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.
It goes by way of Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K, Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja, Nisanzai Kofun and Byodo-in. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 850 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
The Ômine Okugakemichi is not a road at all, at least not one you can ride. It is a mountain trail that runs for about a hundred kilometres along the spine of the Ômine range in the Kii peninsula, linking Yoshino in the north with Kumano in the south, over peaks, ridges and rock faces. For more than a thousand years, yamabushi, the mountain ascetics of the Shugendo tradition, have walked it as a spiritual practice, combining Buddhist, Shinto and older mountain beliefs, with rituals at sacred rocks, waterfalls and cliffs along the way. It is part of the UNESCO-listed Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range, inscribed in 2004.
Read the complete Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi is where the day begins. Next is Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K.
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 comes up 43 km in. Next is Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja.
In the foothills below Mount Kōya, in the village of Kudoyama, stands the Niukanshōfu shrine, dedicated to the deities who protect the sacred mountain. In the ninth century, the monk Kūkai, known after his death as Kōbō Daishi, founded a monastery on the plateau of Kōyasan as the centre of Shingon Buddhism, and he established an administrative office here, at the foot of the mountain, to manage the supply of the monastery. Nearby, the temple of Jison-in is associated with Kūkai's mother, who according to tradition lived here because women were not allowed on the mountain, and her son came down to visit her. The shrine and temple mark the start of the Chōishi-michi, the pilgrim path to Kōyasan, marked every 109 metres by stone posts, which climbs about twenty kilometres to the monastery. The sites are part of the UNESCO listing of the Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range.
Read the complete Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
87 km in you reach Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja. 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.
Nisanzai Kofun, about halfway. Next is Byodo-in.
Take a ten-yen coin out of your pocket in Japan and you are holding a picture of this place. The Phoenix Hall of the Byōdō-in in Uji, with its wings stretching out on either side of a central hall and bronze phoenixes on the roof, is one of the most famous buildings in the country. It was built in 1053 by Fujiwara no Yorimichi, a member of the most powerful aristocratic family of the Heian period, who converted his father's villa into a Buddhist temple. Its reflection in the pond in front was meant to evoke the Pure Land paradise of the Amida Buddha.
Read the complete Byodo-in write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Byōdō-in sits at 173 km, 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 comes up 216 km in. Next is back through Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
260 km in you reach back through Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja. Next is back through 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.
back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K, late in the day. Next is Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 454 km.
Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi → Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K → Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja → Nisanzai Kofun is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Nisanzai Kofun → Byodo-in is 64 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Byōdō-in → back through Nisanzai Kofun is 64 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Nisanzai Kofun → back through Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja → back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K → Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.