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.
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247 km from Kōya to Kōya, about 5 h 34 of riding. The stops in between: Pilgrimage Routes - Kôya Sankeimichi, Nisanzai Kofun, Hokki-ji Area and back through Nisanzai Kofun. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Mount Kōya is one of Japan's great sacred places, a high basin in the mountains of northern Wakayama where the monk Kūkai founded a monastic centre for Shingon Buddhism in the early ninth century. Today it is a town of over a hundred temples, many of which take in overnight guests, set among towering cedars. South of the summit plateau, deep in the forested ridges, run the old pilgrim trails that link Kōya with the Kumano shrines, part of the network inscribed by UNESCO as the Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range.
Read the complete Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K is where the day begins. Next is Pilgrimage Routes - Kôya Sankeimichi.
Kōyasan is a city in the sky. In 816 the monk Kūkai, known after his death as Kōbō Daishi, received permission from the emperor to found a monastery on a high, forested plateau in the Kii mountains, and from that start the settlement grew into the headquarters of Shingon Buddhism, with over a hundred temples tucked among the cedars. A few thousand people live in the town, and many of the temples take pilgrims and visitors as guests, serving a vegetarian temple meal called shojin ryori and waking guests for morning prayers. At the far end of the main street begins Okunoin, the great cemetery, where a two-kilometre path winds beneath tall cedars past tens of thousands of moss-covered gravestones to the mausoleum of Kūkai, who is believed to be in eternal meditation rather than dead.
Read the complete Pilgrimage Routes - Kôya Sankeimichi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pilgrimage Routes - Kôya Sankeimichi comes up 36 km in. Next is Nisanzai Kofun.
In the middle of the sprawling city of Sakai, south of Osaka, a large keyhole-shaped mound rises above a ring of moats, covered in dense forest and surrounded by houses, roads and shops. This is the Nisanzai Kofun, a monumental tomb built in the fifth century for a member of the ruling elite of early Japan. It is one of the largest of the Mozu-Furuichi Kofun Group, a collection of burial mounds listed by UNESCO in 2019, which includes the enormous Daisen Kofun, traditionally attributed to the emperor Nintoku and one of the largest tombs in the world by area.
Read the complete Nisanzai Kofun write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
72 km in you reach Nisanzai Kofun. Next is Hokki-ji Area.
Ikaruga, a quiet town on the western edge of the Nara basin, is where Japanese Buddhist architecture begins. The temple of Hōryū-ji, founded by Prince Shōtoku in the early seventh century, has wooden buildings counted among the oldest surviving in the world, and in 1993 the Buddhist Monuments in the Hōryū-ji Area became, along with Himeji Castle, the first Japanese sites on the UNESCO list. A short distance north, among rice fields and houses, Hokki-ji is a smaller temple with a single treasure: a three-storey pagoda completed in the early eighth century, the oldest of its type in Japan. Seen across the fields with the hills behind, it is a lovely, peaceful sight.
Read the complete Hokki-ji Area write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hokki-ji Area, about halfway. Next is back through Nisanzai Kofun.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Nisanzai Kofun write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Nisanzai Kofun sits at 143 km, about halfway. Next is back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kôya Sankeimichi.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Pilgrimage Routes - Kôya Sankeimichi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kôya Sankeimichi comes up 179 km in. Next is Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K closes the day.
Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K → Pilgrimage Routes - Kôya Sankeimichi is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pilgrimage Routes - Kôya Sankeimichi → Nisanzai Kofun is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Nisanzai Kofun → Hokki-ji Area is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hokki-ji Area → back through Nisanzai Kofun is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Nisanzai Kofun → back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kôya Sankeimichi is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kôya Sankeimichi → Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.