Borders and petrol stations.

It may be a long drive to get there, and you may get stuck in traffic at the border. But time after time Oman has always been worth it.

This trip wasn’t about going extreme or trying to cover as much ground as possible. This was all about getting outside and finding some peace. If that meant we had to drive through some amazing scenery on the way, then so be it.

After arranging to get on the road, two cars headed off to cross the border and aim for a wadi that I had stayed in before. It had fresh running water and some beautiful spots to swim in. It was quiet and it didn’t have any phone reception. How about that.

The first two cars met up after an uneventful border crossing and pushed on down the long expressway towards Muscat. Although this is a long straight drive, it is the fastest way to cover some serious distance and get to where you want to be. Once past Muscat we started to get to where we needed to head off road. So, we decided to stop at a small petrol station to top off the tanks before heading into isolation.

Drama.

My friend Ed has a Diesel Y60 patrol. These are very unusual in the Gulf states and he often gets funny looks when he pulls up to a diesel pump, as they are usually just for commercial vehicles. As Ed and I were having a quick catch up by the cars, I noticed the colour of the pump currently streaming fossil juice in to his car was the same colour as the pump attached to mine. I had barely got out the words “is that a petrol pump in your car?” out before the pump cliked to signal the tank was full. The whole tank. The whole, extended range 180 litre tank. When Ed had pulled up to the station he still had two thirds of diesel in his tank. That had now been topped up with Oman’s finest petrol. Shit.

After a brief shouting and screaming session, followed by a lot of arm waving, we came up with a plan.

Step 1

First we had to move Ed’s car without starting the engine. If we were lucky, the petrol wouldn’t have got to the pump and the rest of the fuel system, as we noticed before he started the car. We didn’t even switch on the ignition, just to make sure the pump didn’t prime and suck any fuel through.

So, I towed it away from the pump to the edge of the forecourt.

Step 2

There was a small workshop near the petrol station. I think actually it was a tyre shop. The attendants from Shell went over and summoned a man who looked like he had been out in the sun for the last 300 years. He had a face like an old wooden ship and a spectacular bald spot which looked like a radar dish on the top of his head.

The plan was hatched. By them. They gathered together any type of container they could find and opened the release nut on the fuel tank. Efficient, this process was not. Ship face got a good covering in a hybrid diesel/petrol mix while trying to get as much of it as possible in to the various containers to hand. Sadly, the ground also got a good soaking. A small environmental catastrophe which no one seemed to care about. Penguins be damned.

Once the tank was emptied, I towed the poor Y60 over to the car wash so we could get the undercarriage cleaned off. There wasn’t too much on the car, but it needed a good going over.

Then we had to tow it back to the pump to fill the whole 180L tank back up with pure diesel. Which Ed had to pay for.

With that drama over, the trip was back on and we were heading to the wadi for dinner and an early night.

Once off road, this wadi is pretty spectacular to drive through as there is a constant flow of fresh water. This snakes its way down the wadi, creating multiple water crossings to the camp site. It’s a bit like jumping in puddles as kid when you have a pair of wellies. Every 4X4 owner loves to drive through water and they always have the biggest grin on their face when they do. Unless they are a moron and try to drive through the sea or a raging torrent. Then they just have pure fear and disappointment on their face.

Oman hits the spot.

It was a good sleep.

After a long drive and a quick dinner we had gone to bed fairly early. Luckily, the spot where we chose to camp had the added bonus of shade from the wadi cliff face until late in the morning. This meant that we weren’t woken up by hot tents as soon as the sun came up. The water in the wadi was flowing and very fresh, so it was perfect for a morning dip. Morning coffee and breakfast were casually prepared and we settled in for a nice long day of doing a lot of not much. Some tinkering with the cars, reading a book, broken up by regular swims and coffee top ups. The solar panels were making the most of the sun and we had both awnings out to create a nice big shady patch. Life was good.

You’re never really alone……

Just after midday we heard the far off crunching of tyres on rocks. An old Patrol slowly came into view and parked up not far from us, a small family setting up for lunch and a swim. Thankfully, they weren’t noisy and kept to themselves. We had a quick chat with them as they passed to go for a hike further down the wadi. The owner of the car was French and has been in Oman for the last 20 years, this spot being one of his favourites. 

They left after a few hours and we had the place to ourselves once again.

Later that evening we drove back down to the main road to meet up with some friends who were coming up from Abu Dhabi. It was dark by the time they got to us so they didn’t get to see the beauty of the Wadi as we led them back to camp.

But they got a pretty nice place to wake up in.

As had happened the day before, while we were making the most of a quiet wadi to ourselves, another car ventured up the wadi to our spot around late morning.

It didn’t get very far though. With some driver error, the small pickup got stuck in a shallow water crossing. They can be deceptive as although the water is shallow, the stones underneath are very soft. The group of men tried to push the car out but they weren’t thinking about it properly and only made it worse. In the end, one of our group went to go and give them a snatch and it was out pretty quickly.

After that, we finished off packing and headed off to our next spot.

Camping at the Beehives

After leaving the wadi we aimed for a historical site up in the mountains. We had stayed there before on a previous trip and you can get some spectacular views, so we decided to go again.

The drive there was quite a bit longer than I thought it would be. Including a lot of track driving which can get a bit tedious when the car is being shaken to bits on corrugated roads. We did see some spectacular views and there were some amazing tracks at points, including one that had been washed away, leaving half the track and a huge gap to fall through. After a good inspection we all decided it was safer to turn around and find another route.

As we got later in the day I lost the convoy. I had got stuck behind a mother camel and her calf on the road and in all the dust of the convoy, there other vehicles hadn’t noticed. There wasn’t any phone reception so the only thing I could do was to carry on the track and try and catch up with them. Unitl I got to a fork in the road. I looked at the map, knowing roughly where we were heading and I also got out and tried to look for tyre tracks on the dusty junction. Most of the cars all had BFG tyres which have a distinctive tread so I thought I could see which way they had gone. I picked a track but after about 10 minutes I doubted my decision and drove back to the junction to re-assess. I’m glad I did.

After driving for another 20 minutes, I finally got a message through saying that the group were heading to a petrol station. Some of the group had pretty thirsty vehicles and didn’t get much range. This gave me a chance to head straight to camp and beat them all there. The track to the top of the Beehives is quite steep and twisty, meaning you have to concentrate quite a lot and use all of your lights. It worked out quite well that I was doing this part by myself as when you’re following people on a dusty track, your lights reflect of the dust and make it really hard to see.

By the time I had got to our camp spot, Ed was about 30 minutes behind me so I had a bit of time to chill out and enjoy the silence. There’s no light pollution up there so you get a really good view of the stars.

I could see Ed arrive about 10 minutes before he got to me, due to his insanely bright KC light bar. He can probably be seen from the moon. If anyone needs any cheap laser eye surgery, you could go and stand in front of it. But don’t.

After pulling up at the camp site, Ed decided to make use of his new air blower. Combined with the lights it turned the mountain top in to a scene from Thriller.

We had a good dinner that night. A mix of lamb, hot dogs, and potato Rosti’s. It was good feed. I was shattered and went to bed fairly early. The next morning we got coffee on the go and made a plan for the day. One car decided to head towards the coast for some beach camping, while the rest of us headed to Snake canyon and the mountains

Blog Post Title Four

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