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 Kimhae it runs 252 km to Kimhae; allow about 4 h 18 of riding. It goes by way of Tongdosa Temple, Gyeongju Historic Areas, Yangdong Cluster: Yangdong Village and back through Gyeongju Historic Areas. The line favours views over speed.
Right in the middle of Gimhae, a busy city just west of Busan, a low ridge of grassy mounds rises between apartment blocks and roads. These are the Daeseong-dong tumuli, the burial ground of the rulers of Geumgwan Gaya, one of the small kingdoms of the Gaya confederacy that flourished in the south of the Korean peninsula from the first centuries AD until it was absorbed by Silla in the sixth century. In 2023 a group of Gaya burial sites, including these, was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list.
Read the complete Gaya Tumuli write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Gaya Tumuli is where the day begins. Next is Tongdosa Temple.
Most Korean Buddhist temples have a statue of the Buddha in their main hall. Tongdosa does not. Instead, a window behind the altar looks out onto a stone stupa that is said to contain relics of the historical Buddha, brought back from China by the monk Jajang, who founded the temple in 646. That makes Tongdosa one of the Three Jewel Temples of Korea, representing the Buddha himself, alongside Haeinsa, representing the teaching, and Songgwangsa, the community of monks. It is part of the UNESCO-listed Sansa, Buddhist Mountain Monasteries in Korea, inscribed in 2018.
Read the complete Tongdosa Temple write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Tongdosa Temple comes up about 46 km into the recorded legs. Next is Gyeongju Historic Areas.
For nearly a thousand years, until the tenth century, Gyeongju was the capital of the kingdom of Silla, and the whole city is a museum with traffic lights. Round the modern centre the old kingdom lies in plain sight: great grass-covered burial mounds in a park in the middle of town, the pond of Anapji where the court held feasts, the stone observatory of Cheomseongdae, one of the oldest of its kind in East Asia, and the forested hills of Namsan scattered with rock-carved Buddhas. UNESCO listed these areas together in 2000, and the pieces are spread around town rather than gathered in one compound.
Read the complete Gyeongju Historic Areas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 96 km into the recorded legs you reach Gyeongju Historic Areas. Next is Yangdong Cluster: Yangdong Village.
Yangdong is a village that was never really meant to be seen. The Wolseong Son clan and the Yeogang Yi clan settled in this fold of hills north of Gyeongju in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and over the next few hundred years the two families built the tiled mansions of the elite on the upper slopes and the thatched houses of everyone else below, all in careful relation to the hillside. It is one of the best preserved clan villages in Korea, and in 2010 it joined Hahoe, near Andong, on UNESCO's list of historic villages of Korea.
Read the complete Yangdong Cluster: Yangdong Village write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Yangdong Cluster: Yangdong Village, about halfway. Next is back through Gyeongju Historic Areas.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Gyeongju Historic Areas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Gyeongju Historic Areas sits at 168 km, about halfway. Next is back through Tongdosa Temple.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Tongdosa Temple write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Tongdosa Temple comes up about 205 km into the recorded legs. Next is Gaya Tumuli.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Gaya Tumuli write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Gaya Tumuli closes the day.
Gaya Tumuli → Tongdosa Temple is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Tongdosa Temple → Gyeongju Historic Areas is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Gyeongju Historic Areas → Yangdong Cluster: Yangdong Village is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Yangdong Cluster: Yangdong Village → back through Gyeongju Historic Areas is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Gyeongju Historic Areas → back through Tongdosa Temple is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Tongdosa Temple → Gaya Tumuli is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.