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.
It goes by way of Kumano Sanzan - Fudarakusan-ji, Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I, Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi and Kôyasan - Kongôbu-ji. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 850 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
The Kumano Kodō, the ancient pilgrimage routes, link it with two other great shrines, Hayatama in Shingū and Nachi with its tall waterfall, and with the sacred mountains of Kōyasan and Yoshino further north. UNESCO listed the whole network in 2004 as one of only two pilgrimage routes on its register, the other being the road to Santiago de Compostela.
Read the complete Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the is where the day begins. 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.
Kumano Sanzan - Fudarakusan-ji comes up about 45 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 79 km into the recorded legs you reach Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I. Next is Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi.
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, about halfway. Next is Kôyasan - Kongôbu-ji.
Getting to Kōyasan feels like a pilgrimage even on a motorcycle. The roads climb out of the Kinokawa valley through dense cedar forest, switchback after switchback, until you emerge onto a high basin at around eight hundred metres where a whole town of temples has grown up. The monk Kūkai, known after his death as Kōbō Daishi, founded the monastery here in the early ninth century as the centre of Shingon Buddhism, and Kongōbu-ji is the head temple of the sect. Its halls, painted sliding doors and the large rock garden are worth an unhurried visit, and the whole mountain is part of the UNESCO listing of the Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range.
Read the complete Kôyasan - Kongôbu-ji write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kôyasan - Kongôbu-ji sits at 167 km, about halfway. Next is back through 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.
back through Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi comes up about 257 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 328 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I. 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.
back through Kumano Sanzan - Fudarakusan-ji, late in the day. Next is Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 407 km.
Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the → 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 → Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi is 71 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi → Kôyasan - Kongôbu-ji is 53 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kôyasan - Kongôbu-ji → back through Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi → back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - I is 71 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 → Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.