Day 8: Ota - Hosokute

Distance covered: 24.0km
Weather: Fine

I got up at 6am and we were down in the restaurant having breakfast shortly after 7am. We left at around 8am. The first leg of the day's journey was flat, and included our first crossing of the Kiso River. This was a bit hair-raising, as there was no footpath on the bridge and quite a few trucks and other vehicles crossing at the time. So we waited until there was a break in the traffic and walked across as quickly as we could.

Over the other side we met a 65-year-old man who was walking the Nakasendo from Tokyo on his own. He had previously done the famous pilgrimage on the island of Shikoku, which involves visiting 88 temples and other sacred places connected with Kobo Daishi. He was extremely friendly and full of energy.

Further down the road, while resting at a shrine near Fushimi, we struck up a conversation with a woman who called herself Chami who was taking photos of the shrine. Aware that we were about to head into a wilderness area, we enquired about lunch places, and Chami offered to take us in her car to a restaurant called Daichi no Megumi. However, it was still too early for lunch, plus this would have infringed our "no wheeled transport while walking the Nakasendo" policy, so we declined her kind offer.

Soon after that we met another man who was walking the entire Nakasendo in 13 days (compared to our 22). Although quite a bit younger, he was equally as friendly as the 65-year-old, and gave us some useful information on the road ahead. It was turning into a day of numerous encounters with friendly people.

We had planned to have lunch in Mitake, but it was only 11.15am when we arrived there, plus there wasn't much in the way of lunch places, so we walked on and eventually came across a coffee shop that had quite an extensive lunch menu. I had fish and Erik had mushroom spaghetti with salad.

We left Mitake around 12.30am and soon left the main road and the flat behind us as we followed a succession of winding country lanes and mountain trails into the hills. Along the way we passed the village of Saito. I had read about this village and the Japanese guardian deity there that was found to have actually been a representation of the Madonna and Child, and was keen to see this statue if it still existed. I asked directions from a local farmer (a friendly chap who also gave us some persimmons), but what we came across was a rather garish and very modern statue of the Virgin Mary. There were some other smaller statues behind it, so I took a couple photos of these just in case one was the deity in question.

We pushed on, and after climbing up and down two more hills we arrived in the small town of Hosokute at around 3.30pm. We soon found Daikokuya, the old ryokan built during the Edo period, and were greeted by the charming young innkeeper. We went through the routine of confirming times for dinner (6pm) and breakfast (6.30am), then went down for a bath.

While waiting for dinner, I was looking over the map of the following day's route as usual when I realized something was wrong. I'd reckoned on a distance of 25.4km, but looking at the map it seemed a lot further. I added up the distances, then added them up again, then got Erik to add them up. There was no escaping it. It wasn't 25.4km. It was 39.2km! And it was far from flat.

Once we'd gotten over the initial shock of this unfortunate discovery, we began discussing how we might get out of the situation. The day after the following day was relatively short, so one option was to change our accommodation and stay somewhere a few kilometers closer to where we presently were. But doing this at such a late stage would entail paying a cancellation fee at the original place. Another option was to walk as far as we could and then take a taxi or bus the rest of the way, going back by bus or taxi the following morning to pick up where we left off. In the end, however, we decided we could walk 39.2km if we left early enough and kept our break and lunch times to a minimum.

Despite this setback, we enjoyed our time at Daikokuya. Dinner and breakfast were wonderful - probably the best meals we had on the entire trip. The evening meal featured a variety of fish and vegetable dishes, including broiled ayu (a popular river fish), gomadofu (sesame tofu), tempura, and homemade tsukemono (pickles), followed by a dessert of fig.

There was just one other guest staying at Daikokuya that night, a retired company executive who was walking the Nakasendo from Tokyo. We had a good talk with him, during which he mentioned a small museum dedicated to the Nakasendo in the posttown of Oi. It was run by a retired geography teacher, who financed the museum himself and also carried out research on the original route of the Nakasendo. We weren't due to pass Oi for another week or so, but we made a note of this and decided to visit this museum if we had time.

A funny thing happened soon after we arrived. Like many towns in Japan, Hosokute has a loudspeaker system over which they broadcast public announcements at regular times during the day. At 4pm the first announcement started, but as soon as it did a dog on a nearby property started howling, and continued to do so for the entire duration of the public announcement. It was impossible to make out what the announcement was about. Then as soon as the announcement stopped, the dog stopped howling. We thought this was hilarious. At 5pm there was another announcement, and sure enough the same dog howled throughout that one as well.