Iya Valley , Tokushima and a few other small stops

Day 8 (April 9)

We got up at the free city campground near by site at 5:30 am .

We drove many backroads and mountain roads today and a few

submergible bridges - we had to cross a few more today — they are scary with no guard rails. We stopped at beautiful park with a dam and went for a walk .

We went to see the 2nd oldest tree dated in Japan to be supposedly around 2000 years old — they have done some strange restorations to it as well.

Then driving on to crazy mountain roads to Iya Valley —

The lya River runs out of Mt. Tsurugi, forming a deep valley among the Shikoku Mountains and creates a majestic and beautiful valley for 20 kilometers. Cliffs at the height of several dozen to hundreds of meters are beginning to be covered by fresh vegetation now that it’s spring there are many wild cherry and peach blossoms around this area . This spot seen in the picture offers the un-obstructed view of the lya river winding through the valley in V shape which looks like a Japanese letter "Hi"←ラ, so it is sometimes called "Hi-no-Ji Valley" affectionately.

There is also a famous vine suspension bridge which my husband crossed — I just couldn’t do it —I am terrified of heights so the high mountain roads and bridges today made my fear kick in quite strongly .

Along this same mountain road you will find the statute of the peeing boy — which is a bit strange but funny .

I had originally planned to go on a day side trip to Teshima and Shodoshima but our time is getting crunched so we decided just to cross the massive bridge Seto -o- Hashi to Okayama and stop at the highway service station for great pictures at the observatory and also buying local good like olive oil and soy sauce from Shodo island since that was one of my main reasons for going there . maybe someday we will get back and be able to focus just on the islands Shikoku just has so much to see !