CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
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Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
556 km from Mādabā to Mādabā, about 9 h 13 of riding. It goes by way of Wadi Mujib, Karak, Dana and Petra. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,150 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
A heritage mountain highway from Madaba, Jordan to Petra, Jordan, via Wadi Mujib. Key character: canyons; desert plateau; historic sites. Surface: paved.
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 52 km in. 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.
104 km in 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, about halfway. 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 sits at 208 km, about halfway. Next is back through Dana.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Dana write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Dana comes up 260 km in. Next is back through Karak.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Karak write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
312 km in you reach back through Karak. Next is back through Wadi Mujib.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Wadi Mujib write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Wadi Mujib, late in the day. Next is Madaba.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Madaba write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 556 km.