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.
A 375 km round trip from Nagasaki - roughly 18 h 36 in the saddle. On the way it passes Shitsu Village in Sotome, Villages on Kuroshima Island, Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado and back through Villages on Kuroshima Island. The line favours views over speed.
Slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did. Water arrives beside the road and stays for 32 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go.
Out in the sea off Nagasaki, a low island called Takashima was the place where modern Japan dug its first Western-style coal shaft. In 1868, in the very year of the Meiji Restoration, the Scottish merchant Thomas Glover went into partnership with the Saga domain to sink a shaft here using steam-powered machinery from Britain. The mine later passed to Mitsubishi and became one of the pillars of the company's rise, fuelling steamships, factories and the rapid industrialisation of the country. Takashima is now part of the Sites of Japan's Meiji Industrial Revolution, listed by UNESCO in 2015.
Read the complete Takashima Coal Mine/ Takashima Coal Mine write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Takashima Coal Mine/ Takashima Coal Mine is where the day begins. Next is Shitsu Village in Sotome.
Sotome is a stretch of rugged coast north of Nagasaki, where steep hills drop into the East China Sea, and the village of Shitsu clings to its slopes. During the centuries when Christianity was banned in Japan, the farmers and fishermen of this remote area kept their faith in secret, passing down prayers and rituals from generation to generation, hiding their devotion behind Buddhist and Shinto practices. When the ban was lifted in 1873, many of them returned to the Catholic Church. The Shitsu church, built in 1882 under the direction of the French missionary Marc Marie de Rotz, stands on a hill above the sea, a simple white building with a low profile designed to resist the strong winds. De Rotz was more than a priest: he taught the villagers to make bread, pasta and textiles, built a clinic and a workshop, and his legacy is still honoured locally. The village and church are part of the UNESCO listing of the Hidden Christian Sites in the Nagasaki Region.
Read the complete Shitsu Village in Sotome write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Shitsu Village in Sotome comes up about 46 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 124 km into the recorded legs you reach Villages on Kuroshima Island. Next is Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado.
Hirado is an island off the northwest coast of Kyushu, connected to the mainland by a bright red suspension bridge, and for a brief moment in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was one of Japan's windows on the world. Portuguese traders arrived in 1550, followed by Jesuit missionaries, and later the Dutch and English East India Companies set up trading posts here. When Christianity was banned in the early seventeenth century and foreign trade was moved to Nagasaki, the Christians of Hirado went underground. Kasuga, a farming village on the western side of the island, is one of the places where these Hidden Christians, the Kakure Kirishitan, maintained their faith in secret for more than two centuries, outwardly following Buddhism and Shinto while worshipping Christian images disguised as Buddhist statues and reciting prayers in a garbled mix of Latin, Portuguese and Japanese. The village and the sacred mountain of Yasumandake above it are part of the UNESCO listing of the Hidden Christian Sites in the Nagasaki Region.
Read the complete Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado, about halfway. Next is back through Villages on Kuroshima Island.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Villages on Kuroshima Island write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Villages on Kuroshima Island sits at 148 km, about halfway. Next is back through Shitsu Village in Sotome.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Shitsu Village in Sotome write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Shitsu Village in Sotome comes up about 329 km into the recorded legs. Next is Takashima Coal Mine/ Takashima Coal Mine.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Takashima Coal Mine/ Takashima Coal Mine write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Takashima Coal Mine/ Takashima Coal Mine closes the day.
Takashima Coal Mine/ Takashima Coal Mine → Shitsu Village in Sotome is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Shitsu Village in Sotome → Villages on Kuroshima Island is 78 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Villages on Kuroshima Island → Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado → back through Villages on Kuroshima Island is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Villages on Kuroshima Island → back through Shitsu Village in Sotome is 80 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Shitsu Village in Sotome → Takashima Coal Mine/ Takashima Coal Mine is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.