Temple: Enneiji – a small bangai on the road here, the office was part of the Daishido and a very frail old monk did some beautiful calligraphy for me during my short stop

Dedication: Adam works for the green party in Melbourne. He’s one of the most interesting people I met while on my travels and was a great guide to the culture, vego food and areas of Melbourne. I hope things work out with his other half and hope our paths cross again sometime soon.

Picture: After I finished at Koonji I was going to boot it 40km up the road to this bangai. However I heard Koonji had a waterfall training inner sanctuary 2km back up towards Ishizuchi-san so I headed there to try standing under a freezing cold waterfall for a few minutes. The pain of the water drumming on my head was harder to deal with than the cold. I also failed to video my head but I wasn’t about to do it again.

After that I went and slumped in a konbini and sat with a coffee for ages. As I was about to leave Toppo came round the corner. He had a few temples to visit so we arranged to meet down the road with his friend Shin.

I had a great day walking with him and we found a lovely zenkanyado, free accommodation in a house, from a family who owned a tatami shop. They’d converted their garage into a place where a few henro could sleep.

The grandmother of the house was absolutely luminous with a wonderful smile and flustered me by telling me I was beautiful.

I went for some food and beer at Joyfull with Toppo then Shin caught up with us and bought me and Toppo one more beer before bed on nice tatami mats.