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: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
721 km from Dimona to Dimona, about 12 h 25 of riding. The stops in between: Incense Route - Desert Cities in the Negev, Petra and back through Incense Route - Desert Cities in the Negev. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,150 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Israel into Jordan - carry ID and check the toll rules. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Mamshit sits on a low spur above a dry riverbed in the northern Negev, a few kilometres east of Dimona, and from a distance it looks like nothing more than a heap of pale stones. Up close it becomes a town: streets, courtyards, staircases, arches, two Byzantine churches with mosaic floors and a set of large houses built by people who knew how to live comfortably in a hard place. This was Mampsis, a Nabataean settlement on the caravan routes that carried incense and spices from Arabia across the desert to the Mediterranean ports, and it shares a World Heritage inscription with Avdat, Haluza and Shivta as one of the desert cities of the Incense Route.
Read the complete Mamshit write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mamshit is where the day begins. Next is Incense Route - Desert Cities in the Negev.
The Negev is not the empty wasteland it appears to be from a plane. From roughly the third century BC to the second century AD, the Nabataeans, a people of Arabian origin who made their capital at Petra, ran one of the most profitable trades in the ancient world through it, carrying frankincense and myrrh from southern Arabia to the Mediterranean ports of Gaza. They controlled the water, building cisterns, dams and terraced fields to farm in an area with almost no rain, and along the route they raised caravan stations, forts and small cities, among them Avdat, Haluza, Mamshit and Shivta, which UNESCO listed together in 2005 as the Incense Route Desert Cities.
Read the complete Incense Route - Desert Cities in the Negev write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Incense Route - Desert Cities in the Negev comes up about 182 km into the recorded legs. Next is Petra.
Petra is the most famous ruin in Jordan, and it earns the fame. The Nabataeans, an Arab people who grew rich on the incense and spice trade, carved their capital into the rose-coloured sandstone cliffs of a hidden valley more than two thousand years ago. You approach through the Siq, a narrow gorge about a kilometre long, with walls rising on either side until, at the end, the Treasury appears in a slice of light, a monumental facade cut straight out of the rock.
Read the complete Near Petra write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 361 km into the recorded legs you reach Petra. Next is back through Incense Route - Desert Cities in the Negev.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Incense Route - Desert Cities in the Negev write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Incense Route - Desert Cities in the Negev, late in the day. Next is Mamshit.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Mamshit write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Mamshit. That is the ride.
Mamshit → Incense Route - Desert Cities in the Negev is 182 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Incense Route - Desert Cities in the Negev → Petra is 179 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Petra → back through Incense Route - Desert Cities in the Negev is 179 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Incense Route - Desert Cities in the Negev → Mamshit is 182 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.