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.
A 325 km round trip from Gyeongju - roughly 5 h 31 in the saddle. It goes by way of Petroglyphs along the Bangucheon Stream, Yangdong Cluster: Yangdong Village, Tongdosa Temple and back through Yangdong Cluster: Yangdong Village. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
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.
Gyeongju Historic Areas is where the day begins. Next is Petroglyphs along the Bangucheon Stream.
On a cliff face above a quiet stream in the hills west of Ulsan, prehistoric people carved hundreds of images into the rock: whales, turtles, deer, tigers, boats full of men, hunters with spears and nets. The whales are the most striking, with species that can still be identified, such as right whales and humpbacks, and scenes that seem to show whaling from boats, making the Bangudae petroglyphs one of the oldest records of whaling anywhere. A little upstream, the Cheonjeon-ri petroglyphs, with geometric patterns, animals and later inscriptions from the Silla period, add another layer. In 2025, the Petroglyphs along the Bangucheon Stream were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Read the complete Petroglyphs along the Bangucheon Stream write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Petroglyphs along the Bangucheon Stream comes up about 34 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 92 km into the recorded legs you reach Yangdong Cluster: Yangdong Village. 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, about halfway. Next is back through Yangdong Cluster: Yangdong Village.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Yangdong Cluster: Yangdong Village write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Yangdong Cluster: Yangdong Village sits at 224 km, about halfway. Next is back through Petroglyphs along the Bangucheon Stream.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Petroglyphs along the Bangucheon Stream write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Petroglyphs along the Bangucheon Stream comes up about 289 km into the recorded legs. Next is 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.
Gyeongju Historic Areas closes the day.
Gyeongju Historic Areas → Petroglyphs along the Bangucheon Stream is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Petroglyphs along the Bangucheon Stream → Yangdong Cluster: Yangdong Village is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Yangdong Cluster: Yangdong Village → Tongdosa Temple is 71 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Tongdosa Temple → back through Yangdong Cluster: Yangdong Village is 71 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Yangdong Cluster: Yangdong Village → back through Petroglyphs along the Bangucheon Stream is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Petroglyphs along the Bangucheon Stream → Gyeongju Historic Areas is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.