CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
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.
On the way it passes Kumano Sanzan - Nachi no Ôtaki, Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I, Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi and back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 850 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Deep in the mountains of the Kii Peninsula, where forested ridges fold one behind another like the scenery in a woodblock print, stands the head shrine of the Kumano faith. Kumano Hongū Taisha is one of the three grand shrines of Kumano, and for over a thousand years emperors, aristocrats and ordinary pilgrims have walked here along the network of mountain trails known as the Kumano Kodō, now part of the Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range listed by UNESCO.
Read the complete Kumano Sanzan - Kumano Hongû Taisha write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kumano Sanzan - Kumano Hongû Taisha is where the day begins. Next is Kumano Sanzan - Nachi no Ôtaki.
Water falls a hundred and thirty-three metres in a single drop at Nachi, the highest single fall in Japan, and it is not just a scenic attraction but a god. The Nachi no Ōtaki has been worshipped since long before the shrines were built, as a place where a kami lives, and the Kumano Nachi Taisha, a vermilion shrine on the hillside, was set up to honour it. Next door, the Buddhist temple of Seiganto-ji, with its three-storey pagoda in front of the falls, is one of the most photographed views in Japan, and shows how the two religions lived side by side.
Read the complete Kumano Sanzan - Nachi no Ôtaki write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kumano Sanzan - Nachi no Ôtaki comes up about 52 km into the recorded legs. Next is Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I.
The Iseji is the eastern branch of the old pilgrimage roads to the three great Kumano shrines, running down the coast of the Kii Peninsula from the Grand Shrines of Ise to Kumano. For centuries, pilgrims followed it through forests and over passes, and stretches of its stone paving still survive in the hills, laid to keep the path usable in one of the rainiest parts of Japan. Owase, a little up the coast, regularly ranks among the wettest towns in the country, and the moss on the stones and the dripping cedar forests show it. The Iseji forms part of the UNESCO listing of the Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range.
Read the complete Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 93 km into the recorded legs you reach Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I. Next is Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi.
The Ômine Okugakemichi is not a road at all, at least not one you can ride. It is a mountain trail that runs for about a hundred kilometres along the spine of the Ômine range in the Kii peninsula, linking Yoshino in the north with Kumano in the south, over peaks, ridges and rock faces. For more than a thousand years, yamabushi, the mountain ascetics of the Shugendo tradition, have walked it as a spiritual practice, combining Buddhist, Shinto and older mountain beliefs, with rituals at sacred rocks, waterfalls and cliffs along the way. It is part of the UNESCO-listed Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range, inscribed in 2004.
Read the complete Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi, about halfway. Next is back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I sits at 159 km, about halfway. Next is back through Kumano Sanzan - Nachi no Ôtaki.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kumano Sanzan - Nachi no Ôtaki write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Kumano Sanzan - Nachi no Ôtaki comes up about 279 km into the recorded legs. Next is Kumano Sanzan - Kumano Hongû Taisha.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kumano Sanzan - Kumano Hongû Taisha write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kumano Sanzan - Kumano Hongû Taisha closes the day.
Kumano Sanzan - Kumano Hongû Taisha → Kumano Sanzan - Nachi no Ôtaki is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kumano Sanzan - Nachi no Ôtaki → Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I → Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi is 71 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi → back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I is 74 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I → back through Kumano Sanzan - Nachi no Ôtaki is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Kumano Sanzan - Nachi no Ôtaki → Kumano Sanzan - Kumano Hongû Taisha is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.