Oman - Mountains, Goats,Turtles and the Desert

From today we no longer had a coach for transport but were to be decanted into five Landcruisers, which didn't seem to make sense when we were to be travelling along the Expressway to Sur.

As we left Muscat, we passed a sign saying no trucks permitted on this road, followed rapidly by a series of hairpin bends ascending at an unholy angle up the mountainside. And breathe...

An hour or so later, we turned onto a side road signposted Wadi AlAbaye'en that climbed gently upwards, until the tarmac suddenly stopped and the vehicles ahead disappeared into a cloud of dust. Mountain off-roading Omani style, which was frankly quite fabulous as long as I didn't think about the camber, the rocks or the drops. We stopped high above an almost dry river bed, gouged out by millions of years of flash floods through the rocks, currently only a green pool far below us, but enough to sustain a village tucked away here in the coastal mountains. The route out was along the river bed, occasionally fording deep pools, or bouncing over rocks. Imagine Glencoe but with ridges twice the height, barely a hundred feet apart, twisting and turning through a geological path. Fun, but nowhere I'd ever want to be behind the wheel.

Our picnic lunch was at Wadi Al Shab where a herd of goats roamed the car park attempting to mug unwary visitors of their food by sneaking up from multiple directions. Goats 0, Julie 1.

Our beds for the night were in the sparse accommodation of the Turtle Reserve itself, the basic quality of the rooms far outweighed by the unique position on the dark coast, miles from any town or light pollution.

Bucket list: a list of the things that a person would like to do or achieve before they die.
Seeing a turtle nest on a beach on the shores of the Indian Ocean, having walked in the dark from the research centre, under a sky full of stars, with plankton flashing luminous in the surf. Yeah, that's bucket list stuff.

The next day we were driven along the coast before turning inland.  In a non-descript town, we pull into a shopfront garage for the tyres to be let down on all the vehicles.  Even 4x4 drive will not deal with the deep red sands of the empty quarter.  Suitably equipped we head out into the open land; tea with a Bedouin family at their camp, followed by a race across the plains to the tourist camp where we spend a night in small cabins beneath towering red dunes.

There are worse views from a room...we watched sunset from up the top about 20 minutes ago. The drive back down was...ahem interesting...think mountain biking in a landcruiser!