If like us you have been following the daily travels of Mark Evans and John Smith as they spend 28 days living and travelling in the sands of the Empty Quarter in Oman, you will know that their desert adventure is now drawing to a close.
What a journey it has been and what amazing sights they have seen – a stark contrast to the Britain that we woke up to this morning, in the grip of an icy blast. The desert heat and sandscape has provided an amazing and beautiful backdrop to their adventure, more of which you can find out about by visit http://www.omandesertexpeditions.com/
Mark and John have been blogging as they went and have kept us all updated on a daily basis with emails and photographs of where they have been living. Here’s a short extract from Day 26 of their journey:
Today has been one of the most enjoyable days of our journey so far; not so much for spectacular scenery, although the Sharqiya sands are beautiful enough, but for the people we have met, and what we have learned. As expected, we awoke about 0600 hrs to dew on the tents, and in the valley below a thin layer of fog had settled during the night. The Sharqiya sands are much greener than the Empty Quarter, and as such support more life. Singing wheatears and hoopoe larks kept us company over breakfast, and once again the sand was full of tracks telling the tales of what had gone on around us in the night.
and from Day 28, their final day in the desert:
Our day began at 0600 with us waking up at our campsite on top of the dunes to a dew so heavy that the tents were soaked; in the valley below us a thick fog had developed during the night, and was only just clearing when we had finished packing up three hours later. Things were pretty unpleasant; sand stuck to everything, wet sleeping bags and tents had to be wrapped in black rubbish bags and the wind made things chilly. In contrast, four hours later we have now set up camp at an altitude of 4,493 feet above sea level in the eastern Hajar mountains; below us we can see a beautifully calm sea, and 10 kilometres or so of white sandy beaches and rocky headlands where we intend to end our 28 day journey with an early morning swim tomorrow to clean up before heading to Muscat. En route to here we drove through green, acacia filled wadis and farms, admired spectacular rocky mountain scenery of an ever changing variety of colours, paused to photograph ancient mud brick watch towers, had lunch in the shade of one of ninety 4,500 year old beehive tombs and peered down into the depths of one of the largest limestone caverns in the world, the Majlis Al Jinn. There aren’t many places in the world where you can do and see all that in one day.
Before we left the sands this morning we spoke to one of the visiting desert tourists to gauge his thoughts. We expected, with the thick fog and dripping trees that he might be less than positive; not so. ‘An amazing country’ was the response to our question, ‘and last night was so wonderfully silent that I could hear the grass growing’. The silence of the Empty Quarter is what I think will remain with me the longest.
Congratulations to Mark and John on an epic journey undertaken and on sharing the adventure with us!
