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 Koch'ang it runs 259 km to Koch'ang; allow about 4 h 14 of riding. The stops in between: Getbol, Museong-seowon, Archeological Site in Wanggung-ri and back through Museong-seowon. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Korea has a remarkable concentration of the world's dolmens, and Gochang, on the southwest coast, has the largest cluster of all. Hundreds of these megalithic tombs are scattered along the foot of a range of low hills, some standing like tables on stone legs, others with a massive capstone resting almost directly on the ground. They were built during the Bronze Age by the people who farmed these lands, as tombs for the elite or as markers of territory and ritual. Together with the dolmen sites at Hwasun and on Ganghwa Island, they were listed by UNESCO in 2000.
Read the complete Koch'ang Dolmen Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Koch'ang Dolmen Site is where the day begins. Next is Getbol.
On Korea's west coast the sea goes out a very long way. The Yellow Sea has big tides, and when they drop they expose huge plains of mud, the getbol, glistening and grey and full of life. The Korean tidal flats were inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 2021, covering stretches from Seocheon in the north to Gochang, Shinan and Boseong-Suncheon in the south, and they are among the most important feeding grounds on Earth for migratory shorebirds travelling between Siberia and Australia. Crabs, mudskippers, worms and shellfish swarm in the mud, and people have harvested them for centuries.
Read the complete Getbol write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Getbol comes up about 32 km into the recorded legs. Next is Museong-seowon.
Just outside Jeongeup, in a village of low houses and persimmon trees, stands Museong-seowon, a Confucian academy that has served its community for centuries. It honours Choe Chi-won, the great ninth-century scholar of the Silla kingdom who served as magistrate in this area and whose poems and essays made him one of Korea's most celebrated writers. Seowon were private academies where young men studied the Confucian classics and the memory of revered scholars was honoured with rites, and Museong is one of nine inscribed together by UNESCO in 2019.
Read the complete Museong-seowon write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 75 km into the recorded legs you reach Museong-seowon. Next is Archeological Site in Wanggung-ri.
The Honam plain in south-western Korea is a wide, flat land of rice fields, and its northern edge near Iksan is the oldest rice country on the peninsula, where the kingdom of Baekje once had a second capital. Wanggung-ri is the site of a royal palace, about ten kilometres from the middle of Iksan, in fields gently rising to low hills. UNESCO recognised it in 2015 as one of the historic areas of Baekje, the old kingdom that ruled the south-west from the first to the seventh century.
Read the complete Archeological Site in Wanggung-ri write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Archeological Site in Wanggung-ri, about halfway. Next is back through Museong-seowon.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Museong-seowon write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Museong-seowon sits at 172 km, about halfway. Next is back through Getbol.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Getbol write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Getbol comes up about 227 km into the recorded legs. Next is Koch'ang Dolmen Site.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Koch'ang Dolmen Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Koch'ang Dolmen Site closes the day.
Koch'ang Dolmen Site → Getbol is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Getbol → Museong-seowon is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Museong-seowon → Archeological Site in Wanggung-ri is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Archeological Site in Wanggung-ri → back through Museong-seowon is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Museong-seowon → back through Getbol is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Getbol → Koch'ang Dolmen Site is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.