Al Hijra, the Islamic New Year, gave us a long weekend and enough time to make the seven hour drive to Jebel Ahkdar worthwhile, especially when we could break the journey with a night at Margarets’ in Al Ain.

A late night meant a delayed start and despite a smooth border crossing it was still late in the afternoon when we finally began the ascent from the Nizwa Plain at 41°C and watched the temperature drop to a comfortable 25° at our camp site at 2200 metres.

Just enough time to set up camp, light a fire, cook dinner and enjoy the stars.

As usual it was left to Nigel to photograph the sunrise while the rest of the camp slept.

Our exercise for the day was a relatively short walk/scramble up a nearby ridge providing commanding views over the plateau and surrounding wadis. Then back to the camp site for an afternoon siesta in the shade. This really was feeling like a holiday.

A few clouds in the late afternoon and early evening provided an interesting sunset display and more importantly an opportunity to use a recently discovered word – crepuscular. Beautiful crepuscular rays radiated in all directions as the sun went down.

And the Wombles? Well we had to explain The Wombles of Wimbledon Common to Margaret. It seems that Mike Batt, Bernard Cribbins and Great Uncle Bulgaria did not have the same impact in New Zealand as they did in England during the 70’s.

We did feel the need to do a bit of a Womble clean up routine in the area immediately around our camp site. Although this is a remote area, it does get lots of visitors, and sadly many just leave their rubbish wherever they happen to drop it. A ten minute clean up yielded several carrier bags full of discarded plastic bottles and other assorted garbage, which was all we could fit into our overloaded vehicle.

We do want the place to be clean and tidy next time we visit.