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 Barra it runs 188 km to Barra; allow about 3 h 58 of riding. On the way it passes Remains of Portuguese Chapel, Saloum Delta and back through Remains of Portuguese Chapel. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Take the ferry from Banjul and the first thing you see across the water is a low fort squatting at the river mouth, its cannon still pointing out toward the Atlantic. Fort Bullen guards the northern bank of the Gambia, in Barra, and it was built by the British in 1826 to keep watch on the slave ships that kept slipping past after Britain had outlawed the trade. The brick walls are modest and the guns are old, but the position says everything: whoever held this bank held the river, and the river was the Gambia's only real road into the interior.
Read the complete Fort Bullen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fort Bullen is where the day begins. Next is Remains of Portuguese Chapel.
The Gambia is a country shaped like a river, a ribbon of land on either bank of a wide, slow stream that cuts deep into Senegal, and Albreda is a village on the north bank that tells the story of why Europeans came. The Portuguese were the first, in the fifteenth century, trading with the peoples of the river, and the remains of their chapel, a ruined stone and brick shell, stand among the houses. The French set up a trading post at Albreda in the seventeenth century, and the British, who held James Island, now Kunta Kinteh Island, a short boat ride away, fought them for control of the river trade. The trade was in gold, ivory, hides and, increasingly, human beings, and the slave trade from this stretch of the Gambia lasted some three centuries. UNESCO listed Kunta Kinteh Island and Related Sites in 2003.
Read the complete Remains of Portuguese Chapel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Remains of Portuguese Chapel comes up about 33 km into the recorded legs. Next is Saloum Delta.
The Saloum Delta is where the river Saloum and its arms dissolve into a maze of mangrove channels, sandbanks and low islands before meeting the Atlantic, about halfway between Dakar and the Gambian border. It is a flat, watery, shimmering place, where the horizon is a line of mangroves and the only things standing taller than a man are baobabs and the occasional village water tower. Locals call the narrow creeks bolongs, and they wind through the delta like veins.
Read the complete Saloum Delta write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 94 km into the recorded legs you reach Saloum Delta. Next is back through Remains of Portuguese Chapel.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Remains of Portuguese Chapel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Remains of Portuguese Chapel, late in the day. Next is Fort Bullen.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fort Bullen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Fort Bullen. That is the ride.
Fort Bullen → Remains of Portuguese Chapel is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Remains of Portuguese Chapel → Saloum Delta is 61 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Saloum Delta → back through Remains of Portuguese Chapel is 61 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Remains of Portuguese Chapel → Fort Bullen is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.