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.
589 km from Ifanadiana to Toliara, about 9 h 26 of riding. The stops in between: Fianarantsoa and Isalo. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,250 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Ranomafana means hot water in Malagasy, and the name is a clue to the place. The village sits in a steep, forested valley on the escarpment that drops from Madagascar's central highlands toward the east coast, where the Namorona river drops over rapids and hot springs seep from the rock. The surrounding national park, created in 1991, protects some of the island's most important rainforest, and in 2007 it was added to a UNESCO listing of the rainforests of the Atsinanana. Mist hangs in the trees, orchids cling to the branches, and the air is warm and damp.
Read the complete Ranomafana write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ranomafana is where the day begins. Next is Fianarantsoa.
Fianarantsoa sits in the middle of Madagascar's southern highlands, and the name is usually translated as the place where one learns what is good. It is the capital of the Betsileo people, a population of rice farmers whose terraced hillsides you will have been riding through for the last hundred kilometres, and the old upper town, perched on a ridge above the modern one, still has the stone houses and church spires that the nineteenth century left behind. About 167,000 people live here, which makes it one of the larger cities on the RN7, and it is the proper stop for fuel, cash and a real meal before the road runs south toward the drier country.
Read the complete Fianarantsoa write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fianarantsoa comes up about 63 km into the recorded legs. Next is Isalo.
Isalo is the end of the long southbound haul down the RN7, and the landscape changes abruptly to mark it. After the green terraces of the highlands the road enters a country of dry grass, scattered palms and then, suddenly, a sandstone massif that rises like a ruined wall out of the plain. The Isalo range is a mass of Jurassic sandstone that wind and rain have carved into canyons, buttresses and bare orange ridges, with narrow green oases hidden between them where water still runs all year.
Read the complete Isalo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 346 km into the recorded legs you reach Isalo. Next is Toliara.
The RN7 ends at Toliara, a flat, sandy, sun-struck town on the south-west coast of Madagascar, where the highlands have been left far behind and the land is dry, thorny and bright. The town, sometimes still called Tulear, has about a hundred and fifteen thousand people, and it sits on the Mozambique Channel with wide streets, dusty pavements, handcarts and the pousse-pousse rickshaws that carry people everywhere. Nights are warm, days are hot and the sea breeze is a mercy.
Read the complete Toliara write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Toliara closes the day.
Ranomafana → Fianarantsoa is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fianarantsoa → Isalo is 283 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Isalo → Toliara is 243 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.