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.
The stops in between: Petra, Wadi Rum Protected Area and back through Petra. 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. The line favours views over speed.
South of Mitzpe Ramon the Negev stops pretending to be a place of towns and becomes pure geography. This is high desert, around the edge of the great Ramon Crater, a vast erosion valley some forty kilometres long, which geologists call a makhtesh and which exists in only a handful of places in the world. From the lip you look down into a shallow bowl of coloured rock, ochre, black and cream, and the quiet is unusual. At night, the stars here are some of the best you will see anywhere in the Middle East.
Read the complete The route write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route is where the day begins. 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.
Petra comes up about 67 km into the recorded legs. Next is Wadi Rum Protected Area.
Wadi Rum looks like the moon dressed up in rust. Great walls of sandstone and granite rise sheer from a flat desert floor of red sand, cut with canyons and carved with arches, and the whole protected area covers hundreds of square kilometres south of Jordan's King's Highway and east of the Desert Highway. The nearest sizeable town is Quweira, about twenty kilometres away, and Aqaba lies roughly an hour south.
Read the complete Wadi Rum Protected Area write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 171 km into the recorded legs you reach Wadi Rum Protected Area. Next is back through 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.
back through Petra, late in the day. Next is The route.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The route write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at The route. That is the ride.
The route → Petra is 67 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Petra → Wadi Rum Protected Area is 104 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Wadi Rum Protected Area → back through Petra is 104 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Petra → The route is 67 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.