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: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
509 km from Nizwá to Nizwá, about 8 h 45 of riding. On the way it passes Bahla Fort, Falaj Al-Muyasser and back through Bahla Fort. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,150 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 32 km this is Oman Jebel Akhdar Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
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 is where the day begins. Next is Bahla Fort.
Bahla Fort rises above the oasis like a mountain made of mud. Its massive walls and towers of adobe and stone, built on a rocky outcrop in the plain below the Hajar mountains, were the stronghold of the Banu Nebhan, a tribe that dominated the region from roughly the twelfth to the fifteenth century. Around the fort, the old town of Bahla is enclosed by a wall that runs for kilometres across the oasis, and the date palms and fields inside are watered by aflaj, ancient irrigation channels that carry water from underground sources and springs. UNESCO listed the fort in 1987, and after years of restoration, it is open to visitors.
Read the complete Bahla Fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Bahla Fort comes up about 87 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 253 km into the recorded legs you reach Falaj Al-Muyasser. Next is back through Bahla Fort.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Bahla Fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Bahla Fort, late in the day. Next is 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 at Falaj Daris. That is the ride.
Falaj Daris → Bahla Fort is 87 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Bahla Fort → Falaj Al-Muyasser is 166 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Falaj Al-Muyasser → back through Bahla Fort is 166 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Bahla Fort → Falaj Daris is 87 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.