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 315 km round trip from Nagasaki - roughly 12 h 13 in the saddle. The stops in between: Takashima Coal Mine/ Hashima Coal Mine, Ono Village in Sotome, Villages on Kuroshima Island and back through Ono Village in Sotome. An island ride, so the sea is never far.
The giant cantilever crane stands over the Nagasaki shipyard like a tall green arm, and it was installed in 1909 to lift heavy machinery, boilers and engines into ships being fitted out at the quay. It is among the oldest cranes of its kind in Japan, electric, enormous, and built with the confidence of a country that wanted to build its own steamers. The Mitsubishi yard it served grew into one of the great shipbuilders of Asia, and warships and liners both took form here. The crane is now part of the Sites of Japan's Meiji Industrial Revolution and is visible, in outline at least, from the water and from some of the roads around the harbour. The yard is still working, so access to the area is limited.
Read the complete Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Giant Cantil write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Giant Cantil is where the day begins. Next is Takashima Coal Mine/ Hashima Coal Mine.
From the sea, Hashima looks like a battleship: a small rocky island off Nagasaki surrounded by high concrete walls, crowded with tall, empty apartment blocks. The Japanese call it Gunkanjima, battleship island, and it is the most famous ruin of Japan's industrial age. Mitsubishi mined coal here from undersea seams from the late nineteenth century, and as the mine grew the island was extended with land reclaimed from the sea and built up with concrete housing, schools, a hospital and shops. At its peak it was one of the most densely populated places on Earth. When the mine closed in 1974, everyone left within weeks, and the island has been slowly crumbling ever since.
Read the complete Takashima Coal Mine/ Hashima Coal Mine write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Takashima Coal Mine/ Hashima Coal Mine comes up about 26 km into the recorded legs. Next is Ono Village in Sotome.
For more than two centuries Christianity was banned in Japan, and in the villages along the Sotome coast north of Nagasaki, communities practised their faith in secret, disguising prayers as Buddhist chants and hiding images of the Virgin as the bodhisattva Kannon. These were the Hidden Christians, the Kakure Kirishitan, and their villages, including Ono, are part of the World Heritage listing of Hidden Christian Sites in the Nagasaki Region, inscribed in 2018. At Ono the small Ono church, built by the French missionary Marc Marie de Rotz in the late nineteenth century after the ban was lifted, has thick walls built in a local technique of stones bound with mortar, known as de Rotz walls.
Read the complete Ono Village in Sotome write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 81 km into the recorded legs you reach Ono Village in Sotome. Next is Villages on Kuroshima Island.
For more than two centuries after Christianity was banned in Japan in the early seventeenth century, small communities of believers kept their faith in secret, disguising prayers as Buddhist chants and images of the Virgin Mary as Buddhist figures. Kuroshima, a small island off the coast of Sasebo in Nagasaki Prefecture, was one of the places where these hidden Christians lived and farmed, and when the ban was lifted in the 1870s they emerged openly. Their villages are part of the UNESCO listing of Hidden Christian sites in the Nagasaki region, listed in 2018.
Read the complete Villages on Kuroshima Island write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Villages on Kuroshima Island, about halfway. Next is back through Ono Village in Sotome.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ono Village in Sotome write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Ono Village in Sotome sits at 143 km, about halfway. Next is back through Takashima Coal Mine/ Hashima Coal Mine.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Takashima Coal Mine/ Hashima Coal Mine write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Takashima Coal Mine/ Hashima Coal Mine comes up about 288 km into the recorded legs. Next is Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Giant Cantil.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Giant Cantil write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Giant Cantil closes the day.
Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Giant Cantil → Takashima Coal Mine/ Hashima Coal Mine is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Takashima Coal Mine/ Hashima Coal Mine → Ono Village in Sotome is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ono Village in Sotome → Villages on Kuroshima Island is 75 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Villages on Kuroshima Island → back through Ono Village in Sotome is 77 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Ono Village in Sotome → back through Takashima Coal Mine/ Hashima Coal Mine is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Takashima Coal Mine/ Hashima Coal Mine → Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Giant Cantil is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.