A word meaning "going south to get north"

I want to describe a situation when to get a south bound route you need to drive north. I'm looking for a noun. A couple possible suggestions I've seen:

"It is quite a bit of a diversion"

and

"It is quite a bit of a detour"

One could call it an "indirect route", but I'm looking for a noun, not an adjective.

Solution 1:

Sometimes you've got to go "the long way round". I've used that before, but never thought about it before.

Solution 2:

Meander is a noun that refers to a bend in a sinuous or winding river. Wikipedia notes,

...in Classical Greece the name of the river had become a common noun meaning anything convoluted and winding, such as decorative patterns or speech and ideas [...] Strabo said: "... its course is so exceedingly winding that everything winding is called meandering."

Thus, one might refer to a route as a meander, although the adjectival form meandering is more frequently heard. Some related adjectives include circuitous, roundabout, tortuous, winding, serpentine, crooked, sinuous, snaky. Some of these are also used as nouns; for example, serpentine meanings include "coiled distillation tube". One might plausibly call a winding route a serpent.

One could also say, "It's rather an excursion" to indicate that a route is unnecessarily roundabout.