Our wedding anniversary provided the perfect excuse for us to treat ourselves to a weekend at the luxury resort that we have visited many times but never actually stayed in – Qasr Al Sarab http://qasralsarab.anantara.com/

Qasr Al Sarab is a 5 star hotel in the middle of the desert. We have often camped nearby and then visited to use the toilets!

This time we were genuine guests with a complimentary room upgrade and determined to enjoy the experience.

On the second day we opted for a sunrise guided walk which meant getting up at 5am for a five minute trip in a 4wd followed by a short amble up some dunes. It was well worth it just to have the guide explain all the tracks in the sand which we had seen many times but not known what they were. Once we learnt to recognize scorpion tracks it was frightening to see how many there were.

Scorpion tracks look like mini railway lines in the sand