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.
A 916 km round trip from Jidd Ḩafş - roughly 16 h 35 in the saddle. On the way it passes Al Zubarah Archaeological Site and Qal’at al-Bahrain - Ancient Harbour and Ca. It crosses from Bahrain into Qatar - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
Qal'at al-Bahrain is a hill, and the hill is made of cities. For about four thousand years, people have built on this spot on the north coast of Bahrain, and every generation has laid its houses and walls on top of the one before, until the mound, called a tell, rose over the surrounding palm gardens. Archaeologists have peeled back the layers to find the capital of the Dilmun civilisation, a trading power of the Bronze Age that linked Mesopotamia with the Indus valley, with Bahrain as the entrepot where copper, pearls, timber and grain changed hands. UNESCO listed the site in 2005.
Read the complete Qal’at al-Bahrain - Ancient Harbour and Ca write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Qal’at al-Bahrain - Ancient Harbour and Ca is where the day begins. Next is Hayr Shtayyah.
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.
about 458 km into the recorded legs you reach Al Zubarah Archaeological Site. Next is back through Hayr Shtayyah.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Qal’at al-Bahrain - Ancient Harbour and Ca write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hayr Shtayyah, late in the day. Next is Qal’at al-Bahrain - Ancient Harbour and Ca.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Qal’at al-Bahrain - Ancient Harbour and Ca write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Qal’at al-Bahrain - Ancient Harbour and Ca. That is the ride.
Qal’at al-Bahrain - Ancient Harbour and Ca → Al Zubarah Archaeological Site is 458 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Al Zubarah Archaeological Site → Back to Qal’at al-Bahrain - Ancient Harbour and Ca is 458 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.