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 220 km one-way ride from near Mādabā, about 3 h 22 of riding. The stops in between: Wadi Mujib and Karak. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,100 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Madaba is the town of mosaics, and the reason is a floor. In the Church of St George, a nineteenth-century Greek Orthodox building, lies a sixth-century Byzantine mosaic map of the Holy Land, made from some two million tiny stones, which shows Jerusalem, the Nile delta and the Dead Sea with astonishing detail. It came to light again in 1884 when the church was being built, and it remains the oldest known cartographic depiction of the region. Other churches and houses in town contain fine mosaics too, and a small archaeological park displays some of the best, so you can easily spend a morning looking at the floors.
Read the complete Madaba write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Madaba is where the day begins. Next is Wadi Mujib.
Wadi Mujib is a deep gorge in the Jordanian plateau, cut by the Mujib river on its way to the Dead Sea. The King's Highway crosses it on a dramatic descent, dropping from the high farmland of Moab down into the canyon and climbing out again on the far side, and the change of altitude is striking. The gorge is about four kilometres wide at the top and the floor lies close to the level of the Dead Sea, one of the lowest places on Earth. In the Bible this canyon was known as the Arnon, and it marked the border of Moab.
Read the complete Wadi Mujib write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Wadi Mujib comes up about 70 km into the recorded legs. Next is Karak.
Karak is dominated by its castle, which sits on a spur above the town and looks as stern now as it did eight centuries ago. The Crusaders built it in the 1140s, under the kings of Jerusalem, to control the road between Damascus and Egypt and the pilgrim route to Mecca, and for a few decades it was one of the most important strongholds of the Latin East. Its most notorious lord, Reynald of Châtillon, raided Muslim caravans from here, and the dark vaulted corridors and cellars are a good place to imagine the sieges. In 1188, after a long blockade that followed the Battle of Hattin, Saladin took the castle, and it later passed to the Mamluks, who added their own towers and halls.
Read the complete Karak write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 122 km into the recorded legs you reach Karak. Next is Dana.
Dana is a village that clings to the edge of a cliff, and from its terrace the land falls away in a great gulf of rock, with the desert plain of Wadi Araba shimmering far below. It stands in the highlands of southern Jordan at about 1,200 metres, a cluster of old stone houses that were abandoned in the twentieth century and are now partly restored, at the heart of the Dana Biosphere Reserve, the largest nature reserve in the country.
Read the complete Dana write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Dana closes the day.
Madaba → Wadi Mujib is 70 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Wadi Mujib → Karak is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Karak → Dana is 98 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.