The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. 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.
From Hellín it runs 368 km to Hellín; allow about 6 h 38 of riding. The stops in between: Cueva del Esquilo, Cueva Ambrosio and back through Cueva del Esquilo. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,200 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Abrigo Grande de minateda
The Abrigo Grande de Minateda is the big one, the name says so, and for once the name is accurate. It is among the most important rock art shelters in the south-east of Spain, a wide overhang in the soft rock outside Hellín in Albacete, where layers of painting from different periods sit one on top of the other. Hunters, deer, goats and strange, elongated human figures were drawn here over thousands of years, and the site is covered by World Heritage protection. The country around it is dry, broken and beautiful, a land of badlands, gullies and flat-topped hills that looks almost like another continent.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Abrigo Grande de minateda is where the day begins. Next is Cueva del Esquilo.
2. Cueva del Esquilo
The border between Albacete and Murcia runs through a tangle of mountains here, and the villages of Socovos, Férez and Letur sit among them like small islands. The Cueva del Esquilo is one of the painted rock shelters in these hills, a reminder that people lived and hunted in the Segura mountains thousands of years before any border existed. Like most of the rock art in the region, it is protected and best visited with local guidance; the town halls and tourist offices of the surrounding villages are the place to ask.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Cueva del Esquilo comes up 62 km in. Next is Cueva Ambrosio.
3. Cueva Ambrosio
Cueva Ambrosio belongs to the high, empty north of Almería province, on the dry plateau where Andalusia runs into Murcia, fifteen or so kilometres out of Vélez-Blanco. This is a landscape of broad, pale fields, almond and cereal farms, low limestone ridges and long skylines, with the pines of the Sierra María to the south and almost nothing built on the horizon.