Middle-aged flash packers

The day I decide it’s safer for me to leave my phone behind is the day I desperately want to take photos. First of all, we popped into LuLu hypermarket in Sur to buy lunch. As I’ve previously mentioned, this is a favourite haunt for Omanis. I needed to go to the loo and while…

We met our host Hakhan from Nomadic Desert Camp at Al Wasil for our night in the desert. It wasn’t a good start as he had no record of our booking. He didn’t seem to believe we had booked which got my back up immediately – why on earth would we turn up at this…

We set off with the intent of completing walk W6a. I know, that doesn’t give you a lot to go on does it? Basically you walk along the west flank of the An Nakhur gorge to Wadi Ghul and back again. Should take about 7 hours. The terrain is very stony and not at all…

The drive to Jebel Shams took just over 3 hours and was quite tedious. Once out of Muscat, the terrain was scrubby and arid. We passed small settlements which seemed new, with nice houses either recently built or being built. Each settlement had a little store and a mosque but not a lot else. What…

Today we drove south to visitAl Sifah beach. Once outside of Muscat, the traffic thinned to..nothing basically. Brand new roads , making driving very easy. We stopped off at a little bay surrounded by hills where 2 Canadian ladies were sitting in the shade of an abandoned dhow. I suspected they were expats as they…

An early start to see the grand mosque. I ignored a few grumbles from him indoors about getting up early and we were at the mosque by 9. A wise move because when we left at 10.30 it was very, very busy. I dutifully wore my long sleeved shirt, maxi skirt and scarf. We stored…

A long driving day but definitely worth it. First stop was the Harat Asfalar fort. Very neat and built with fabulous views of the Jebel Akdhar mountains, this is definitely worth a visit. Tour groups are an unavoidable irritation but having been on a few myself, I do realise you become part of a pack…

We returned to Muttrah to have a look round the souk and do a circular walk through a wadi – a dried up river bed. It was a very nice walk, a bit eerie (for those of you who haven’t read my other blogs, I get a bit nervous when we are off the beaten…