enough of people asking for directions.

I will use the time tomorrow to write a final summary, including a few reflections. This then will be my last post related to the o-Henro walk.


Comments

  1. DieterNovember 13, 2023 at 8:07 AM

    Mission completed. Ich verneige mich vor dir. Du bist ein Bär. Wahnsinn.

    ReplyDelete
  2. DieterNovember 13, 2023 at 8:32 AM

    Interesting to know how you feel now. I never was happy with arriving the target of big tours. Either I was totally exhausted and empty or other reasons prevented the appropriate celebration of the success. It's true : Der Weg ist das Ziel

    ReplyDelete
  3. VeronikaNovember 13, 2023 at 12:10 PM

    banzai - Shikoku henro omedetou gozaimasu. It was great that you shared your journey experiences including the wonderful pictures. I will certainly miss your blog. Thank you so much!

    ReplyDelete

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