Tour of Oman - December 21-24,2009

We decided to go for a little tour of the Northern Emiraites. So we headed off on the morning of the 21st, got lost in Sharjah, but managed to make it to our hotel in the early afternoon without too many hic-ups. Once we dropped our stuff off, we headed out for a geocache find and an explore. We went up this wadi (dried river bed) 'til we came to the Oman border. It was really cool to see, because of the recent rains. You see these trees growing on this mound of gravel and everything around it has been washed away. The wadis were quite wide. The wild life we found were GOATS. Hundreds of them all over the place, eating whatever they can find. We found one in the garge bins, on top of vechiles, side of mountains with a very steep incline. Below are a few pictures of the first day. Once we got back to the hotel for the evening, we had a swim in the ocean, saw a crab and collected some shells.

The next morning we got ready fairly early (cause we didn't have any hot water- so showers were very quick :) ) and headed out for more exploring. We did all the boring border stuff - fairly easily and then we were in Oman. The border town was neat. There were cows and goats walking the streets holding up traffic. We thought we better be careful and not hit one of the cows or we would be in big trouble.

We stopped at an ancient fort. Unfortunately the fort was locked up. We were able to peek in a few of the barred windows. Once we checked out the fort we started looking for our geocache. While looking we found all kinds of fossils and neat layered rocks. The view from the fort was quite something. Nana and Grandad are checking it out (left picture) and then the right picture is the view.

We continued on our drive, admiring the views. It was a twisty, windy road right between the ocean and the mountains. At some points the rock looked like it was going to slip off and crash on the road. We decided to stop at a beach for a little leg stretch and some lunch. The beach was cool. It was a shell beach - not much sand but mostly crushed sea shells. It was a nice break.

After lunch we headed into the mountains, through the wadi. They were doing some major construction on the road, so maybe by next year there will be a paved road for some of it. Considering the roads were in the wadi they were really quite good. We were expecting to have to do some 4x4ing. We climbed up and up and up. In about an hour's time we went from 0 ft elevation to 2900 ft elevation. It was quite the climb, with some awesome views. At one point in our climb we came across a place where there were a few houses/shacks with some terraced land for crops and more goats.

We found some rock formations that kind of formed little shelters. I guess they are for the herders when they are rounding up the goats. We would find them through the mountains. Sometimes you really had to look for them.

The next stop was to stretch our legs and was the turning around point for us. You could tell that it was the waterfall course for when it rained (picture on the right). All the rocks were well rounded and it was a different type of bedrock. There were some kettles forming as well. You could follow the course all the way to the top. The final picture below (bottom left) is on our way down again. You can just see the little village at the base of the mountains (little white blob) and the windy road down. I think when we got the bottom Wayne got out and kissed the ground. :)

On our way back out of the wadi we took one more detour. Up the mountain and then down a bit to look at the fjord. Wow what a sight! We didn't stay long because we wanted to get out of the mountains and to drive some of the windy road before dark. So we will have to go back again for further exploring and to go higher up the mountain, and maybe even d0 some camping! :)

GOOD NIGHT!!!