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.
It goes by way of Falaj Daris, Falaj Al-Muyasser, Archaeological Sites of Bat and back through Falaj Al-Muyasser. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,150 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 56 km this is Oman Jebel Akhdar Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
The Falaj Al-Malki is one of the irrigation channels that UNESCO listed in 2006 as part of the aflaj of Oman, and it lies near Izki, in the valley below the great wall of Jebel Akhdar. Izki is an old oasis town with palm groves and a ruined mud-brick quarter, strategically placed at the Sumail Gap, the natural pass that has linked the coast and the interior for thousands of years. Caravans, armies and traders all passed here, and the town has always had its share of tribal rivalries and politics.
Read the complete Falaj Al-Malki write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Falaj Al-Malki is where the day begins. Next is Falaj Daris.
Water has always been the measure of wealth in the Omani interior, and at Nizwa it arrives through a channel that has been flowing for centuries. Falaj Daris is the largest of the aflaj, the traditional irrigation systems of Oman, and it carries water from underground sources in the foothills of the Jebel Akhdar to the date gardens and fields of Nizwa. The system works by gravity, with tunnels and open channels sometimes running for kilometres, and the water is shared among farmers according to an ancient system of time-based rights, managed by a local official. Falaj Daris is one of five aflaj inscribed on the UNESCO list in 2006, recognising a technology that may go back two thousand years or more.
Read the complete Falaj Daris write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Falaj Daris comes up about 56 km into the recorded legs. Next is Falaj Al-Muyasser.
Water decides everything in Oman's interior, and the falaj is how people have managed it for well over a thousand years, by some accounts much longer. A falaj is a channel that brings water from a mountain spring, a wadi or an underground source, sometimes through tunnels dug by hand, and divides it among the farms of a village according to a strict timetable of shares. Falaj al-Muyassar in Rustaq is one of five aflaj inscribed by UNESCO in 2006 as examples of this system, which still keeps date palm gardens green at the edge of the desert.
Read the complete Falaj Al-Muyasser write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 309 km into the recorded legs you reach Falaj Al-Muyasser. Next is Archaeological Sites of Bat.
There is a ridge in the Omani interior where stone beehive towers still stand in a line against the sky, and they are about five thousand years old. The Bat area, near the oasis town of Ibri on the edge of the Hajar mountains, holds some of the best preserved remains of the Bronze Age in the Arabian peninsula, along with the nearby sites of Al-Khutm and Al-Ayn. The beehive tombs were built in the third millennium BC, in the so-called Umm an-Nar period, from stacked, dressed stones, and the settlement towers beside them watched over a landscape of wadis and date palms.
Read the complete Archaeological Sites of Bat write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Archaeological Sites of Bat, about halfway. Next is back through Falaj Al-Muyasser.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Falaj Al-Muyasser write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Falaj Al-Muyasser sits at 271 km, about halfway. Next is back through Falaj Daris.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Falaj Daris write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Falaj Daris comes up about 824 km into the recorded legs. Next is Falaj Al-Malki.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Falaj Al-Malki write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Falaj Al-Malki closes the day.
Falaj Al-Malki → Falaj Daris is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Falaj Daris → Falaj Al-Muyasser is 253 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Falaj Al-Muyasser → Archaeological Sites of Bat is 134 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Archaeological Sites of Bat → back through Falaj Al-Muyasser is 137 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Falaj Al-Muyasser → back through Falaj Daris is 244 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Falaj Daris → Falaj Al-Malki is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.