I have now been in Qatar for 4 weeks! 1 month out of 6, it has gone so fast and I have done quite a lot already, with more adventures to come.

This weekend we headed out to Sealine Resort which is about a 40 minute drive from Doha. After navigating the crazy Doha traffic we reached the long outstretching roads into the desert. We sped along Al Matar Street in our 2 car convoy, listening to the call to prayer, Islamic readings and philosophies on the local radio station. As usual the roads were not particularly well sign posted and there were lots of diversions due to all the road works. We cleared Al Wakra and Mesaieed, took a wrong turn and ended up at North Camp and a dead end. Started see what the desert really had to offer, not much more than a whole lot of amazing sand dunes. We pulled over to take photos with a group of camels strolling by the side of the road!

Once we reached Sealine we headed straight to the pools to check out the scenery. One of them was strictly for women and families and the other was open to everyone. Needless to say the later was full of all the non-family men and they seemed to have a small problem with their eyes! There was a temperature board by one of the pools, it was 47 degrees at 12pm and the pool temperature was a cool 33 degrees, it actually felt a cooling relief from the heat of the air. We took up a spot under the palm trees and ventured out onto the hot sand and into the sea. The water temperature was actually cooler than the air for a change, usually it’s like a spa bath and not very refreshing. I’d only been in there about 10 minutes and was stung by a jellyfish, I sprung out of the water and onto the beach rather quickly, unfortunately have nothing to show for my brutal attack.

We lounged by the pool and under the trees till about 2pm and then went in search for lunch. After that it was back to the pool for a little more lounging and then out to the front of the resort to book quad bikes. The only condition we had to sign for was not to take the bikes across the border to Saudi Arabia…. as if! The 6 of us then let lose, cutting up the sand dunes and showing the locals a thing or two. Well not really they are mad little buggers!! This place has little regard for safety as the quad bikes race around the dunes and have to dodge the massive 4WD sharing their turf!

We buggied out into the middle of the desert, must have been going about 60km at top speed. Had to get a good run up to make it up the side of the dunes and not get your bike stuck in the sand. After a while made the most of the 5 gears and were huning around and racing each other over the sand. KT managed to flip her quad bike and we rushed over to catch it all on camera while she posed distressed! Ended up having to leave her bike in the middle of the desert and she had to double up with Steve as we couldn’t get it to start!

We left Sea Line at 7pm and drove back to Doha, hot, tied and sunburnt, nick naming our selves the white stripes thanks to the red and white bikinis we were now fashioning.

That evening we had nachos, pizza and drinks on the roof of our apartments and took all the lounge chairs outside to sit under the star (could only see one) and chat.
Saturday we were taken on a tour of 2 local mosques in Doha by Kiser from our office. He talked about the religion of Islam and gave us the opportunity to go inside a mosque and ask all our burning questions. The rest of the Saturday was pretty cursie and that brings us to the beginning of the working week once again. Next weekend we are off to Dubai for a look around, cant wait!