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 Gyeongju it runs 324 km to Gyeongju; allow about 5 h 16 of riding. It goes by way of Gyo-dong and Songhyeon-dong Tumuli, Haeinsa Temple Janggyeong Panjeon and back through Gyo-dong and Songhyeon-dong Tumuli. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Gyeongju was the capital of the Silla kingdom for nearly a thousand years, and it is often called a museum without walls, because the tombs, temple sites and palace ruins lie scattered through a modern provincial city. Hwangnyongsa was once the greatest temple in the kingdom, begun in 553, and its nine-storey wooden pagoda, built in the seventh century after the monk Jajang came back from China, was one of the tallest wooden buildings in East Asia. The temple was burned down when the Mongols invaded in 1238, and what is left is a wide field of foundation stones, where the outline of the great hall and the pagoda base can still be made out.
Read the complete Hwangnyongsa Belt write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hwangnyongsa Belt is where the day begins. Next is Gyo-dong and Songhyeon-dong Tumuli.
The rounded grassy mounds rising behind Changnyeong look almost like natural hills until you notice how regular they are. These are the Gyo-dong and Songhyeon-dong tumuli, burial mounds of the rulers of Bihwa, one of the small kingdoms of the Gaya confederacy that flourished in the south of the Korean peninsula between roughly the first and sixth centuries before being absorbed by Silla. In 2023 they became part of a UNESCO listing that brings together seven Gaya tomb clusters, and they are among the most atmospheric of the group.
Read the complete Gyo-dong and Songhyeon-dong Tumuli write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Gyo-dong and Songhyeon-dong Tumuli comes up about 94 km into the recorded legs. Next is Haeinsa Temple Janggyeong Panjeon.
High in the forested folds of Gayasan, in South Gyeongsang province, a temple keeps one of the great treasures of the Buddhist world. Haeinsa holds the Tripitaka Koreana, more than eighty thousand wooden printing blocks carved in the thirteenth century with the complete Buddhist scriptures, an act of devotion undertaken while the Mongols were invading Korea, in the hope that the Buddha's protection would save the country. The blocks are kept in the Janggyeong Panjeon, a pair of long, plain wooden halls built in the fifteenth century, and the halls are the real marvel. Their design uses natural ventilation, windows of different sizes on opposite walls, and a floor packed with charcoal, lime, clay and salt to regulate humidity and temperature, and they have protected the blocks for centuries without modern technology. The halls were listed by UNESCO in 1995.
Read the complete Haeinsa Temple Janggyeong Panjeon write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 162 km into the recorded legs you reach Haeinsa Temple Janggyeong Panjeon. Next is back through Gyo-dong and Songhyeon-dong Tumuli.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Gyo-dong and Songhyeon-dong Tumuli write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Gyo-dong and Songhyeon-dong Tumuli, late in the day. Next is Hwangnyongsa Belt.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hwangnyongsa Belt write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Hwangnyongsa Belt. That is the ride.
Hwangnyongsa Belt → Gyo-dong and Songhyeon-dong Tumuli is 94 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Gyo-dong and Songhyeon-dong Tumuli → Haeinsa Temple Janggyeong Panjeon is 68 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Haeinsa Temple Janggyeong Panjeon → back through Gyo-dong and Songhyeon-dong Tumuli is 68 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Gyo-dong and Songhyeon-dong Tumuli → Hwangnyongsa Belt is 94 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.