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 932 km round trip from Al Muharraq - roughly 16 h 55 in the saddle. 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. The line favours views over speed.
A majlis is a sitting room, and in the Gulf it is much more than that. It is where the men of a household received guests, drank coffee, settled disputes and did business, and in a pearl merchant's house it was the room where deals were struck. The Siyadi Majlis was part of the family's holdings in the old town of Muharraq, and it is the sort of space where you realise that pearls were sold by trust and conversation as much as by weighing and counting.
Read the complete Siyadi Majlis write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Siyadi Majlis 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 469 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 Siyadi Majlis.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Siyadi Majlis write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Siyadi Majlis. That is the ride.
Siyadi Majlis → Al Zubarah Archaeological Site is 469 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 → Siyadi Majlis is 469 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.