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 Mungkid it runs 254 km to Mungkid; allow about 3 h 41 of riding. The stops in between: The Cosmological Axis of Yogyakarta and it, Sangiran Early Man Site and back through The Cosmological Axis of Yogyakarta and it. The line favours views over speed.
The name Compounds is the clue to what makes this place unusual: Borobudur is not alone. The monument forms part of a larger sacred landscape in the Kedu Plain, where the river Progo and the river Elo meet, a setting that Javanese tradition regarded as a spiritual centre. Two smaller temples, Pawon and Mendut, stand to the east of the main monument in a straight line, and the three together were included in the UNESCO listing. Archaeologists still argue over exactly why they were aligned that way, but the idea that pilgrims once walked between them as part of a ritual route is widely accepted.
Read the complete Borobudur Temple Compounds write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Borobudur Temple Compounds is where the day begins. Next is The Cosmological Axis of Yogyakarta and it.
Yogyakarta was laid out along a line. In the eighteenth century, Sultan Hamengkubuwono I founded the city on an axis running from the smoking cone of Mount Merapi in the north to the Indian Ocean in the south, with the Tugu monument, the Kraton palace and the Panggung Krapyak stage pavilion placed along it, embodying Javanese ideas about the cycle of life and the relation between people, ruler and the cosmos. The Cosmological Axis of Yogyakarta and its Historic Landmarks was inscribed on the UNESCO list in 2023, and the sultanate still functions: the sultan is also the governor of the Special Region of Yogyakarta.
Read the complete The Cosmological Axis of Yogyakarta and it write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Cosmological Axis of Yogyakarta and it comes up about 42 km into the recorded legs. Next is Sangiran Early Man Site.
Half of what we know about Homo erectus in Asia seems to have come out of the ground near this village in central Java. Sangiran is a dome of eroded earth, a few kilometres across, in which stream cuts have exposed layers of volcanic ash and river sediment that built up over about two million years, and in those layers the bones of early humans and extinct animals have turned up. The first finds were made in the 1930s, notably by the German palaeontologist Ralph von Koenigswald, and the site has since produced the remains of some fifty individuals, about half of all known fossils of its kind in the world. UNESCO listed it in 1996.
Read the complete Sangiran Early Man Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 128 km into the recorded legs you reach Sangiran Early Man Site. Next is back through The Cosmological Axis of Yogyakarta and it.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Cosmological Axis of Yogyakarta and it write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Cosmological Axis of Yogyakarta and it, late in the day. Next is Borobudur Temple Compounds.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Borobudur Temple Compounds write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Borobudur Temple Compounds. That is the ride.
Borobudur Temple Compounds → The Cosmological Axis of Yogyakarta and it is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Cosmological Axis of Yogyakarta and it → Sangiran Early Man Site is 86 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Sangiran Early Man Site → back through The Cosmological Axis of Yogyakarta and it is 85 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through The Cosmological Axis of Yogyakarta and it → Borobudur Temple Compounds is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.