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 288 km round trip from Greenhead - roughly 4 h 54 in the saddle. The stops in between: Hadrian's Wall vallum between the M6 motor, Skinburness, Burrow Walls Roman fort and Ravenglass Roman fort bath-house. The line favours views over speed.
A Syrian archer unit once garrisoned this hilltop. Carvoran was the Roman fort at the junction of the Wall with the Maiden Way, a road that ran north towards Scotland, and at one time the cohors I Hamiorum, an auxiliary unit raised in the city of Hama in Syria, was stationed here, men who had marched or sailed across the empire to guard a wet, windy ridge in Northumberland. A bronze grain measure found at Carvoran, the Carvoran modius, carries a long inscription that mentions the emperor Hadrian, and it gives a glimpse of how the garrison was supplied. The fort is mostly a grassy platform now, but the position, on a ridge with views over the Tyne Gap, shows why it was chosen.
Read the complete Carvoran Roman fort and Hadrian's Wall and write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Carvoran Roman fort and Hadrian's Wall and is where the day begins. Next is Hadrian's Wall vallum between the M6 motor.
On the eastern edge of Carlisle, where the M6 motorway sweeps north towards Scotland, the line of Hadrian's Wall crosses the fields and housing estates in a way that is barely visible. Yet the vallum, the great ditch the Romans dug south of the Wall, can still be traced here as a slight dip in the ground, and this stretch between the motorway and the outskirts of the city is part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage site. It takes some imagination, but standing here you are on the line that marked the edge of the empire for nearly three hundred years.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall vallum between the M6 motor write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall vallum between the M6 motor comes up about 28 km into the recorded legs. Next is Skinburness.
Skinburness is a scatter of houses at the tip of a shingle spit on the Solway coast of Cumbria, just north of Silloth, looking across the wide, shimmering estuary to the hills of Scotland. When the tide goes out, the Solway empties into vast expanses of sand and mud, with channels winding through them, and the light changes constantly as clouds race overhead. On clear evenings, the sunsets over the Scottish hills, with the dark bulk of Criffel opposite, are spectacular.
Read the complete Skinburness write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 67 km into the recorded legs you reach Skinburness. Next is Burrow Walls Roman fort.
On the northern edge of Workington, near the mouth of the river Derwent, a fragment of stone wall stands alone in a field, a jagged piece of masonry rising above the grass. It is part of Burrow Walls, a Roman fort that guarded the Cumbrian coast, one of the chain of defences that extended from the western end of Hadrian's Wall down the shore to watch for raiders crossing from Scotland and Ireland. Much of the fort's stone was reused in a medieval building on the site, and what survives today is modest, but it is part of the Hadrian's Wall World Heritage site and has a lonely charm, with views over the sea and the river.
Read the complete Burrow Walls Roman fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Burrow Walls Roman fort, about halfway. Next is Ravenglass Roman fort bath-house.
Walls Castle is the odd name for a Roman bath house, and the building still stands to a height of about four metres, one of the tallest Roman structures in northern England. It stood outside the fort of Glannoventa at Ravenglass, a harbour station at the meeting of three rivers, the Irt, the Mite and the Esk, and in the dry shelter of the dunes it has survived because its walls were thick and well built. You can walk around it on a short path from the village, and see niches and a doorway in the thick walls. The fort itself lies mostly under farmland and the railway.
Read the complete Ravenglass Roman fort bath-house write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ravenglass Roman fort bath-house sits at 161 km, about halfway. Next is back through Burrow Walls Roman fort.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Burrow Walls Roman fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Burrow Walls Roman fort comes up about 186 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Skinburness.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Skinburness write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 219 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Skinburness. Next is back through Hadrian's Wall vallum between the M6 motor.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall vallum between the M6 motor write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hadrian's Wall vallum between the M6 motor, late in the day. Next is Carvoran Roman fort and Hadrian's Wall and.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Carvoran Roman fort and Hadrian's Wall and write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 288 km.
Carvoran Roman fort and Hadrian's Wall and → Hadrian's Wall vallum between the M6 motor is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall vallum between the M6 motor → Skinburness is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Skinburness → Burrow Walls Roman fort is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Burrow Walls Roman fort → Ravenglass Roman fort bath-house is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ravenglass Roman fort bath-house → back through Burrow Walls Roman fort is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Burrow Walls Roman fort → back through Skinburness is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Skinburness → back through Hadrian's Wall vallum between the M6 motor is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hadrian's Wall vallum between the M6 motor → Carvoran Roman fort and Hadrian's Wall and is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.