CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. 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 221 km round trip from Togitsu - roughly 4 h 57 in the saddle. It goes by way of Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Former Patte, Takashima Coal Mine/ Takashima Coal Mine, Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi No.3 Dry Doc and Takashima Coal Mine/ Hashima Coal Mine.
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.
Ono Village in Sotome is where the day begins. Next is Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Former Patte.
Nagasaki's harbour is a long, narrow inlet surrounded by steep hills, and on its western shore the Mitsubishi shipyard has been building ships since the late nineteenth century. The yard was one of the engines of Japan's rapid industrialisation in the Meiji era, when the country transformed itself from a feudal society into an industrial power in a few decades. Several of its historic structures are part of the UNESCO listing of the Sites of Japan's Meiji Industrial Revolution, inscribed in 2015. The Former Pattern Shop, a red-brick building from 1898 where wooden patterns were made for casting metal parts, now houses a museum of the yard's history. The Giant Cantilever Crane, installed in 1909 and made in Scotland, is still in working order, and it dominates the waterfront. The yard built many famous ships, including the battleship Musashi, one of the largest warships ever constructed.
Read the complete Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Former Patte write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Former Patte comes up 22 km in. Next is Takashima Coal Mine/ Takashima Coal Mine.
Out in the sea off Nagasaki, a low island called Takashima was the place where modern Japan dug its first Western-style coal shaft. In 1868, in the very year of the Meiji Restoration, the Scottish merchant Thomas Glover went into partnership with the Saga domain to sink a shaft here using steam-powered machinery from Britain. The mine later passed to Mitsubishi and became one of the pillars of the company's rise, fuelling steamships, factories and the rapid industrialisation of the country. Takashima is now part of the Sites of Japan's Meiji Industrial Revolution, listed by UNESCO in 2015.
Read the complete Takashima Coal Mine/ Takashima Coal Mine write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
44 km in you reach Takashima Coal Mine/ Takashima Coal Mine. Next is Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi No.3 Dry Doc, 22 km on.
Nagasaki spills down its hills towards the harbour in a way that makes every drive feel like a lesson in gravity, and the Mitsubishi shipyard sits right at the water's edge, a wall of cranes and dry docks that has shaped the city for a century and a half. The Number Three Dry Dock, finished in the early twentieth century, is one of the pieces of Japan's Meiji-era industrial heritage that were added to the World Heritage list in 2015. It is stone-lined, deep and surprisingly beautiful, like a rectangular canyon cut for ships. Mitsubishi took over the yard in the 1880s, and from here came warships and liners that helped turn a closed, feudal country into an industrial power in a startlingly short time.
Read the complete Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi No.3 Dry Doc write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi No.3 Dry Doc, about halfway. 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 sits at 88 km, about halfway. Next is back through Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi No.3 Dry Doc, 22 km on.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi No.3 Dry Doc write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi No.3 Dry Doc comes up 110 km in. Next is back through Takashima Coal Mine/ Takashima Coal Mine.
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.
132 km in you reach back through Takashima Coal Mine/ Takashima Coal Mine. Next is back through Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Former Patte.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Former Patte write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Former Patte, late in the day. Next is 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.
The route ends here after 176 km.
Ono Village in Sotome → Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Former Patte is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Former Patte → Takashima Coal Mine/ Takashima Coal Mine is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Takashima Coal Mine/ Takashima Coal Mine → Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi No.3 Dry Doc is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi No.3 Dry Doc → Takashima Coal Mine/ Hashima Coal Mine is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Takashima Coal Mine/ Hashima Coal Mine → back through Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi No.3 Dry Doc is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi No.3 Dry Doc → Back to Ono Village in Sotome is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Former Patte → Ono Village in Sotome is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.