Hiroshima day out · Iwami Ginzan Kaidô Yunotsu-Okidomaridô

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Hiroshima

   Hiroshima is a city that has made peace its work. On 6 August 1945 the first atomic bomb used in war was dropped here, and most of the city was destroyed. The skeletal dome of the former Industrial Promotion Hall, now the Genbaku Dome, stands by the river as it did then, preserved in ruin, and the Peace Memorial Park beside it holds a museum, a cenotaph and the Flame of Peace. It is a serious place and deserves unhurried time, and visitors are quiet there.

   Read the complete Hiroshima write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Hiroshima is where the day begins. Next is Yataki-jô Site.

2. 2. Yataki-jô Site

   The name Yataki-jo sounds like a puzzle until you realise it just means Yataki castle, and the castle is a ridge in the forested hills behind the old silver town of Omori, in Shimane on the Sea of Japan side. There is no keep, no white walls. What survives is earthworks, terraces cut into the hillside, and the kind of lookout position that makes sense once you stand there and see how many routes it watches. The reason anyone fought over this ground is under it. Iwami Ginzan was among the largest silver mines in the world in the sixteenth century, and the lords of the region, the Ouchi, the Amago and the Mori among them, spent decades taking it from one another.

   Read the complete Yataki-jô Site write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Yataki-jô Site comes up about 105 km into the recorded legs. Next is Okidomari.

3. 3. Okidomari

   Okidomari is a small fishing harbour on the Shimane coast, wedged into a cove with steep green hills at its back, and today it looks like nothing much at all. Boats are pulled up, nets are drying, an old man is doing something patient to an engine. In the sixteenth century the same cove was one of the ports through which Iwami silver left for the world. Ore from the mines at Omori was carried down to the coast on foot along a mountain track, the Iwami Ginzan Kaido, and shipped from places like this to the markets of Japan and abroad. Silver from this stretch of coast helped shape trade across East Asia, and it is a startling thought when you are looking at a tiny slipway.

   Read the complete Okidomari write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   At least about 117 km into the recorded legs you reach Okidomari. Next is Yahazu-jô Site.

4. 4. Yahazu-jô Site

   Yahazu-jo is another mountain castle site in the hills behind Omori, among the ridges that guarded the Iwami silver mines, and it adds up to the same story as its neighbour Yataki-jo, but with its own angle. Where one site is about watching a valley, this one is about the chain: a series of small fortresses linked by ridgeline paths, so that smoke or a signal fire could pass a warning along the hills. Silver paid for armies in the sixteenth century, and whoever held the mountains held the mines. The castles were mostly built of earth and timber, and what remains are ditches, flat platforms and the shape of old gateways, now overgrown with cedar, oak and bamboo grass.

   Read the complete Yahazu-jô Site write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Yahazu-jô Site, about halfway. Next is Iwami Ginzan Kaidô Yunotsu-Okidomaridô.

5. 5. Iwami Ginzan Kaidô Yunotsu-Okidomaridô

   The old road from the Iwami Ginzan mine to the sea at Yunotsu and Okidomari was the route silver took to the world. For centuries, ore and then refined silver were carried on the backs of porters and pack horses along a mountain track that dropped from the mine to the Sea of Japan, a distance of several hours on foot. At the coast, ships collected the cargo and carried it to the markets and ports of the country. Yunotsu was a harbour town with a deep inlet; Okidomari, the name of which means something like moorage offshore, was where the boats waited in the bay.

   Read the complete Iwami Ginzan Kaidô Yunotsu-Okidomaridô write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Iwami Ginzan Kaidô Yunotsu-Okidomaridô sits at 127 km, about halfway. Next is back through Yahazu-jô Site.

6. 6. back through Yahazu-jô Site

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Yahazu-jô Site write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Yahazu-jô Site comes up about 143 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Okidomari.

7. 7. back through Okidomari

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Okidomari write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 152 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Okidomari. Next is back through Yataki-jô Site.

8. 8. back through Yataki-jô Site

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Yataki-jô Site write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Yataki-jô Site, late in the day. Next is Hiroshima.

9. 9. Hiroshima

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Hiroshima write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   The route ends here after 270 km.