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.
429 km from Sasebo to Sasebo, about 12 h 37 of riding. On the way it passes Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Former Patte, Sakitsu Village in Amakusa and back through Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Former Patte. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
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.
Villages on Kuroshima Island is where the day begins. Next is 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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Former Patte comes up about 93 km into the recorded legs. Next is Sakitsu Village in Amakusa.
A small Gothic church with a spire stands right at the water's edge in Sakitsu, a fishing village tucked into an inlet on the southern coast of Amakusa's Shimoshima island. It looks almost Breton, a surprise in rural Kyushu, and the story behind it is one of the most moving in Japanese history. When Christianity was banned in the early seventeenth century, the people of Sakitsu kept their faith in secret for over two centuries, disguising prayers and objects as Buddhist or Shinto practice, and using things from their own fishing life, such as abalone shells whose inner patterns recalled holy images, as objects of devotion.
Read the complete Sakitsu Village in Amakusa write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 214 km into the recorded legs you reach Sakitsu Village in Amakusa. Next is back through Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Former Patte.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Former Patte write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Former Patte, late in the day. Next is 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 at Villages on Kuroshima Island. That is the ride.
Villages on Kuroshima Island → Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Former Patte is 93 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Former Patte → Sakitsu Village in Amakusa is 121 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Sakitsu Village in Amakusa → back through Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Former Patte is 121 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Nagasaki Shipyard/ Mitsubishi Former Patte → Villages on Kuroshima Island is 93 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.