Beach scene

As Monday was the Prophets (may peace be upon him) birthday it seemed a fantastic opportunity to go and find a beach. Realising that I was spending way too much time inside buildings with small windows perhaps I was way overdue for a little sunlight. My mood after a day in sun and a swim in salt increased ten-fold :-) Even though the weather here is lovely and warm the crap apartment block where I am staying (please may my new one be finished sooooooooooon) doesn't have anyway you can sit outside and it's tiny windows allow for very little in the way of natural light to come inside.

Anyhow I found myself an exploring companion and went southwest with map in hand, Davin (fellow new tutor at polytechnic) had just rented his new car and was keen to try out his driving skills in the Bahrain traffic. After being in full control of my driving destiny for the last few weeks it took me a little while to stop using my passenger brake.........poor bugger.

Needless to say the beach was found, driving was fine and this is what it looked like - sand, shelters, street lights, water etc. Fair amount of rubbish around too :-( this is one negative about Bahrain their attitude to the environment is shocking. The low tidal picture doesn't make it look much better either - whoops!

I was rapt to feel the salt water - really miss that! Swimming was fun, although not a wave in sight and it didn't get deeper than mid thigh, but just to get in the water, ahhhh all good. Bahrainis are really into having family BBQs - hence the shelters are an ideal venue for doing so.

Another highlight of the day was sighting the highest point in Bahrain - Jebel Al Dukhan. Now as you will understand with me being a Wellingtonian hills are very special. This one is a whooping 134metres in height, kind of what you might call a bump in the landscape back home, but here I was so rapt to see it, it deserved a photo and status on my blog.

The building in front is the Bahrain International Circuit - Interesting point, just about every road sign in Bahrain seems to point to it. The Bahrain Grand Prix is coming to town on 24th April and rumour has it the place goes off for for F1 week.

Not being even remotely a petrol head I think I will cruise along to see what the fuss is all about too.