Oman Calling – 4/2013 – October 16-18, 2013 – Wahiba Sands
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quote brianj:quote khshareef:Guys,Can we have feedback or at least brief trip report from all the participants of this drive for further planning next drive..
HI Humayun I’m in the process of writing a full trip report, however as you know from previous drive reports I’ve contributed, I like to make certain I capture the flavour and essence of such trips …watch this space 😉
Thats Great.. Will look forward to it :-w :-w :-w :-w
quote khshareef:quote brianj:quote khshareef:Guys,Can we have feedback or at least brief trip report from all the participants of this drive for further planning next drive..
HI Humayun I’m in the process of writing a full trip report, however as you know from previous drive reports I’ve contributed, I like to make certain I capture the flavour and essence of such trips …watch this space 😉
Thats Great.. Will look forward to it :-w :-w :-w :-w
Okay okay, as my ride is garage bound again this week I’ll make it a job 😀
Drive report Wahiba Sands crossing & Muscat visit 16th -18th October.
Please forgive the lateness of this drive report, how to condense 3 days accurately into a few lines 😕
A feeling of dampness brought me to the surface. My eyes, glued shut by hours of exhausted sleep, slowly focused on the view…what view?
I was looking at white mist. White mist!
Grudgingly my brain started to pull the pieces together …Tent = camping ..Ah yes!! As recall flooded me with emotions I reflected on the view through the mosquito screen. I was looking at a scene of fog shrouded small bushes, the tents of my companions and the grey outlines of the vehicles that had got us this far. Day three of our Wahiba sand adventure.
Rewind, the long journey from Dubai, the Hatta border crossing and the friendly UAE immigration official who, looking at our remaining Visa validity, sent us across the road to the duty officer. Happily he was in a very good mood and stamping our passports with a friendly smile sent us on our way, Phew obstacle one passed. We meet up with most of the rest of the Dubai team in the Omani Immigration hall, the 3 musketeers Thanseer, Kumar and Ganesh had been there for hours, however Ahmad & Family were, like us, stuck in the throng of humanity patiently waiting to get their entry visa. We were lucky, only a short 50 minutes saw us on our way.
Not wanting to give the Omani police any reason to stop and search our convoy, we set off in surreptitious radio contact. Several hours later the radio crackled with a energetic ‘Good Morning’ from the last of the Dubai Chapter, as Hendrik and the family in their Landrover joined the tail of the convoy. They’d started a day earlier and had been camping up in Musandam prior to joining us.
Somehow in the flow of the traffic we became separated from Ahmad who continued to the rdv point with Ajay, the lead driver of our adventure. The rest of us moved south to a lunch stop and waited for them to arrive.
We moved south and east into the mountainous interior of Oman. We were due to stop and replenish fuel 150kms to the south at a town called Bidiyah. As we dropped out of the hills on to a shrub clad plain I was waiting for the moment …yay at 31kms from Bidiyah, way over to our right I spotted the unmistakable form of DUNES. My mind flashed back to the Video that had been posted under the drive info and a smile crossed my face at the pleasure to come of the big dunes that awaited us, a new adventure 😀
In Bidiyah town we stopped and filled to the brim all available storage of water and fuel, Ajay held a quick’ish briefing on what to expect up to camp 1 and off we went. Circumnavigating the town we entered a track along wide valley in the dunes. It was more akin to a road as there was a lot of traffic in both directions plus we could make out another track to our left with very high speed traffic in non 4×4 vehicles. This undulating dune valley, some 800 metres wide, took up the next 25 minutes or so with various sand conditions presenting little or no challenges to the team. It terminated at what can only be described as a desert resort. Complete with over night accommodation and literally hundreds of pedestrians milling around on foot plus a couple of dozen vehicles in various states of mobility or not. Our intrepid group clustered to one side just outside the confines of the resort and whilst pondering ‘what next’, deflated.
it was decided we’d let off a little steam here and charge about in smallish dunes amongst the pell-mell of pedestrians & wannabe offroaders. Ajay led us to the upper plateau level were we drove about and finally descended back down to the resort, Ganesh taking the opportunity for a ‘photo op’ (check out FB for all shots)
Having driven through the resort buildings to exit, we regrouped and drove off in search of a campspot in the gathering dusk. As we left I remember thinking ..wow what was that place all about?
Like dogs sniffing the breeze we poked our noses into a multitude of possible locations for our camp, ascending once again to the upper plateau on our left. Although several spots were candidates, the evening thermals were kicking up a breeze encouraging us to keep searching. This we did on into the darkness rejecting possibiliy aafter possibility, even at one stage starting to offload our gear until someone shouted ‘Snake track’, no one needed much more encouragement to reject that place! Eventually around 19.30hrs, 7.30 pm for you lot, we rounded a bend in the track and Ganesh sweeping the corner wide topped a little crest alongside the track and BIngo! Flat spot slightly elevated there was even a handy pile of wood left by previous travellers 🙂
We quickly settled down to camp chores and once Hendriks boys and Riffat had succeded in building a fire, our little village took shape.
Evenings in the desert are magnificent. The vastness of the night sky, the cosiness of our tents, the camaraderie, the stories. We retired to a nights sleep occasionally punctuated by the noise of vehicles on the track and the intermittent bleat of goats somewhere out in the night.
Dawn broke and our 3 musketeers(Sir, GK & G) moved away into the dawn to play and abloute, returning for breakfast just as the rest of the team were stirring in their pits. Sunrise revealed our surrounding to be scrub-land stretching as far as the eye could see. The smooth skyline interrupted by a farm building here and there or larger treesque plants
We leisurely broke camp and continued southwards along the previous nights track. This took us for several hours south and east through undulating plains along well used tracks occasionally breaking the monotony with a snack or water stop.
Around 1pm we made a definitive turn east ans departed from the tracks, breaking new ground in uncomfortable scrub and sand, with lenticular North south vegetation filled rises to challenge our patience. The view was one similar to the central plains of the US, very long views over a featureless, apart from low scrub, landscape.
Working south easterly we entered an area of low dunes sporting the odd vegetation patch which proved to be the beginning of a challenging afternoon for lead and support, as these dunes harboured short slip faces of very soft sand. Their domed shape belying the hardness of the sand. a metre to left of the wind path and down we went. But we are Dubai Off-roaders and our little convoy of 7 vehicles sported 3 winches amongst it.
The afternoon slowly crawled towards dusk, as we slowly clawed our way south & east. There were some spectacular moments of recovery both of the winched type and of the self-recovery variety. The hero of the afternoon was undoubtedly Hendrik, whose LR, kitted out with household comforts, made a stunning self recovery from an unfortunately soft sand slip into a deep bowl, with a drop off into yet an even smaller, steeper bowl. He demonstrated that a major factor for self recovery is the calmness of the driver. With total ZEN he back and filled his ‘House’ up and down, up and down, until finally he made it out to the raucous cheering and clapping from us bystanders. I was pleased as punch for him as I’d been thinking that it would not have been an easy recovery for us.
With the light starting to diminish a discussion was held about a suitable camp spot. Thanseer, Kumar and Ganesh scouted ahead, whilst Ajay led us intrepidly forward. Simultaneously we found 2 possibilities for a camp, on examination Thanseers site was the more suitable.
Camp two was a joly affair we had the luxury of some daylight to erect our tents, missing from the previous nights camp. With tents pitched and our faithfully team of fire builders combing the area for kindling, we settled down to a relaxed evening of companionship and entertainment. Hendriks team again shone as they even had a shower tent setup …wow :ymhug:
So this is where my story started staring out at the fog from my sleeping bag, after a blissful nights sleep induced by a very tiring afternoon in the sands. Little did I know that if I thought yesterdays afternoon was tiring it was a positive stroll compared to what awaited us!
The original plan had us out of the sands well before noon, in time for the boys to shoot south and catch the ferry over to Maseriah Island. The actuality was far from that.
We waited for the sun to burn off the fog and once again moved of south easterly, hoping, that being earlier in the day the sand would be a little more resistant. We were royally disappointed. Leading is never an easy task at the best of times, as anyone who has ever been out on the sharp end is well aware. In the conditions we were experiencing, unexpected zones of extremely soft sand, the task was made harder. The ‘going’ was taking it’s toll on the team both man and machine. With the continuous cycle of stuck> recovery >stuck wearing down our energy, we took a welcome break and Thanseer supported by Ganesh proposed that they scout ahead for a suitable route. This they did and with renewed ‘vim’ our convoy once again moved ahead towards a distant range of slightly higher dunes.
To give some idea of comparable dune size to my readers; we had been in dunes similar in height to the area close to the ‘conservation area’ fencing to the west of Al BAdyer but of a totally different consistency. We were looking at distant dunes more akin in height to those around Al Faya.
Ajay retook the lead and we wound our way across a plain like zone towards the higher dunes, Ajay finally stopped and took up position on a large area of flat sand in the lower reaches of these higher Dunes. My GPS registered 12kms to the coast, it was 2pm …yay almost there 🙂 But we hadn’t counted on the sting in the tail of the Wahiba…
Once again Thanseer was sent to scout a passage this time supported by Kumar and inadvertently by Hendrik. They disappeared from sight & radio contact, we eventually saw Kumar, through binoculars, on foot at the top of a ‘pass’ like gap in the higher dunes. Via the radio he indicated that there was a passage out, once though the pass, but that this passage needed care and vehicles needed to keep their momentum across a side sloping bowl! It was considered out of the question, due to loss of power in one of the cars, for the rest of us to attempt the crossing. The remaining vehicles retraced our track to lower sands and wound our way north, away from the coast, around the base of the dunes blocking our path to the sea.
This detour north was the subject of an intense discussion amongst us as we had lost complete contact with the other 3 cars. As the GPS track from the drive shows we traced and retraced our route for around 10kms north, away from the coast and back. Atop of a small’ish dune Ganesh and I spotted denser vegetation of the coastal strip. My phone, which had been silent for 2days, suddenly sprang to life with Kumar on the end of it saying; ‘Hendrik was preparing lunch he and Thanseer were swimming in the ocean and where the **** were we!!!!
Having retraced our steps around the contours of the larger dunes, with wheels spinning Ganesh, Ajay and Ahmad tore into a narrow valley a kilometre or so in length which literally spat us out on Thanseers tracks, phew how lucky is that!!
Our vehicles and spirits now gave way to pure elan as we raced across wadi and dune towards the ocean…Hurrah we can see it!!!!
Ganesh and I split left and Ajay and Ahmad right, each group pounding across their respective ridge lines.
With a quick passing wave at Hendrik and family setting up lunch in the shade of their awning and a bang, crash, bounce across the tarmac we came to a skidding halt alongside GK. My door flew open, I strode across sands wet from the receding tide and plunged into the Ocean …ummmm that felt good 😀
The team lunched together in an atmosphere of friendly camaraderie. We’d challenged ourselves and proved worthy :ymhug:
Seven cars in seven cars out, WE all headed north along the coast. Ahmad and the boys towards Dubai, Ajay, Nikki and I to Muscat although to different destinations & Hendrik to a Hotel further up the coast
There are photo’s and a .kml file of the track on FB and I have another for Garmin users who may wish to repeat the adventure….
That’s it folks :thanks: for reading.
HEY it was all JUST FOR FUN
Fantastic :ymapplause: report Brian. :thanks: for recalling all significant details and penning (keying in 🙂 ) it down.
quote brianj:Drive report Wahiba Sands crossing & Muscat visit 16th -10th October.Please forgive the lateness of this drive report, how to condense 3 days accurately into a few lines 😕
A feeling of dampness brought me to the surface. My eyes, glued shut by hours of exhausted sleep, slowly focused on the view…what view?
I was looking at white mist. White mist!
Grudgingly my brain started to pull the pieces together …Tent = camping ..Ah yes!! As recall flooded me with emotions I reflected on the view through the mosquito screen. I was looking at a scene of fog shrouded small bushes, the tents of my companions and the grey outlines of the vehicles that had got us this far. Day three of our Wahiba sand adventure.
Rewind, the long journey from Dubai, the Hatta border crossing and the friendly UAE immigration official who, looking at our remaining Visa validity, sent us across the road to the duty officer. Happily he was in a very good mood and stamping our passports with a friendly smile sent us on our way, Phew obstacle one passed. We meet up with most of the rest of the Dubai team in the Omani Immigration hall, the 3 musketeers Thanseer, Kumar and Ganesh had been there for hours, however Ahmad & Family were, like us, stuck in the throng of humanity patiently waiting to get their entry visa. We were lucky, only a short 50 minutes saw us on our way.
Not wanting to give the Omani police any reason to stop and search our convoy, we set off in surreptitious radio contact. Several hours later the radio crackled with a energetic ‘Good Morning’ from the last of the Dubai Chapter, as Hendrik and the family in their Landrover joined the tail of the convoy. They’d started a day earlier and had been camping up in Musandam prior to joining us.
Somehow in the flow of the traffic we became separated from Ahmad who continued to the rdv point with Ajay, the lead driver of our adventure. The rest of us moved south to a lunch stop and waited for them to arrive.
We moved south and east into the mountainous interior of Oman. We were due to stop and replenish fuel 150kms to the south at a town called Bidiyah. As we dropped out of the hills on to a shrub clad plain I was waiting for the moment …yay at 31kms from Bidiyah, way over to our right I spotted the unmistakable form of DUNES. My mind flashed back to the Video that had been posted under the drive info and a smile crossed my face at the pleasure to come of the big dunes that awaited us, a new adventure 😀
In Bidiyah town we stopped and filled to the brim all available storage of water and fuel, Ajay held a quick’ish briefing on what to expect up to camp 1 and off we went. Circumnavigating the town we entered a track along wide valley in the dunes. It was more akin to a road as there was a lot of traffic in both directions plus we could make out another track to our left with very high speed traffic in non 4×4 vehicles. This undulating dune valley, some 800 metres wide, took up the next 25 minutes or so with various sand conditions presenting little or no challenges to the team. It terminated at what can only be described as a desert resort. Complete with over night accommodation and literally hundreds of pedestrians milling around on foot plus a couple of dozen vehicles in various states of mobility or not. Our intrepid group clustered to one side just outside the confines of the resort and whilst pondering ‘what next’, deflated.
it was decided we’d let off a little steam here and charge about in smallish dunes amongst the pell-mell of pedestrians & wannabe offroaders. Ajay led us to the upper plateau level were we drove about and finally descended back down to the resort, Ganesh taking the opportunity for a ‘photo op’ (check out FB for all shots)
Having driven through the resort buildings to exit, we regrouped and drove off in search of a campspot in the gathering dusk. As we left I remember thinking ..wow what was that place all about?
Like dogs sniffing the breeze we poked our noses into a multitude of possible locations for our camp, ascending once again to the upper plateau on our left. Although several spots were candidates, the evening thermals were kicking up a breeze encouraging us to keep searching. This we did on into the darkness rejecting possibiliy aafter possibility, even at one stage starting to offload our gear until someone shouted ‘Snake track’, no one needed much more encouragement to reject that place! Eventually around 19.30hrs, 7.30 pm for you lot, we rounded a bend in the track and Ganesh sweeping the corner wide topped a little crest alongside the track and BIngo! Flat spot slightly elevated there was even a handy pile of wood left by previous travellers 🙂
We quickly settled down to camp chores and once Hendriks boys and Riffat had succeded in building a fire, our little village took shape.
Evenings in the desert are magnificent. The vastness of the night sky, the cosiness of our tents, the camaraderie, the stories. We retired to a nights sleep occasionally punctuated by the noise of vehicles on the track and the intermittent bleat of goats somewhere out in the night.
Dawn broke and our 3 musketeers(Sir, GK & G) moved away into the dawn to play and abloute, returning for breakfast just as the rest of the team were stirring in their pits. Sunrise revealed our surrounding to be scrub-land stretching as far as the eye could see. The smooth skyline interrupted by a farm building here and there or larger treesque plants
We leisurely broke camp and continued southwards along the previous nights track. This took us for several hours south and east through undulating plains along well used tracks occasionally breaking the monotony with a snack or water stop.
Around 1pm we made a definitive turn east ans departed from the tracks, breaking new ground in uncomfortable scrub and sand, with lenticular North south vegetation filled rises to challenge our patience. The view was one similar to the central plains of the US, very long views over a featureless, apart from low scrub, landscape.
Working south easterly we entered an area of low dunes sporting the odd vegetation patch which proved to be the beginning of a challenging afternoon for lead and support, as these dunes harboured short slip faces of very soft sand. Their domed shape belying the hardness of the sand. a metre to left of the wind path and down we went. But we are Dubai Off-roaders and our little convoy of 7 vehicles sported 3 winches amongst it.
The afternoon slowly crawled towards dusk, as we slowly clawed our way south & east. There were some spectacular moments of recovery both of the winched type and of the self-recovery variety. The hero of the afternoon was undoubtedly Hendrik, whose LR, kitted out with household comforts, made a stunning self recovery from an unfortunately soft sand slip into a deep bowl, with a drop off into yet an even smaller, steeper bowl. He demonstrated that a major factor for self recovery is the calmness of the driver. With total ZEN he back and filled his ‘House’ up and down, up and down, until finally he made it out to the raucous cheering and clapping from us bystanders. I was pleased as punch for him as I’d been thinking that it would not have been an easy recovery for us.
With the light starting to diminish a discussion was held about a suitable camp spot. Thanseer, Kumar and Ganesh scouted ahead, whilst Ajay led us intrepidly forward. Simultaneously we found 2 possibilities for a camp, on examination Thanseers site was the more suitable.
Camp two was a joly affair we had the luxury of some daylight to erect our tents, missing from the previous nights camp. With tents pitched and our faithfully team of fire builders combing the area for kindling, we settled down to a relaxed evening of companionship and entertainment. Hendriks team again shone as they even had a shower tent setup …wow :ymhug:
So this is where my story started staring out at the fog from my sleeping bag, after a blissful nights sleep induced by a very tiring afternoon in the sands. Little did I know that if I thought yesterdays afternoon was tiring it was a positive stroll compared to what awaited us!
The original plan had us out of the sands well before noon, in time for the boys to shoot south and catch the ferry over to Maseriah Island. The actuality was far from that.
We waited for the sun to burn off the fog and once again moved of south easterly, hoping, that being earlier in the day the sand would be a little more resistant. We were royally disappointed. Leading is never an easy task at the best of times, as anyone who has ever been out on the sharp end is well aware. In the conditions we were experiencing, unexpected zones of extremely soft sand, the task was made harder. The ‘going’ was taking it’s toll on the team both man and machine. With the continuous cycle of stuck> recovery >stuck wearing down our energy, we took a welcome break and Thanseer supported by Ganesh proposed that they scout ahead for a suitable route. This they did and with renewed ‘vim’ our convoy once again moved ahead towards a distant range of slightly higher dunes.
To give some idea of comparable dune size to my readers; we had been in dunes similar in height to the area close to the ‘conservation area’ fencing to the west of Al BAdyer but of a totally different consistency. We were looking at distant dunes more akin in height to those around Al Faya.
Ajay retook the lead and we wound our way across a plain like zone towards the higher dunes, Ajay finally stopped and took up position on a large area of flat sand in the lower reaches of these higher Dunes. My GPS registered 12kms to the coast, it was 2pm …yay almost there 🙂 But we hadn’t counted on the sting in the tail of the Wahiba…
Once again Thanseer was sent to scout a passage this time supported by Kumar and inadvertently by Hendrik. They disappeared from sight & radio contact, we eventually saw Kumar, through binoculars, on foot at the top of a ‘pass’ like gap in the higher dunes. Via the radio he indicated that there was a passage out, once though the pass, but that this passage needed care and vehicles needed to keep their momentum across a side sloping bowl! It was considered out of the question, due to loss of power in one of the cars, for the rest of us to attempt the crossing. The remaining vehicles retraced our track to lower sands and wound our way north, away from the coast, around the base of the dunes blocking our path to the sea.
This detour north was the subject of an intense discussion amongst us as we had lost complete contact with the other 3 cars. As the GPS track from the drive shows we traced and retraced our route for around 10kms north, away from the coast and back. Atop of a small’ish dune Ganesh and I spotted denser vegetation of the coastal strip. My phone, which had been silent for 2days, suddenly sprang to life with Kumar on the end of it saying; ‘Hendrik was preparing lunch he and Thanseer were swimming in the ocean and where the **** were we!!!!
Having retraced our steps around the contours of the larger dunes, with wheels spinning Ganesh, Ajay and Ahmad tore into a narrow valley a kilometre or so in length which literally spat us out on Thanseers tracks, phew how lucky is that!!
Our vehicles and spirits now gave way to pure elan as we raced across wadi and dune towards the ocean…Hurrah we can see it!!!!
Ganesh and I split left and Ajay and Ahmad right, each group pounding across their respective ridge lines.
With a quick passing wave at Hendrik and family setting up lunch in the shade of their awning and a bang, crash, bounce across the tarmac we came to a skidding halt alongside GK. My door flew open, I strode across sands wet from the receding tide and plunged into the Ocean …ummmm that felt good 😀
The team lunched together in an atmosphere of friendly camaraderie. We’d challenged ourselves and proved worthy :ymhug:
Seven cars in seven cars out, WE all headed north along the coast. Ahmad and the boys towards Dubai, Ajay, Nikki and I to Muscat although to different destinations & Hendrik to a Hotel further up the coast
There are photo’s and a .kml file of the track on FB and I have another for Garmin users who may wish to repeat the adventure….
That’s it folks :thanks: for reading.
HEY it was all JUST FOR FUN
Wow..What a drive report…..I felt like watching a movie while reading the report…Fabulous report Brian… :thanks: for this drive report…
Cannot add anything to the brilliant report of Brian.
My family and myself enjoyed the trip thru Wahiba, we are glad we were part of this marvellous group and I hope I could spend more time sometimes.
Camping is always a nice experience and the talks around the campfire are always inspiring.I am not a great writer and will stop here. Please note that always on pictures bold heads have to be aligned at the extreme L and R. Otherwise the luminous flux would be too bright.
:thanks:
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