Why this ride
A 398 km round trip from Hagi - roughly 6 h 19 in the saddle. On the way it passes Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revoluti, The Imperial Steel Works, Hetsu-miya and Onga river Pumping Station. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Hagi Proto-industrial Heritage/ Ohitayama and Onga river Pumping Station
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 398 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 6 h 19
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Hagi Proto-industrial Heritage/ Ohitayama
Hagi is a castle town at the western end of Honshu, on a delta between the Hashimoto and Matsumoto rivers, and the place where Japan's modern history began in earnest. The Mori clan, who were stripped of most of their lands after losing at Sekigahara in 1600, were sent here to a poor corner on the coast, and they spent the next two and a half centuries nursing a grievance. In the 1860s, men from Hagi and the surrounding domain of Choshu led the movement to topple the shogun, and several later became leaders of the new Japan.
Read the complete Hagi Proto-industrial Heritage/ Ohitayama write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Hagi Proto-industrial Heritage/ Ohitayama is where the day begins. Next is Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revoluti.
2. Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revoluti
Hagi sits on a small delta where the sea meets two rivers, and around it you can follow the arc of an extraordinary change. The old castle town, with its mud walls and low-roofed samurai houses, is on one side, and on the other, on the edge of the mudflats, stands a chimney. It is the reverberatory furnace at Ebisugahana, built in the 1850s by the Choshu domain to cast iron cannon in the Western manner, using Dutch books as a guide. The experiment was crude, but it shows how fast the clan was learning, and the furnace, a stump of brick, is now part of the UNESCO listing of Japan's Meiji industrial revolution.
Read the complete Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revoluti write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revoluti comes up about 20 km into the recorded legs. Next is The Imperial Steel Works.
3. The Imperial Steel Works
Japan's modern industry has a birthday, and in Kitakyushu they celebrate it with a rusting blast furnace. The Imperial Steel Works at Yawata began producing iron in 1901, a state-run enterprise financed with money from the war indemnity that China paid after the First Sino-Japanese War, and it was built to give a country that had just opened to the world its own supply of steel. German engineers advised on the early design. The works grew into the heart of the northern Kyushu industrial belt, and Yawata became a city that smelled of coke and smoke for most of a century.
Read the complete The Imperial Steel Works write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 147 km into the recorded legs you reach The Imperial Steel Works. Next is Hetsu-miya.
4. Hetsu-miya
Hetsu-miya is the third of the Munakata shrines, and the only one you can drive to. Munakata Taisha honours three goddesses, the daughters of the sun goddess Amaterasu in the old myths, and each lives in a different place along the sea lane between Japan and Korea: one on the remote island of Okinoshima, one on Ōshima and one here on the mainland, at Tashima, beside a calm pine grove close to the shore. The grounds are plain, with a simple wooden hall and an air of sea and pine, and in autumn a festival draws crowds and boats.
Read the complete Hetsu-miya write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Hetsu-miya, about halfway. Next is Onga river Pumping Station.
5. Onga river Pumping Station
Steel needs water, a great deal of it, and in the early twentieth century the new Imperial Steel Works at Yawata in northern Kyushu needed more than the local streams could provide. The answer was this pumping station on the Onga river at Nakama, built in 1910, which drew water from the river and sent it through pipelines to the steel works. Remarkably, it is still in operation more than a century later. The red brick building with its tall windows is part of the UNESCO listing of Sites of Japan's Meiji Industrial Revolution, alongside shipyards, coal mines and iron works that tell the story of Japan's dramatic transformation into an industrial power.
Read the complete Onga river Pumping Station write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Onga river Pumping Station sits at 192 km, about halfway. Next is back through Hetsu-miya.
6. back through Hetsu-miya
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hetsu-miya write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Hetsu-miya comes up about 222 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through The Imperial Steel Works.
7. back through The Imperial Steel Works
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Imperial Steel Works write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 255 km into the recorded legs you reach back through The Imperial Steel Works. Next is back through Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revoluti.
8. back through Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revoluti
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revoluti write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revoluti, late in the day. Next is Hagi Proto-industrial Heritage/ Ohitayama.
9. Hagi Proto-industrial Heritage/ Ohitayama
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hagi Proto-industrial Heritage/ Ohitayama 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 398 km.
Leg by leg
Hagi Proto-industrial Heritage/ Ohitayama to Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revoluti
Hagi Proto-industrial Heritage/ Ohitayama → Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revoluti is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revoluti to The Imperial Steel Works
Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revoluti → The Imperial Steel Works is 127 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
The Imperial Steel Works to Hetsu-miya
The Imperial Steel Works → Hetsu-miya is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hetsu-miya to Onga river Pumping Station
Hetsu-miya → Onga river Pumping Station is 21 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Onga river Pumping Station to back through Hetsu-miya
Onga river Pumping Station → back through Hetsu-miya is 21 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hetsu-miya to back through The Imperial Steel Works
back through Hetsu-miya → back through The Imperial Steel Works is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Imperial Steel Works to back through Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revoluti
back through The Imperial Steel Works → back through Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revoluti is 124 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revoluti to Hagi Proto-industrial Heritage/ Ohitayama
back through Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revoluti → Hagi Proto-industrial Heritage/ Ohitayama is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.