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 356 km round trip from Nerpio - roughly 7 h 40 in the saddle. The stops in between: Solana del molinico, Cueva del Niño, Cavidad II and Cueva del Peliciego. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,300 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Very few people get here. The Cañaica del Calar lies in the far north-west of the region of Murcia, near the border with Albacete and Andalusia, in a wild landscape of limestone plateaus, pine forests and deep valleys around Moratalla and Nerpio. The calar is the local word for a limestone plateau, and the rock shelters on its edges hold prehistoric paintings in the Levantine style, part of the World Heritage rock art of the Mediterranean. The area around Nerpio is one of the richest in Spain for rock art.
Read the complete Cañaica del Calar l write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cañaica del Calar l is where the day begins. Next is Solana del molinico.
Socovos is the sort of village you only find by getting a little lost: a cluster of white houses below a ruined castle in the far southeast of Albacete province, where the plains of La Mancha give way to the tangled ridges of the Sierra de Segura. Solana del Molinico, close by, is one of the rock-art shelters in this corner of Spain that belong to the UNESCO listing for Levantine rock art. The word solana means a sun-facing slope, and many of these painted overhangs face south, catching the warmth on winter days just as they must have done when hunters and gatherers sheltered here.
Read the complete Solana del molinico write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Solana del molinico comes up about 36 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cueva del Niño.
Ayna is a village of white houses clinging to the walls of a deep gorge carved by the Mundo river, in the Sierra de Alcaraz in the southwest of Albacete province. Its setting is so dramatic that it is sometimes called the Little Switzerland of La Mancha, and it was the backdrop for the cult Spanish film Amanece, que no es poco, a surreal comedy shot here in the late 1980s. A few kilometres away, in a rocky ravine, the Cueva del Niño holds something rare for this part of Spain: Palaeolithic paintings of deer, ibex and horses, much older than the Levantine figures painted later on the same walls. It is part of the UNESCO listing of Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin on the Iberian Peninsula, and access is restricted to protect the paintings.
Read the complete Cueva del Niño write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 78 km into the recorded legs you reach Cueva del Niño. Next is Cavidad II.
South of Hellín the land opens into the dry, high steppe of southern Albacete, a country of esparto grass, almond terraces and bare limestone ridges, and it is in these ridges that the small painted cavities of the area hide. Cavidad II is one of them, a modest hollow in the rock with prehistoric pigment on its walls, part of a dense scatter of rock art sites around the Minateda area that archaeologists have studied for more than a century. Like most of the Levantine sites it is fragile and frequently protected by a grille, so it rewards patience and imagination more than a quick photograph.
Read the complete Cavidad II write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cavidad II, about halfway. Next is Cueva del Peliciego.
Jumilla is wine. This town in the north of Murcia sits in a high, dry valley surrounded by bare mountains, and its vineyards, planted with the Monastrell grape, produce powerful red wines under the Jumilla designation of origin, one of the oldest in Spain. The Cueva del Peliciego, a rock shelter in the hills near the town, holds prehistoric paintings in the Levantine style, and it has been known since the early twentieth century, when it was one of the first rock art sites studied in the region.
Read the complete Cueva del Peliciego write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cueva del Peliciego sits at 171 km, about halfway. Next is back through Cavidad II.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cavidad II write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cavidad II comes up about 213 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Cueva del Niño.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cueva del Niño write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 278 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Cueva del Niño. Next is back through Solana del molinico.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Solana del molinico write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Solana del molinico, late in the day. Next is Cañaica del Calar l.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cañaica del Calar l write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 356 km.
Cañaica del Calar l → Solana del molinico is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Solana del molinico → Cueva del Niño is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cueva del Niño → Cavidad II is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cavidad II → Cueva del Peliciego is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cueva del Peliciego → back through Cavidad II is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cavidad II → back through Cueva del Niño is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cueva del Niño → back through Solana del molinico is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Solana del molinico → Cañaica del Calar l is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.