Makran Coastal Highway

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Karachi

   Karachi is one of the largest cities on Earth, and it behaves like it. More than eleven million people live here, by the official count, and the real number is probably higher, in a sprawl along the Arabian Sea that never really stops. The traffic is a wall of buses, rickshaws, motorbikes, donkey carts and overloaded trucks, and the air smells of diesel, frying oil and sea.

   Read the complete Karachi write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Karachi is where the day begins. Next is Hingol National Park.

2. 2. Hingol National Park

   The Hingol River reaches the Arabian Sea through one of the strangest landscapes in Pakistan, and the national park around it is the largest in the country. It covers a huge expanse of dry mountains, dunes and badlands where wind and water have carved the sandstone into towers, buttresses and needles. Two of them have nicknames that every visitor picks up: one the Princess of Hope, a profile against the sky, and the other the Sphinx. The colours range through cream, rust and pale yellow, and the light in the early morning is superb.

   Read the complete Hingol National Park write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Hingol National Park comes up about 240 km into the recorded legs. Next is Kund Malir.

3. 3. Kund Malir

   Kund Malir is where Pakistan's coastal desert gives you a proper beach. A long crescent of pale sand opens onto the Arabian Sea, with water that goes from pale turquoise at the edge to deep blue beyond, set against a backdrop of bare, folded hills. It is the sort of beach that photographs well and feels slightly unreal, because it is so far from anywhere and so empty. Karachi families do drive out for the day, and on a winter weekend you will find a few tents and food vendors, but on a weekday the sand is yours.

   Read the complete Kund Malir write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 265 km into the recorded legs you reach Kund Malir. Next is Ormara.

4. 4. Ormara

   Ormara is a fishing town on a rocky headland that pokes out into the Arabian Sea, and it feels like a place the twentieth century half forgot. About thirteen thousand people live here, in low concrete houses and boat sheds strung along a sheltered bay. A navy base occupies part of the peninsula, but the heart of the town is the harbour, where wooden dhows come in with the catch and the smell of drying fish hangs in the air. A walk to the end of the jetty at dawn, with the boats unloading and gulls wheeling, is as good a morning as the road offers.

   Read the complete Ormara write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Ormara, late in the day. Next is Gwadar.

5. 5. Gwadar

   Gwadar sits on a small hammer-shaped peninsula jutting into the Arabian Sea, at the far western end of Pakistan's coast, and for most of its history it belonged to somebody else. The Sultan of Oman held it for nearly two centuries, after receiving it as a gift in the 1780s, and it was only in 1958 that Pakistan bought it back. A few years later a deep-water port began to be developed here, and in recent times Chinese investment has built a large modern port and plans for a city, giving the place a curious mixture of fishing village and building site.

   Read the complete Gwadar write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Finish at Gwadar. That is the ride.