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 Tanabe it runs 462 km to Tanabe; allow about 5 h 52 of riding. It goes by way of Kumano Sanzan - Kumano Hongû Taisha, Kumano Sanzan - Fudarakusan-ji, Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I and Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 800 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
The Kii Peninsula, south of Osaka, is one of the most heavily forested and least populated parts of Japan, a knot of steep, cedar-covered mountains that has been a place of pilgrimage for more than a thousand years. The pilgrimage routes of Kumano, called the Kumano Kodo, were inscribed by UNESCO in 2004 together with the sacred sites of Koyasan and Yoshino and Omine, and the Ohechi route is the long mountain branch that starts near Tanabe, on the coast, about eleven kilometres from the point on your map.
Read the complete Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - Ô write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - Ô is where the day begins. Next is Kumano Sanzan - Kumano Hongû Taisha.
Deep in the mountains of the Kii Peninsula, where forested ridges fold one behind another like the scenery in a woodblock print, stands the head shrine of the Kumano faith. Kumano Hongū Taisha is one of the three grand shrines of Kumano, and for over a thousand years emperors, aristocrats and ordinary pilgrims have walked here along the network of mountain trails known as the Kumano Kodō, now part of the Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range listed by UNESCO.
Read the complete Kumano Sanzan - Kumano Hongû Taisha write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kumano Sanzan - Kumano Hongû Taisha comes up about 59 km into the recorded legs. Next is Kumano Sanzan - Fudarakusan-ji.
Fudarakusan-ji is a small temple on the coast of the Kii Peninsula, in the town of Nachikatsuura, and its odd history is a sea journey. In the old days some monks believed Fudaraku, the paradise of the bodhisattva Kannon, lay far across the ocean to the south, and from this beach they set off in boats nailed shut, with a little food and water, to sail toward it and not come back. The practice is called Fudaraku Tokai, and the temple remembers the monks who made the voyage, which gives the sea in front of it a haunting quality.
Read the complete Kumano Sanzan - Fudarakusan-ji write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 104 km into the recorded legs you reach Kumano Sanzan - Fudarakusan-ji. 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, about halfway. Next is Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji.
Ōminesan-ji is a temple on the summit of Mount Sanjō, one of the peaks of the Ōmine range in the heart of the Kii peninsula, and it holds a special place in Japanese religion. It is a centre of Shugendō, the mountain ascetic tradition that blends Buddhism, Shinto and older mountain worship, and its practitioners, the yamabushi, undergo arduous training on the ridges. The temple is famous for another reason too: the mountain is still closed to women by tradition, one of the last such places in Japan, which has become a subject of ongoing debate.
Read the complete Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji sits at 190 km, about halfway. 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 comes up about 324 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Kumano Sanzan - Fudarakusan-ji.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kumano Sanzan - Fudarakusan-ji write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 358 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Kumano Sanzan - Fudarakusan-ji. Next is back through Kumano Sanzan - Kumano Hongû Taisha.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kumano Sanzan - Kumano Hongû Taisha write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Kumano Sanzan - Kumano Hongû Taisha, late in the day. Next is Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - Ô.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - Ô write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 462 km.
Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - Ô → Kumano Sanzan - Kumano Hongû Taisha is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kumano Sanzan - Kumano Hongû Taisha → Kumano Sanzan - Fudarakusan-ji is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kumano Sanzan - Fudarakusan-ji → Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I → Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji is 93 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Yoshino and Ômine - Ôminesan-ji → back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I is 93 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I → back through Kumano Sanzan - Fudarakusan-ji is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Kumano Sanzan - Fudarakusan-ji → back through Kumano Sanzan - Kumano Hongû Taisha is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Kumano Sanzan - Kumano Hongû Taisha → Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - Ô is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.