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.
From Nagasaki it runs 307 km to Nagasaki; allow about 12 h 04 of riding. It goes by way of 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.
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 25 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
Nagasaki is a city of steep hills around a deep harbour, and on one of those slopes above the old foreign settlement stands a small white Gothic church that is, in its quiet way, one of the most important in Japan. Oura Cathedral was built in the early 1860s by French missionaries, who had been allowed to serve the foreign community in the treaty port after Japan's long seclusion, and it was dedicated to the twenty-six Christians who were executed on a hill in Nagasaki in 1597. The church faces the site of that martyrdom, and it is the oldest surviving Gothic-style church in the country.
Read the complete Oura Cathedral write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Oura Cathedral 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 23 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 78 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 285 km into the recorded legs. Next is Oura Cathedral.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Oura Cathedral write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Oura Cathedral closes the day.
Oura Cathedral → Takashima Coal Mine/ Hashima Coal Mine is 23 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 → Oura Cathedral is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.