This weekend we drove up to the north west of Qatar and went to Al Zubara. It had been a large settlement area at one time housing about 5 or 6,000 inhabitants. They fished and harvested pearls, until a siege in 1878 bought things to an end. At the moment archaeological excavations are taking place. However, we also found that it is right next to a wonderful beach with lots of wierd creatures to find on the beach. Derek saw a ray and there were lots of sea birds. It was very shallow and would be a wonderful place for young children to play and explore the little tide pools with their small fish.

We walked out along this man made breakwater of local rocks full of tiny shells. I presume it had been here for a long time. All around it were little rock pools full of crabs and small fish, amongst other strange purple wormy like creatures were hadn't seen before. There were also some brown mushroom looking creatures as well.



It is hard to show just how vast this area is, but this gives a little bit of an idea. This is where they are going to build the Friendship bridge to Bahrain. On the map it said 2013. It seems so shallow here, you could almost walk across!

Here is a picture of what is still remaining of the settlement. This is just a small portion of it, there is a surrounding wall with some turrets and the area is suposedly about 54 hectares. We had a great time, paddling in the water and then poking around the settlement. It was an interesting day and unfortunately it is likely to be our last adventure in Qatar. I still have a few more pictures of the leaving party that his coworkers gave him and I went and took more souq pictures of things I always see, but hadn't captured before, so will add some more tomorrow.