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 469 km round trip from Baekjeon - roughly 8 h 00 in the saddle. It goes by way of Haeinsa Temple Janggyeong Panjeon, Dodong-seowon, Gaya Tumuli and back through Dodong-seowon. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
The people of the Gaya confederacy never built an empire, which is why they are overshadowed by the neighbouring kingdoms of Baekje and Silla. But in the fifth and sixth centuries they ran a loose group of small states in the south of the Korean peninsula, famous for iron, and the tumuli in Jangsu, on the high ground of Jeolla province, are evidence that this mountain county had its own ruler. The round grassy mounds of Yugok-ri and Durak-ri sit on ridges and in fields, and iron tools, horse gear and weapons have been dug out of them. They are part of the UNESCO listing for the Gaya Tumuli, added in 2023.
Read the complete Yugok-ri and Durak-ri Tumuli write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Yugok-ri and Durak-ri Tumuli is where the day begins. Next is Haeinsa Temple Janggyeong Panjeon.
High in the forested folds of Gayasan, in South Gyeongsang province, a temple keeps one of the great treasures of the Buddhist world. Haeinsa holds the Tripitaka Koreana, more than eighty thousand wooden printing blocks carved in the thirteenth century with the complete Buddhist scriptures, an act of devotion undertaken while the Mongols were invading Korea, in the hope that the Buddha's protection would save the country. The blocks are kept in the Janggyeong Panjeon, a pair of long, plain wooden halls built in the fifteenth century, and the halls are the real marvel. Their design uses natural ventilation, windows of different sizes on opposite walls, and a floor packed with charcoal, lime, clay and salt to regulate humidity and temperature, and they have protected the blocks for centuries without modern technology. The halls were listed by UNESCO in 1995.
Read the complete Haeinsa Temple Janggyeong Panjeon write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Haeinsa Temple Janggyeong Panjeon comes up about 80 km into the recorded legs. Next is Dodong-seowon.
The ginkgo tree in front of Dodong-seowon is over four hundred years old, a massive trunk with branches spreading wide, and in early November it turns a brilliant yellow and sheds its leaves into a golden carpet that photographers come from all over Korea to see. Behind it, the academy itself climbs a gentle slope in a series of courtyards and wooden halls, with a view over the Nakdong river. Dodong-seowon was founded in the sixteenth century to honour Kim Goeng-pil, a Neo-Confucian scholar executed in a political purge, and it is one of the nine Seowon, Korean Neo-Confucian Academies, inscribed on the UNESCO list in 2019.
Read the complete Dodong-seowon write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 136 km into the recorded legs you reach Dodong-seowon. Next is Gaya Tumuli.
Right in the middle of Gimhae, a busy city just west of Busan, a low ridge of grassy mounds rises between apartment blocks and roads. These are the Daeseong-dong tumuli, the burial ground of the rulers of Geumgwan Gaya, one of the small kingdoms of the Gaya confederacy that flourished in the south of the Korean peninsula from the first centuries AD until it was absorbed by Silla in the sixth century. In 2023 a group of Gaya burial sites, including these, was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list.
Read the complete Gaya Tumuli write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Gaya Tumuli, about halfway. Next is back through Dodong-seowon.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Dodong-seowon write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Dodong-seowon sits at 270 km, about halfway. Next is back through Haeinsa Temple Janggyeong Panjeon.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Haeinsa Temple Janggyeong Panjeon write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Haeinsa Temple Janggyeong Panjeon comes up about 388 km into the recorded legs. Next is Yugok-ri and Durak-ri Tumuli.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Yugok-ri and Durak-ri Tumuli write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Yugok-ri and Durak-ri Tumuli closes the day.
Yugok-ri and Durak-ri Tumuli → Haeinsa Temple Janggyeong Panjeon is 80 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Haeinsa Temple Janggyeong Panjeon → Dodong-seowon is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Dodong-seowon → Gaya Tumuli is 98 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Gaya Tumuli → back through Dodong-seowon is 98 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Dodong-seowon → back through Haeinsa Temple Janggyeong Panjeon is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Haeinsa Temple Janggyeong Panjeon → Yugok-ri and Durak-ri Tumuli is 81 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.