Today, after 44 days, from her blessing at My Koyan to the final temple, travelling on foot, by car, train and bus, Liz finished her pilgrimage. She visited 80 of the 88 temples . An amazing effort and I am so proud of her. 

We visited temples 86 and 88 today. 87 was too far out of our way and we have to be in Hiroshima in two days. 

  

  

  

  

  
    
  

What’s with the red bibs and crocheted hats? I still haven’t been able to find out 

  

  

    

  

 

   

 

 

  

They say a stick can shorten in length by up to 10cm along the pilgrimage. Guess which one is Liz’s?  Yep, the short one with the tan line! 

Goodbye to our lovely Airbnb apartment 

  

Another  stroll through the gardens   

 
   
 

 

  

 

Brunch at an oyster cafe along the river. Unfortunately it was too early for the champagne and fresh oysters so we made do with freshly squeezed orange juice and oysters gratin     

 
  We had an uneventful train trip to Kyoto, the station is humongous, there are thousands of people, but we managed to find the local train line to our next apartment. Unfortunately the Airbnb address of the apartment led us to a dead end, and with a phone on 1% battery Liz managed to contact the owner, get the correct address and find our way to the right place. 

We were too exhausted to go out and look for a meal so we enjoyed toast and Vegemite for tea, and an evening reading in our thankfully Western style beds. 

   
 

I had been looking forward to visiting the Hiroshima Peace Gardens ever since Liz and I started planning this trip, but I never expected that they would challenge all that I knew about the dropping of the nuclear bomb

I was born 9 years after the dropping of the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima. I knew men who had survived the horrors of the war prisons in Japan. Some of them were still suffering, just as my grandfather was still suffering from his time in the Middle East and New Guinea. They were often spoken of in hushed voices. I grew up absolutely sure in the knowledge that the dropping of the nuclear bombs to end the war was the right thing to do. It is very hard to reconcile the gentle, friendly, helpful people that I have met on this trip with those who carried out the atrocities in the prison camps.

I had seen the pictures of the people ravished by the explosion and the absolute devestation it caused to the landscape. But in the museum  there are stories of parents searching through the rubble of school buildings and finding the bodies of their children, or finding them alive and taking them home and nursing them until their inevitable and agonising death, children with names and school photos, artefacts – bits of clothing, school bags, lunch boxes, exercise books that somehow survived, all these things made you realise how many innocent people suffered to end the war.

  

   

     

 A cenotaph is a monument in honor of someone whose remains are in another location. The Memorial Cenotaph’s shape represents a shelter for the souls of the victims of the bomb.

Within the monument is a stone chest that contains a listing of all the people who died as a result of the atomic bomb tragedy, regardless of nationality. Names are still added to the list as people pass away from diseases that may have been caused by the radiation given off by the explosion. 

       

    

    

My trekking shoes saw me through the Camino and some of the temples of Shikoku. They have served me well but their time has come so rather than take them home to sit up on a shelf I decided to leave them in the Peace Gardens. 

        
The gardens are beautiful, a monument to all the innocent people who lost their lives, a plea to the world to never let this happen again and a celebration of mankind’s spirit to survive  Hiroshima, just 70 years on is a beautiful, vibrant, bustling city.

Today it is just Liz and I. Every pilgrim’s journey is their own and Sarah has decided her pilgrimage is done. She has given me her stick and I know her spirit is going to help me up this mountain today. I’m going to need it! 

 

 

  

  

 
 

  

  

 
  

    

  
 

 

 

  

 

  

 
 

  
  

  
 

 

  
    

   

 

  

 

  

 

Like some days on the Camino I really had times when I didn’t think I could make it. But as my wise Nepalese guide said “Slow steps, small steps Madame and you will make it “