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 250 km round trip from Mungkid - roughly 3 h 33 in the saddle. On the way it passes The Cosmological Axis of Yogyakarta and it, Sangiran Early Man Site and back through The Cosmological Axis of Yogyakarta and it. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Pawon is the small one, and I have a soft spot for it. While Borobudur is huge and Mendut grand, Pawon is a compact stone temple about two kilometres from Borobudur, set in a quiet garden among village houses. It looks like a miniature tower, with a carved doorway, a tiered roof and relief carvings of trees and mythical beings on the outer walls, and inside, the chamber is almost empty. Scholars still debate what it was for, with one idea being that it was a place where pilgrims purified themselves before continuing to the larger temple, and another that it was linked to a royal figure.
Read the complete Pawon Temple write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pawon Temple is where the day begins. Next is The Cosmological Axis of Yogyakarta and it.
Yogyakarta was laid out along a line. In the eighteenth century, Sultan Hamengkubuwono I founded the city on an axis running from the smoking cone of Mount Merapi in the north to the Indian Ocean in the south, with the Tugu monument, the Kraton palace and the Panggung Krapyak stage pavilion placed along it, embodying Javanese ideas about the cycle of life and the relation between people, ruler and the cosmos. The Cosmological Axis of Yogyakarta and its Historic Landmarks was inscribed on the UNESCO list in 2023, and the sultanate still functions: the sultan is also the governor of the Special Region of Yogyakarta.
Read the complete The Cosmological Axis of Yogyakarta and it write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Cosmological Axis of Yogyakarta and it comes up about 40 km into the recorded legs. Next is Sangiran Early Man Site.
Half of what we know about Homo erectus in Asia seems to have come out of the ground near this village in central Java. Sangiran is a dome of eroded earth, a few kilometres across, in which stream cuts have exposed layers of volcanic ash and river sediment that built up over about two million years, and in those layers the bones of early humans and extinct animals have turned up. The first finds were made in the 1930s, notably by the German palaeontologist Ralph von Koenigswald, and the site has since produced the remains of some fifty individuals, about half of all known fossils of its kind in the world. UNESCO listed it in 1996.
Read the complete Sangiran Early Man Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 126 km into the recorded legs you reach Sangiran Early Man Site. Next is back through The Cosmological Axis of Yogyakarta and it.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Cosmological Axis of Yogyakarta and it write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Cosmological Axis of Yogyakarta and it, late in the day. Next is Pawon Temple.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Pawon Temple write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Pawon Temple. That is the ride.
Pawon Temple → The Cosmological Axis of Yogyakarta and it is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Cosmological Axis of Yogyakarta and it → Sangiran Early Man Site is 86 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Sangiran Early Man Site → back through The Cosmological Axis of Yogyakarta and it is 84 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through The Cosmological Axis of Yogyakarta and it → Pawon Temple is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.