Dissapointed as soon as I entered the room though. The first thing I did was check the TV channels - no cricket. Criminal. The Ashes are on and this hotel does not have the Showsports 2 channel. Aaaarrrggghhh.
The highlight was the four hour drive after we reached the hotel along the wadis, (the 'a' is pronounced like the 'o' in 'off'. Got it? Thought so. This Wadi was called Wadi Bih and is one of many in the area although this is the most spectacular. Driving along the base of the mountain gorges, many parts as now as only two cars wide, lots of caves, goats everywhere - breathtaking! Half way through we stopped for lunch - grabbed our esky out of the car, made our chicken sandwiches, knocked down a cold one and continued on our way.
The vantage point from lunch was spectacular, looking over the ancient farming terraces carves away in the mountains. The Wadis flood in the winter time providing lush vegetations and turning our driving path into white water rapids!
After about 40km of driving through the mountain gorges , as narrow as two cars in some places, we came to a military checkpoint. A new one that is not in the book. We showed our passports and they said we had to turn back as only Omanis and Emiratis can go through this way for security reasons. Not sure why that had to ask for our passports though - it's blatantly obvious that I don't fall into the Omani / Emirati category. We turned back and continued on our way.
We saw a whole new perspective on the way back though with new caves, different rock faces and weathering patterns. You always get the best photos when looking behind you!
About half way back we clipped a large boulder that had a huge sharp wedge out of it's side. The result, a not so attractive looking tyre. Now, I don't know about you, but to change a tyre on a 2 tonne car, even with a jack in 47C heat and 85% humidity in the middle of a mountain range is not much fun, so we inched our way down to some shade so Q & U could go for a walk while I was venting to the tyre. Nice and cool now - about 40C in the shade.
Fixed the tyre, got on our way - back to the hotel where we went for a swim at about 6pm at the beach - hot water!! Clear water, no fish though but had lots of fun swimming back and forth duck diving at about 4metres to collect shells.
A few hours later we headed off to dinner in the hotel. Q got wet with the aircon constantly dripping on her head, food was crap and the service was worse than a vending machine. The complete opposite of the service at checkin and all other parts of the hotel.
We would certainly head back there again for a night, making sure we scope out the food options in town first.
Went for a swim at the beach the next morning while Q&U were sleeping, swam with the sun rising above the mountains - fantastic site and a great way to finish.
