The Perfect Respite

So, you've been bouncing across the sands of Wahiba, little grains lodged in every nook and cranny and the skin on your face stretched by the sun ... where do you want to be? Well, the short answer is Wadi Bani Khalid - only a 45 minute drive away from the last of the dunes, a little wonderland that couldn't be more different ...

Driving up the valley past the date and mango plantations

Shallow pools with baby fish ...

... turning into your very own Olympic-sized swimming pool!

Ah, the bliss of it ...

So, you get a beautiful swim in the cool water (almost chilly in fact!), shared with the water reeds and fish, and to top it off clouds of multi-coloured dragonflies - apparently a sign of a healthy eco-system, but also so so magical ...

The Omani cauldron

Wow, it's been a crazy month - lots of visitors to keep me busy at home, a week's holiday in March that feels like it was years ago, and let's not get into the shenanigans in the region ... Plus the weather has decided it is time to get hot and stinky, already had 39 and it's still going up. Phew!

So, a lot to catch up on. So let me start with a bit of Oman that I just hadn't gotten around to visiting until Mike and family gave me the excuse - Oman's desert. There are so many different kinds of desert, some flat, some hilly, some stony, some even trying to be green, but Oman also has the classic sand dunes that you see in all those movies, English Patient style. Ours are called the Wahiba Sands ...

OK, so maybe not that bit, but then the desert is very rarely just sand in my experience ... and thank the lord for that! Those poor camels need to eat something after all.

And having a few twigs also means water, which means that camps can be set up. Yes, I know we could have just set up tent near a dune somewhere, but Mike's parents are not quite that adventurous, and it is nice to have a bed to sleep on, a sheltered area to escape the midday heat and someone churning out food and tea. The 1000 Nights Desert camp is 40km into the sands - literally the last stop for a thousand kilometres - and just getting there is a pretty exciting drive up dunes and through shifting sands ... my car getting put through its paces!

So there's the civilisation of the camp, but it's only a quick clamber up the nearby dune and over the other side to find yourself alone in the desert wilds ... stunning! The Wahiba Sands has rows of parallel sand dunes that can be 50ft high, with lots of little breaks and dunes in between. This is the dunes at sunrise, before the lines get blurred by the sun overhead and the heat haze. Definitely worth waking up early for ...

And hey, it wouldn't be a desert without camels ... am actually just listening to a radio programme on desert travel and how the Empty Quarter in Oman was pretty much the last unexplored place on earth, which even fifty years ago was only crossed by the odd Bedouin caravan and the last great explorers like Wilfred Thesiger. Now of course, the oil men have come, but there's still plenty of space to sit and ponder the harsh wonder of nature ...