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.
From Al Buraymī it runs 197 km to Al Buraymī; allow about 3 h 51 of riding. The stops in between: Jebel Hafit Desert Park, Al Muwaiji Oasis, Cultural Sites of Al Ain and back through Al Muwaiji Oasis. It crosses from Oman into United Arab Emirates - carry ID and check the toll rules.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 34 km this is Jebel Hafeet Mountain Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Five thousand years ago, people on the edge of the Arabian desert built beehive-shaped stone tombs on the ridge of Jebel Hafit, and the oasis town below them has been continuously lived in ever since. Hili is part of the Cultural Sites of Al Ain, and the park holds a grave of the Umm an-Nar culture, the Hili Grand Tomb, built of precisely cut stone with carved reliefs of human and animal figures on its entrance. Traces of a Bronze Age settlement, with circular towers and wells, add to the picture of a society that had learned to farm in a dry land through the falaj, the underground channels that bring water from the mountains.
Read the complete Hili Archaeological Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hili Archaeological Park is where the day begins. Next is Jebel Hafit Desert Park.
For riders in the Gulf, there is a road that people talk about with real affection. Jebel Hafit, a long, rocky ridge that rises out of the flat gravel plain on the border between the United Arab Emirates and Oman, is about 1,240 metres high, and a smooth tarmac road snakes up its eastern flank in a long series of hairpins and bends to the top, a distance of about eleven kilometres. At the summit, a hotel and a viewing terrace look out over the oasis city of Al Ain, with the desert stretching away to the horizon, and at dusk the lights come on below like a field of stars. Motorcyclists and cyclists come here in the cooler months, usually early in the morning or at sunset, and the road is one of the best in the country.
Read the complete Jebel Hafit Desert Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Jebel Hafit Desert Park comes up about 34 km into the recorded legs. Next is Al Muwaiji Oasis.
Al Ain is called the Garden City, and the Al Muwaiji area gives you the reason. Inside a ring of mud-brick walls, date palms grow thick and tall, shading small plots of vegetables, citrus trees and fodder, watered by the old irrigation channels called aflaj. These are underground and open channels that bring water from the hills, some of them used for around three thousand years, and the system is still in use. UNESCO included the oases of Al Ain in its 2011 listing of the area's cultural sites, alongside the Bronze Age tombs of Hafit and Hili.
Read the complete Al Muwaiji Oasis write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 67 km into the recorded legs you reach Al Muwaiji Oasis. Next is Cultural Sites of Al Ain.
Al Ain is called the Garden City, and the name is earned. It is a large, spread-out oasis town at the foot of Jebel Hafit, close to the border with Oman, and its green roundabouts, date plantations and tree-lined avenues look like a deliberate argument against the desert. The UNESCO cultural sites here bundle together a handful of places: the Hafit tombs, the Hili archaeological park, the Bidaa bint Saud area, and the oases of the town itself. The theme is human life in a dry land, over a very long time.
Read the complete Cultural Sites of Al Ain write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cultural Sites of Al Ain, about halfway. Next is back through Al Muwaiji Oasis.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Al Muwaiji Oasis write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Al Muwaiji Oasis sits at 115 km, about halfway. Next is back through Jebel Hafit Desert Park.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Jebel Hafit Desert Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Jebel Hafit Desert Park comes up about 160 km into the recorded legs. Next is Hili Archaeological Park.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hili Archaeological Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hili Archaeological Park closes the day.
Hili Archaeological Park → Jebel Hafit Desert Park is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Jebel Hafit Desert Park → Al Muwaiji Oasis is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Al Muwaiji Oasis → Cultural Sites of Al Ain is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cultural Sites of Al Ain → back through Al Muwaiji Oasis is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Al Muwaiji Oasis → back through Jebel Hafit Desert Park is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Jebel Hafit Desert Park → Hili Archaeological Park is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.