Why this ride
On the way it passes Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado, Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Former Patte and back through Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado. It stays on the island.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Villages on Kashiragashima Island and Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Former Patte
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 707 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 18 h 03
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
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.
Scenic road chapters
Villages on Kashiragashima Island → Kasuga Village and Sacred Places i
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 65 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 94 km
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Villages on Kashiragashima Island
Kashiragashima is a scrap of rock off the northeast coast of Nakadōri, in the Gotō Islands west of Nagasaki, and for a long time nobody wanted to live there. In the nineteenth century the island was used as a place to isolate smallpox patients, and that very isolation drew a small group of Hidden Christians, Japanese Catholics who had kept their faith in secret through more than two centuries of persecution. They settled in a cove, farmed the steep slopes and fished. After the ban on Christianity was lifted, they built a church out of the local sandstone, quarried and carried by hand, under the direction of the master builder Tetsukawa Yosuke, who designed many churches across the region. Completed in 1919, it is a sturdy, beautiful building, and the village is part of the UNESCO listing of Hidden Christian Sites in the Nagasaki Region, inscribed in 2018.
Read the complete Villages on Kashiragashima Island write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Villages on Kashiragashima Island is where the day begins. Next is Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado.
2. Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado
Hirado is an island at the far northwest of Kyushu, joined to the mainland by a bridge, and it has a stranger history than most. In 1609 the Dutch East India Company opened a trading post here, and for a while Hirado was the only place in Japan where Europeans traded openly, before the shogunate shifted them to the artificial island of Dejima in Nagasaki in 1641. The town still has a harbour and a castle on the hill, and the sea is never far from any road.
Read the complete Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado comes up about 94 km into the recorded legs. Next is Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Former Patte.
3. Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Former Patte
Nagasaki's harbour is a long, narrow inlet surrounded by steep hills, and on its western shore the Mitsubishi shipyard has been building ships since the late nineteenth century. The yard was one of the engines of Japan's rapid industrialisation in the Meiji era, when the country transformed itself from a feudal society into an industrial power in a few decades. Several of its historic structures are part of the UNESCO listing of the Sites of Japan's Meiji Industrial Revolution, inscribed in 2015. The Former Pattern Shop, a red-brick building from 1898 where wooden patterns were made for casting metal parts, now houses a museum of the yard's history. The Giant Cantilever Crane, installed in 1909 and made in Scotland, is still in working order, and it dominates the waterfront. The yard built many famous ships, including the battleship Musashi, one of the largest warships ever constructed.
Read the complete Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Former Patte write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 354 km into the recorded legs you reach Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Former Patte. Next is back through Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado.
4. back through Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado, late in the day. Next is Villages on Kashiragashima Island.
5. Villages on Kashiragashima Island
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Villages on Kashiragashima Island write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Back at Villages on Kashiragashima Island. That is the ride.
Leg by leg
Villages on Kashiragashima Island to Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado
Villages on Kashiragashima Island → Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado is 94 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado to Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Former Patte
Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado → Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Former Patte is 260 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Former Patte to back through Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado
Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Former Patte → back through Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado is 260 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado to Villages on Kashiragashima Island
back through Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado → Villages on Kashiragashima Island is 94 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.