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.
A 451 km round trip from Shingū - roughly 6 h 24 in the saddle. The stops in between: Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I, Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi, Kôyasan - Kongôbu-ji and Yoshino and Ômine - Kimpusen-ji. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 850 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Hardly any approach in Japan is as dramatic as the one up to Seiganto-ji. A temple has been here for well over a millennium, founded according to tradition in the fourth century, but what hits you is how it sits: a vermilion three-storey pagoda in front of a 133-metre waterfall, the tallest single-drop fall in the country, with the cedar forest pressing close on both sides. The temple and the neighbouring Nachi shrine share the mountain and the same story. Together they form one of the three Kumano shrines on the Kii Peninsula, and the pilgrim trails that link them are on the World Heritage list.
Read the complete Kumano Sanzan - Seiganto-ji write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kumano Sanzan - Seiganto-ji is where the day begins. 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.
Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I comes up about 43 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 114 km into the recorded legs you reach Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi. Next is Kôyasan - Kongôbu-ji.
Getting to Kōyasan feels like a pilgrimage even on a motorcycle. The roads climb out of the Kinokawa valley through dense cedar forest, switchback after switchback, until you emerge onto a high basin at around eight hundred metres where a whole town of temples has grown up. The monk Kūkai, known after his death as Kōbō Daishi, founded the monastery here in the early ninth century as the centre of Shingon Buddhism, and Kongōbu-ji is the head temple of the sect. Its halls, painted sliding doors and the large rock garden are worth an unhurried visit, and the whole mountain is part of the UNESCO listing of the Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range.
Read the complete Kôyasan - Kongôbu-ji write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kôyasan - Kongôbu-ji, about halfway. Next is Yoshino and Ômine - Kimpusen-ji.
Every April, the hillsides of Yoshino turn pink and white as tens of thousands of cherry trees burst into bloom, and the narrow ridge-top town fills with visitors who come to see one of Japan's most famous blossom displays. But Yoshino is more than a flower show. It is the heart of Shugendō, a mountain religion that blends Buddhism, Shinto and ancient nature worship, and the Kimpusen-ji temple, with its enormous wooden main hall, the Zaō-dō, is its spiritual centre. The temple is part of the Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range, listed by UNESCO in 2004.
Read the complete Yoshino and Ômine - Kimpusen-ji write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Yoshino and Ômine - Kimpusen-ji sits at 173 km, about halfway. Next is back through Kôyasan - Kongôbu-ji.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kôyasan - Kongôbu-ji write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Kôyasan - Kongôbu-ji comes up about 284 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 338 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi. 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, late in the day. Next is Kumano Sanzan - Seiganto-ji.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kumano Sanzan - Seiganto-ji write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 451 km.
Kumano Sanzan - Seiganto-ji → Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I is 43 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 → Kôyasan - Kongôbu-ji is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kôyasan - Kongôbu-ji → Yoshino and Ômine - Kimpusen-ji is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Yoshino and Ômine - Kimpusen-ji → back through Kôyasan - Kongôbu-ji is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Kôyasan - Kongôbu-ji → back through Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi → back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I is 71 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I → Kumano Sanzan - Seiganto-ji is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.