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.
A 370 km round trip from Tala Bay - roughly 5 h 58 in the saddle. On the way it passes Wadi Rum Protected Area, Petra and back through Wadi Rum Protected Area. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,150 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
The Gulf of Aqaba is a narrow arm of the Red Sea, a deep trench between Jordan and Saudi Arabia on one side and Sinai on the other, and its clear water holds some of the northernmost coral reefs in the world. Jordan's marine reserve runs along a short coastal strip south of Aqaba, where the mountains of the desert drop to a thin ribbon of beach and the water goes from beige to turquoise to deep blue within a hundred metres.
Read the complete Aqaba Marine Reserve write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Aqaba Marine Reserve is where the day begins. Next is Wadi Rum Protected Area.
Wadi Rum looks like the moon dressed up in rust. Great walls of sandstone and granite rise sheer from a flat desert floor of red sand, cut with canyons and carved with arches, and the whole protected area covers hundreds of square kilometres south of Jordan's King's Highway and east of the Desert Highway. The nearest sizeable town is Quweira, about twenty kilometres away, and Aqaba lies roughly an hour south.
Read the complete Wadi Rum Protected Area write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Wadi Rum Protected Area comes up about 74 km into the recorded legs. Next is Petra.
Petra is the most famous ruin in Jordan, and it earns the fame. The Nabataeans, an Arab people who grew rich on the incense and spice trade, carved their capital into the rose-coloured sandstone cliffs of a hidden valley more than two thousand years ago. You approach through the Siq, a narrow gorge about a kilometre long, with walls rising on either side until, at the end, the Treasury appears in a slice of light, a monumental facade cut straight out of the rock.
Read the complete Near Petra write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 184 km into the recorded legs you reach Petra. Next is back through Wadi Rum Protected Area.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Wadi Rum Protected Area write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Wadi Rum Protected Area, late in the day. Next is Aqaba Marine Reserve.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Aqaba Marine Reserve write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Aqaba Marine Reserve. That is the ride.
Aqaba Marine Reserve → Wadi Rum Protected Area is 74 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Wadi Rum Protected Area → Petra is 110 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Petra → back through Wadi Rum Protected Area is 111 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Wadi Rum Protected Area → Aqaba Marine Reserve is 75 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.