Kayaking the Mangroves - May 15, 2010

We were all psyched to go on our kayak trip.  It was an awesome trip.  We all met up and got outfitted with life jackets and paddles.  Samantha picked out our kayak (any guesses??)  Yes red and yellow - they didn't have pink but the red was close enough for Samantha. :)

We saw lots of small crabs - both a light colour and then different ones that had a redish/purplish colour.  Samantha and I found a crab hotel - this dead mangrove tree in the water was full of crabs.  We also saw two reef herons - darker in colour and smaller.  We stopped and got out to see if we could find some foxes.  We found their dens but sadly no fox.  We learnt that the mangroves get their oxygen in two ways - high tide through their roots that are in the sand and low tide from their roots that are then exposed to the air.  We thought the little spiky things were new shoots but are actually their roots.  The tips of the roots are as high as the water gets at high tide. 

Patrick got out with our tour guide at one point to find some bigger crabs.  He came back to the boats with a blue crab.  Very cool!!

We found out that they do camp out tours as well.  They take the kayaks and your gear out to some of the islands and then set up camp - we were told that then you can swim with the turtles and dolphins.  I think we will be looking into that for next year. :)

Animal day at GAA - April 21, 2010

This week was environment week at school.  We did all sorts of activities for Earth Week.  We collected our garbage and carried it around for the day to see how much we generated, we planted flowers, did without using lights, AC and water for an hour, had an animal day where you had to dress up as an animal and paid 5 dirhams (money raised went to the animal shelter) and our grand finale was classroom without walls day.  This day the whole school was out on various field trips (cleaning the beach, zoo, kayaking the mangroves, and visiting a dump) for the day.  It was a good week.  Here are some pics of my animals...

By the way - notice the missing tooth?  Happened this morning at breakfast before we headed into school! :)

Trip to Fossil Rock - April 22, 2010

We did a day trip to Fossil Rock to show Jeff a little bit of the UAE and not just the city.  We also had some of my co-workers come along for the ride.  It was a good day out but we had several mishaps.  First Ewan blew a tire and we tried changing it but the bolts were stuck.  They bent a tire iron tring to get them off! :(  So we changed our plans and had our picnic along the road waiting for the dude to come help us out.  It turns out that Ewan had to go back to the shop and get new tires.  So the rest of us continued on our way and made plans to meet up with Ewan farther on. 

we have seen camel crossings signs throughout our travels but never any camels actually crossing the roads.  Well, today we did.  It is like any deer crossing but they move much slower!  I would hate to hit one because I imagine it would be like hitting a moose!

We finally got to fossil rock for a little explore.  To bad it was so windy and I think we were in a sandstorm.  You couldn't see very far but the group thought that we drove out here we should at least climb and see some fossils.  Being in the sand storm is not nice- you think it is bad at the beach and sand gets everywhere- it is no where near as messy and hurtful as the sand is in a sandstorm.  It gets in your eyes, mouth, ears, hair, and everywhere else.  We thought we would do a bit more dune bashing since getting out to explore seemed a bust.  That became a bust as well, since we ended up blowing a tire by hitting it on a rock.  Changing a tire in the sand is not pleasant!

Once the tire was changed we decided to be on our way home.  It sounded like everyone had fun because they mentioned doing it again sometime.

Sayq Plateau - April 6, 2010

Today was another easy day since Samantha still wasn't 100 percent.  We decided to go up to Sayq Plateau.  There were a few geo caches that we did along the way.  Before we started the drive up we had to go past a police check point - to make sure we had 4 wheel drive and that we had engaged it.  We drove the whole way up wondering WHY?  The drive was way easier than the drive yesterday and it was paved the whole way.  It was very hazy so there aren't many scenery pictures.

Once we got to the top we stopped at at a place called Diana's viewpoint - Princess Diana had visited here in 1990 and somehow the name stuck.  As you can see from the pictures there is a village (Ash Shirayjah) hanging on to the side of the cliff with their farming terraces below that.

We then continued on the plateau to the old town of Bani Habib.  We had a picnic lunch before we started our hike.  We hiked to the abandoned village and were able to explore it.  A very interesting place to explore.  It must have been beautiful before everyone left because you could tell that it was a very nicely laid out town, with large trees all around.  Wayne and I figured it couldn't have been abandoned too long ago because there was wallpaper in some of the houses and pvc pipes (I think for roof drainage).  Across the wadi and higher up there was another abandoned village.  It was a picturesque wadi with the plantations neatly laid out.  I imagine when the trees are in full bloom it is quite something.  Below find pictures from the village...

Before we hiked back to the truck we had a little rest beneath a huge tree.
Once back at the hotel we had fun in the pool for our last night.  We head back home tomorrow for a relaxing weekend before school starts again.

Wadi Bani Awf - April 5, 2010

Today we were going to drive the Wadi Bani Awf route that goes over the Hajar Mountains to Muscat.  We didn't get to do much hiking today, because we had a sick little girl.  She came down with a fever after we were about half way through the drive.  We continued on and the scenery was amazing.  We are definitely heading back for this drive.  There were a couple of canyons that are a must see, that we missed.

We went through several villages on route.  We always kidded that Dacre was in the middle of no-where, well Dacre has nothing on these villages.  Their drive to town is more than the half hour it used to take me.  :)We saw fajals coming down the mountain, a soccer pitch on the top of the mountain, deep gorges, and windy twisty dirt roads.

Once we were down the mountain, it was a wadi drive back out to the highway.  This wadi had water in it as well, that we had to drive through.  It was an amazing drive that will be repeted hopefully with a few hikes added.  Once we were at the highway we headed into Muscat and then around the mountain back to Nizwa.  On the way back we made a few stops for some geocaches at a hot spring and a look-out point.  Samantha slept on and off for the whole drive.

Jabrin Fort / Old Tanuf - April 4, 2010

Today was a take it easy kind of day.  We started off with going to Bahla, to hopefully check out their souk for handmade goods, but we couldn't find the place.  We drove through their streets for a little tour - we saw some new building right beside the older ones, and an ancient wall (that surrounded the city) that is still standing in places throughout the town.

After exploring Bahla for a bit we went to Jabrin Fort.  This fort was first built as a palace in the 1600's, but was later converted into a fort.  It has been restored and a very neat place to visit with all the different passage ways, jails, reading rooms, date storage rooms, baths (Patrick had to figure out how the bath was working), courtyards, etc.  There were paintings on the ceilings and carvings on the wall.  A very cool place to explore with the kids.

 

Once done at the castle we went to the ruins of Old Tanuf.  This town had been bombed in the mid 1950's.  We did a little exploring and a little geocache hunting here in the ruins.

We made an early day of it and headed back to the hotel for an afternoon of swimming.  That evening we went into Nizwa for some exploring of the town and for supper.  We found the market where they were selling pottery, silver, old Arabian knives (the curved ones), and many more neat things.

Jabal Shams - April 3, 2010

Today we drove to the top of Jabal Shams (which is the highest point in Oman about 3000m).  Before we got to the point of ascending the mountain we came along a ruin.  We had a wonderful little break while we explored it.  It was quite neat.  You could make out the walls, lookout tower, and the outline of a few other buildings.  The houses look like they had been made out of mud and straw bricks that had baked in the sun.  The tower was in really good shape, we climbed to the top to see what we could see.

Once on our way again, we passed another village that had been abandoned on the ridge.  They didn't move very far, just down into the wadi, but their farms were below the old village.

At this point we started to climb and very quickly, so good thing the road was paved for 3/4's of it and in very good shape.  The view going up was absolutely amazing.  It took us quite awhile to get to the top and we thought that it would never end.  BUT we finally found the starting point of our hike.  Our destination was As Sab (an abandoned village on the mountain somewhere :) ).  We found this goat path that was our trail (it was very well marked).  The kids thought it was great fun to see who could find the next trail marker - it was great for us because it ended up being a very long hike (round trip with breaks - almost the 4 hrs).  The kids did an awesome job in the hiking and listening department, because as I said the path was a goat path!!  Take a look at the pictures, some great views.

We passed a few hikers on their way back and they told us it wasn't much father and that it was worth the hike, so we pushed onwards.  As we got closer we could make out their terrences that they used for their crops.  Then we started to see their houses, and started to wonder why on earth they had picked this spot to make their village.  The information from the hiking map said that there had been about 15 families living here at As Sab, were well protected against enemies (no kidding!) and that there was a good supply of water.  So after a long hike in we had an explore of the houses, saw a few goats and had our snack.  It was neat to be able to go into the houses and see how they would have been living there.  They were very low houses, dirt/rock floor, black up the side of the walls from the fires, the back wall was the cliff.  Again the walls were mud bricks and rocks with some wood for door frames and part of their roofs.  We didn't get over to the terrences because we knew we had to hike back and didn't want to leave it too late.  I would love to know how they farmed it though, because the terrences went right to the edge of the cliff.

The last photo, Samantha had noticed the face when we had stopped for a break on our way out.  I thought it was a pretty neat rock as well!

Once back at the hotel we flaked out and had a swim.  What a day!