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 Moratalla it runs 599 km to Moratalla; allow about 13 h 12 of riding. The stops in between: Abrigo de los Covachos, Letreros de los mártires, Cañada de la Cruz and Abrigo del.melgar. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,400 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
The border between Albacete and Murcia runs through a tangle of mountains here, and the villages of Socovos, Férez and Letur sit among them like small islands. The Cueva del Esquilo is one of the painted rock shelters in these hills, a reminder that people lived and hunted in the Segura mountains thousands of years before any border existed. Like most of the rock art in the region, it is protected and best visited with local guidance; the town halls and tourist offices of the surrounding villages are the place to ask.
Read the complete Cueva del Esquilo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cueva del Esquilo is where the day begins. Next is Abrigo de los Covachos.
The Covachos, the little caves, are a short ride from Nerpio, a mountain village of about sixteen hundred people in the south-west of Albacete province, in the headwaters of the Segura river. The shelter is one of dozens in this district, which has one of the densest concentrations of prehistoric painting in Spain, in both the Levantine style and the later schematic one. UNESCO protects the Levantine sites as part of the Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin on the Iberian Peninsula. What makes Nerpio special is that the paintings are scattered through a living landscape of farms, springs and sheep tracks, so you may find yourself looking at a thousands-year-old figure with a shepherd's dog watching from the next rock.
Read the complete Abrigo de los Covachos write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Abrigo de los Covachos comes up about 35 km into the recorded legs. Next is Letreros de los mártires.
Out in the high north-east of Granada province, Huéscar feels a long way from the Alhambra and the beaches of the Costa Tropical. This is the altiplano, a broad upland of wheat fields, almond trees and pale badlands at around a thousand metres, ringed by mountains, with the great limestone hump of La Sagra rising to the north. The rock shelter called Letreros de los Mártires lies in this country, a dozen or so kilometres from the town.
Read the complete Letreros de los mártires write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 91 km into the recorded legs you reach Letreros de los mártires. Next is Cañada de la Cruz.
The Cañada de la Cruz is a high valley or drovers' pasture in the Segura mountains; cañada is the word for the traditional livestock routes and grazing grounds used by shepherds moving their flocks between summer and winter pastures, and this part of Spain has a long history of transhumance.
Read the complete Cañada de la Cruz write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cañada de la Cruz, about halfway. Next is Abrigo del.melgar, 42 km on.
Quesada is a white town at the foot of the Sierra de Cazorla, in the province of Jaén, surrounded by an ocean of olive trees. The groves stretch to the horizon in every direction, a landscape that makes Jaén the world's largest producer of olive oil. Behind the town, the mountains rise steeply, with pine forest and limestone cliffs, and the Guadalquivir river has its source not far away. The Abrigo del Melgar lies in the hills just outside the town.
Read the complete Abrigo del.melgar write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Abrigo del.melgar sits at 168 km, about halfway. Next is back through Cañada de la Cruz.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cañada de la Cruz write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cañada de la Cruz comes up about 436 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Letreros de los mártires.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Letreros de los mártires write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 505 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Letreros de los mártires. Next is back through Abrigo de los Covachos.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Abrigo de los Covachos write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Abrigo de los Covachos, late in the day. Next is Cueva del Esquilo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cueva del Esquilo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 599 km.
Cueva del Esquilo → Abrigo de los Covachos is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Abrigo de los Covachos → Letreros de los mártires is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Letreros de los mártires → Cañada de la Cruz is 72 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cañada de la Cruz → Abrigo del.melgar is 128 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Abrigo del.melgar → back through Cañada de la Cruz is 145 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cañada de la Cruz → back through Letreros de los mártires is 69 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Letreros de los mártires → back through Abrigo de los Covachos is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Abrigo de los Covachos → Cueva del Esquilo is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.