soul journey: Gadjah Mungkur

valley of opak

That wet and rainy day we decided to shoot our chance in the road, that day it was Gadjah Mungkur dam in wonogiri regency as the destination. The rain ran continuously all day, heavy, drizzle, with some stop gaps, that's why in this journey we can only made only few photographs during the rain's stop gaps.

moped

Here we go again with this small villain moped, onward to the dam. In the drizzle at first we took the Jogjakarta-Surakarta main road, in the contrary of our adventure through small roads. At the T-junction nearby the Jogjakarta airport, the traffic congestion had built up, damn it was part of long weekend where everybody seems to take vacation in Jogjakarta-Surakarta area. It was meant to be, small road it is, we took a u-turn and headed toward Jogjakarta-Wonosari road, it was much much much better traffic load. This moped can easily climb Pathuk hill in the Jogjakarta-Wonosari road in less than 30 minutes we reached the T junction in Pathuk that will lead us to the central Java.

border sign

The sign showed Nglipar town, we soldiered on to that small town. The road was nicely asphalt the view was stunning, northern part of southern karst mountain was the headwater of Oya river, one of the largest river in jogjakarta. The scenery was green, lotsa paddy fields and small rivers in the valley. There were less limestone here, more volcanic stone and loam, one of ancient volcano crater the Nglanggeran extinct volcano was located in the northen part of gunung kidul not far from Pathuk. It was next in the must visit list.

potholes road

Along this road there were several T-junction that headed north toward Klaten area, but as Klaten was lowland we stayed our self by the hill roads, the view was just awesome. After about two hours we reached the central Java and Jogjakarta border, the border signs were only a sign post and milestone, here the butt misery begun. The road network in central Java especially the small roads were not as maintained as those in Jogjakarta, more potholes, wavy asphalt, and less road sign. Politely speaking : TERRIBLE.

41111.1

Then it hit us, in this slow potholes infested road, the magic number suddenly appears, my odometer showed 41,111.1 kms. If you think about it, it's about 3 times around the world on the equator. It's been a long way my friend, and we'll continue to ride and add more kilometers.

We reach the outskirt of Wonogiri city almost near dusk, with heavy cloudy in our head. These were the final photographs before we losing light. Then we head home to Jjogjakarta thru Klaten sawah (paddy field) road in hail storm of insects and rain and then the main Jogjakarta-Surakarta road.

Riding distant : 177km
Riding duration : 6 hours