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.
From Polonnaruwa it runs 572 km to Polonnaruwa; allow about 13 h 31 of riding. On the way it passes Central Highlands of Sri Lanka, Rangiri Dambulla Cave Temple and back through Central Highlands of Sri Lanka. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Polonnaruwa was the capital of Sri Lanka from the late tenth to the early thirteenth century, after the older capital at Anuradhapura was sacked, and its ruins are spread across a wide area of parkland beside a vast artificial lake. That lake, the Parakrama Samudra, was built by King Parakramabahu I in the twelfth century, and it is a testament to the ambition of the man who famously declared that not a single drop of rain should flow to the sea without serving people first. It still irrigates the paddy fields around the town today.
Read the complete Ancient City of Polonnaruwa write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ancient City of Polonnaruwa is where the day begins. Next is Central Highlands of Sri Lanka.
North of Kandy the hills rise into a jagged massif that British surveyors thought looked like the knuckles of a clenched fist, and the name stuck: the Knuckles Range. It is one of the three parts of the Central Highlands World Heritage site, together with the Peak Wilderness and Horton Plains, and it is the wildest and least visited. The mountains are covered with montane forest, cloud forest at the highest points, grasslands and steep valleys with rivers and waterfalls. The weather changes fast; mist can sweep in over a ridge in minutes, and the air is noticeably cooler than in the plains. Many plants, frogs and lizards here exist nowhere else on Earth.
Read the complete Central Highlands of Sri Lanka write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Central Highlands of Sri Lanka comes up about 155 km into the recorded legs. Next is Rangiri Dambulla Cave Temple.
The rock at Dambulla rises some hundred and fifty metres above the plain in the dry heart of Sri Lanka, a great bald dome of granite, and in its upper flank five caves hold one of the most extraordinary Buddhist shrines in Asia. Tradition says King Valagamba sheltered here in the first century BC when he was driven out of Anuradhapura, and that after regaining his throne he turned the caves into a temple in gratitude. Monks had been using them long before that, and kings went on adding to them for centuries.
Read the complete Rangiri Dambulla Cave Temple write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 285 km into the recorded legs you reach Rangiri Dambulla Cave Temple. Next is back through Central Highlands of Sri Lanka.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Central Highlands of Sri Lanka write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Central Highlands of Sri Lanka, late in the day. Next is Ancient City of Polonnaruwa.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ancient City of Polonnaruwa write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Ancient City of Polonnaruwa. That is the ride.
Ancient City of Polonnaruwa → Central Highlands of Sri Lanka is 155 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Central Highlands of Sri Lanka → Rangiri Dambulla Cave Temple is 130 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Rangiri Dambulla Cave Temple → back through Central Highlands of Sri Lanka is 133 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Central Highlands of Sri Lanka → Ancient City of Polonnaruwa is 155 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.