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: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From Al Muharraq it runs 934 km to Al Muharraq; allow about 16 h 58 of riding. It goes by way of Al Zubarah Archaeological Site and back through Al Zubarah Archaeological Site. It crosses from Bahrain into Qatar - carry ID and check the toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
The Murad family were pearl merchants, and their house in Muharraq belongs to the generation that saw the trade at its peak and then watched it collapse. The business boomed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as demand for natural pearls rose in Europe and India, and the merchants of the Gulf grew rich. Then, in the 1930s, the Japanese perfected the cultured pearl, prices fell, and the industry went into a decline from which it never recovered. In Bahrain the crash was cushioned by oil, struck in 1932, the first oil strike on the Arab side of the Gulf.
Read the complete Murad House write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Murad House is where the day begins. Next is Al Zubarah Archaeological Site.
Out on the north-west coast of Qatar, where the desert slides into a shallow turquoise sea, stand the low ruins of Al Zubarah, once one of the busiest pearling and trading towns in the Gulf. In the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the town thrived on pearls dived from the oyster beds offshore, traded on to India, Persia and beyond. Then it declined, was abandoned in the early twentieth century, and the sand covered it. Archaeologists have since uncovered streets, houses, a souk, mosques and a long town wall running in an arc around the old harbour. UNESCO inscribed the site in 2013.
Read the complete Al Zubarah Archaeological Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Al Zubarah Archaeological Site comes up about 467 km into the recorded legs. Next is Hayr Bū-l-Thāmah.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Al Zubarah Archaeological Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Al Zubarah Archaeological Site, late in the day. Next is Murad House.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Murad House write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Murad House. That is the ride.
Murad House → Al Zubarah Archaeological Site is 467 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Al Zubarah Archaeological Site → back through Al Zubarah Archaeological Site is 0 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Al Zubarah Archaeological Site → Murad House is 467 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.