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.
The stops in between: Peak Wilderness Protected Area, Horton Plains National Park, Sacred City of Kandy and back through Horton Plains National Park. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,300 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. Much of it runs through woodland.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 104 km this is Sri Lanka Hill Country Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Sinharaja is the last large patch of primary lowland rainforest in Sri Lanka, a dense green world of towering trees, streams and constant dripping humidity in the south-west of the island. The name means lion king, though there are no lions; there are, however, leopards, purple-faced langurs, giant squirrels and an extraordinary number of species found nowhere else, especially birds, frogs and plants. It was listed as a World Heritage site in 1988, and ornithologists come from all over the world to see the mixed flocks that move through the canopy, with blue magpies, jungle babblers and drongos travelling together in noisy, colourful groups.
Read the complete Sinharaja Forest Reserve write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sinharaja Forest Reserve is where the day begins. Next is Peak Wilderness Protected Area.
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 comes up about 143 km into the recorded legs. Next is Horton Plains National Park.
Horton Plains is a high, cool plateau in the central highlands of Sri Lanka, at around two thousand metres, and it feels a world away from the island's beaches and jungles. The ground is rolling grassland and patches of stunted cloud forest, wind-bent and covered in moss, with rhododendron and wild flowers at the edges. The air is thin and cold, and in the morning you may see breath and frost on the grass. Sambar deer graze in the open, and the park is home to many endemic birds and to rare small mammals, such as the Horton Plains slender loris.
Read the complete Horton Plains National Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 244 km into the recorded legs you reach Horton Plains National Park. 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, about halfway. Next is back through Horton Plains National Park.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Horton Plains National Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Horton Plains National Park sits at 244 km, about halfway. Next is back through 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 through Peak Wilderness Protected Area comes up about 546 km into the recorded legs. Next is Sinharaja Forest Reserve.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sinharaja Forest Reserve write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sinharaja Forest Reserve closes the day.
Sinharaja Forest Reserve → Peak Wilderness Protected Area is 143 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Peak Wilderness Protected Area → Horton Plains National Park is 101 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Horton Plains National Park → Sacred City of Kandy is 104 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Sacred City of Kandy → back through Horton Plains National Park is 102 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Horton Plains National Park → back through Peak Wilderness Protected Area is 96 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Peak Wilderness Protected Area → Sinharaja Forest Reserve is 149 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.