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 Hatton it runs 323 km to Hatton; allow about 6 h 56 of riding. On the way it passes Sacred City of Kandy, Rangiri Dambulla Cave Temple and back through Sacred City of Kandy. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,100 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
At the heart of Sri Lanka's hill country rises a sharp cone of rock that Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims and Christians all hold sacred. Sri Pada, known to many as Adam's Peak, stands at 2,243 metres, and on its summit is a large depression in the rock shaped like a footprint. For Buddhists it is the footprint of the Buddha; for Hindus, of Shiva; for Muslims and some Christians, of Adam. The mountain lies within the Peak Wilderness Protected Area, a large expanse of montane forest that is part of the Central Highlands of Sri Lanka World Heritage site, listed in 2010.
Read the complete Peak Wilderness Protected Area write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Peak Wilderness Protected Area is where the day begins. Next is Sacred City of Kandy.
Kandy sits in a bowl of hills in the middle of Sri Lanka, about five hundred metres above the sea, with a small artificial lake in the middle and the roofs of the Temple of the Tooth at its edge. The city was the last capital of the Sinhalese kings, who held out in the hills against the Portuguese, Dutch and then British for more than two centuries, until the British took it in 1815. The relic that gave the place its sanctity, a tooth said to be that of the Buddha, was brought to the island in the fourth century and passed from capital to capital, and has been kept in Kandy for centuries. The Sri Dalada Maligawa, its home, is white, gold-roofed and surrounded by a moat, and the evening drum ritual, with conch shells and chanting, is a moving thing to watch.
Read the complete Sacred City of Kandy write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sacred City of Kandy comes up about 89 km into the recorded legs. Next is Rangiri Dambulla Cave Temple.
The rock at Dambulla rises some hundred and fifty metres above the plain in the dry heart of Sri Lanka, a great bald dome of granite, and in its upper flank five caves hold one of the most extraordinary Buddhist shrines in Asia. Tradition says King Valagamba sheltered here in the first century BC when he was driven out of Anuradhapura, and that after regaining his throne he turned the caves into a temple in gratitude. Monks had been using them long before that, and kings went on adding to them for centuries.
Read the complete Rangiri Dambulla Cave Temple write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 160 km into the recorded legs you reach Rangiri Dambulla Cave Temple. Next is back through Sacred City of Kandy.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sacred City of Kandy write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Sacred City of Kandy, late in the day. Next is Peak Wilderness Protected Area.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Peak Wilderness Protected Area write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Peak Wilderness Protected Area. That is the ride.
Peak Wilderness Protected Area → Sacred City of Kandy is 89 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Sacred City of Kandy → Rangiri Dambulla Cave Temple is 71 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Rangiri Dambulla Cave Temple → back through Sacred City of Kandy is 74 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Sacred City of Kandy → Peak Wilderness Protected Area is 89 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.