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
