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.
839 km from Petra to Petra, about 14 h 27 of riding. The stops in between: Incense Route - Desert Cities in the Negev, Shivta, Haluza and back through Shivta. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,150 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Jordan into Israel - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
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.
Petra 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 169 km into the recorded legs. Next is Shivta.
There is no water at Shivta, and yet a town of some size thrived here, in the middle of the Negev desert, for several centuries. Its people collected every drop of rain that fell on the surrounding hills and channelled it into cisterns, and they grew grapes, wheat and olives in the dry valleys around. Shivta began as a Nabataean settlement on the trade routes between Arabia and the Mediterranean, and it reached its peak in the Byzantine period, when it had three churches, houses, wine presses and streets of stone. It is part of the Incense Route listed by UNESCO, with the desert cities of Avdat, Haluza and Mamshit.
Read the complete Shivta write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 338 km into the recorded legs you reach Shivta. Next is Haluza.
Halutza is a ghost of a city in the sand. Founded by the Nabataeans as a waystation on the incense route from Arabia to the Mediterranean, it grew in the Roman and Byzantine periods into the most important city of the Negev, known in Greek as Elusa, with a theatre, churches and a famous school of rhetoric. Then it faded, the sand moved in, and today only fragments of walls, a small theatre and the remains of churches poke out of the dunes south-west of Beersheba. It is part of the UNESCO-listed Incense Route and desert cities of the Negev, along with Avdat, Mamshit and Shivta.
Read the complete Haluza write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Haluza, about halfway. Next is back through Shivta.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Shivta write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Shivta sits at 559 km, about halfway. 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 comes up about 673 km into the recorded legs. Next is Petra.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Near Petra write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Petra closes the day.
Petra → Incense Route - Desert Cities in the Negev is 169 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Incense Route - Desert Cities in the Negev → Shivta is 169 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Shivta → Haluza is 83 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Haluza → back through Shivta is 83 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Shivta → back through Incense Route - Desert Cities in the Negev is 169 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Incense Route - Desert Cities in the Negev → Petra is 169 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.