Organisation is everything.

Thursday night “lets go camping”

Friday morning – go to supermarket. Buy tent and foam sleeping mats together with a tyre pressure gauge and pump.

Friday afternoon drive into the desert.

Well, how hard can it be?

The first problem was that our guide book was slightly out of date. A 5* resort had been built on the track that I had planned to take. As a result the road we followed meandered around a huge curve which threw all the distance markers out. The date plantation at 9.6km with a fabulous camping area in the dunes behind it simply did not materialise. So in the late afternoon sun we drove through some wonderful scenery with no idea where we were.

Our book described a track up a dune with a wonderful 360 degree panarama from the top. We think that we found the track but there was now a house at the top of it. We drove up anyway and while Sue took photos the owner turned up. I felt I had to explain why we were parked outside his house but he had as much English as I had Arabic. We exchanged my “Salam Alaikom” for his “How are you” and then reverted to lots of sign language. The outcome was an invite to come into the house site (a large walled enclosure) so that we could admire the views from the other side.

Fabulous views across the dunes to the border with Saudi Arabia.

By now we were getting worried about finding a camp site. The reality is you can put up a tent anywhere you want. We eventually spotted a track leading down a very steep dune into a wide, flat valley and headed down.

No instructions needed for the tent and plenty of dry wood around. So in no time we were supping G&T’s beside the camp fire gazing at an amazing desert starlit sky, crisscrossed by satellites and shooting stars.

Then we discovered the second problem. I was convinced that the foam rolls would be all we would need on the ‘soft’ sand. Wrong! Maybe we are getting old but the ground felt like rock. A most uncomfortable night and of course it was all my fault.

The consolation was that there was no problem being up in time for sunrise and a short climb up the surrounding dunes before breakfast.

This was the track we had come down. The road runs horizontally across the photo level with the horizon on the right. It was a little scary coming down but looked almost impossible to get back.

The book said let your tyres down to 15psi to drive on the soft sand. It all sounded pretty easy. So with deflated tyres we just drove as fast as we dared over our tyre tracks from the night before. In no time at all we had bounced over the last sand ridge and back onto the solid road (well track actually) and Sue was able to open her eyes again!

A piece of cake. We will definitely be back for more of this.