The Ade Tour – Day 7

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Well the day began as many a Christmas day has begun in the Ade family with a walk along the beach. Except this time the beach was in Sohar, Oman. A little different to little old Eastern Beach or Ohope Beach.

Following the beach walk we settled down to the serious business at hand. That of opening up the enormous stack of presents that had accumulated. I must admit that I felt more than a little bashful when I surveyed the stack of presents as most of them were for me. Only 5 of them were for mum and dad (I had bought mum’s airfare over to Dubai as part of her xmas present). I must admit that I received a lovely haul of gifts, from the fantastic ‘Jaffas’ tee towel from Kathryn to the Bucklands Beach Yacht Club polo shirt, I was most chuffed. As you can see from the photos the present opening was undertaken in the full festive spirit of the occasion with Mrs Klaus in attendance.

After the most important part of the day was completed we packed up the car and headed off on our adventure for the day. I had a rather big day planned for us so I was a little worried when I saw that we were only pulling out of the motel at 10am, as I had hoped that we would be on the road by 8:30am at the latest. The plan for the day was to head down the coast towards Muscat and then to turn off at a little town called Al Musanaah and head inland towards Ar Rustaq. This is a loop road that goes into the mountains and then comes out again on the coast road. The best part is that at the top of the loop there is one of the ‘must do’ wadis of Oman - Wadi Bani Awf. So off we tootled.

The coast road was actually quite hard work in terms of driving with cars all over the place. I rather had to keep my wits about me as car pulled in off side roads all the time and there were loads of trucks all about the place. It was actually quite a relief to turn off at Al Musanaah towards the hills as the traffic stayed on the main road. We worked out why this was the case a little while later as we came to a dead end in the road that our map book didn’t talk about. We were a little perplexed about where we were as we turned left at the dead end and ended up in a tiny little village, with loads of character. We finally worked out, with a little help from one of the locals, that we were in the completely wrong place and that we needed to go back the way that we had came. Apparently we had taken a turning before the proper turning off the coast road and had meandered our way into the mountains on a parallel route. All was not lost however as we quickly found the correct road and headed into Ar Rustaq.

In the shade of the grand mosque of Ar Rustaq we quickly consumed our service station lunch (which was actually a really really tasty vege curry pastry) and headed off towards the wadi.

As we pulled onto the start of the wadi we were not quite sure what to expect. After Wadi Bih I think we all assumed that it would be somewhat similar. However it was completely and utterly different. For a start it was so much more lush . There were trees and grasses everywhere (which is actually true of all of Oman in comparison to the UAE). The track up the wadi itself was a little more bumpy than that of Wadi Bih, but is was so much more scenic that we really didn’t care. We past loads of people who must live in the valley, and everywhere you looked there were little houses and terraces filled with crops.

We passed through the little townships of Al Fara and At Tikhah on towards the bigger township of Az Zammah. Our ultimate goal was to reach the village of Balad Sayt, which is apparently one of the prettiest in Oman. The off road book says that after the village of Az Zammah the road takes a sharp right and begins to climb steeply. What is neglects to mention is that it climbs EXTREMELY STEEPLY, and is very narrow and goes on for bloody miles, clinging to the side of the cliff and then winding down into another valley in order to climb straight up the side of another cliff. We got about 3ks into it when we checked the time and made the call that we wouldn’t have the time to drive all the way to the village (at the snails pace that we were going) and then look around, and then drive all the way back again. We really needed to have had that 8:30am start that I had planned in order to do it all. So we executed a very tight turn on a corner and headed back the way that we had came.

By this point mum and dad were starting to hang on for dear life as we bumped our way out of the gorge again. I think there were a little concerned about the sheer cliffs to our right. They certainly seemed to get a fright when a bright yellow hummer came out of nowhere at the top of one of the steep passes and I had to take a sharp swing to the right. 

We obviously made it out of the wadi safe and sound, and after completing the rather tiring rest of the journey down to Muscat I must admit that I am very glad that I made the call to turn around. It started raining on the way down to Muscat and by the time we got here I was exhausted, so if we had spent another couple of hours driving in the wadi it could have all turned out very differently.

There was one casualty of the day however, and that is the lovely clean car that we used to have. It is now filthy again. And the cheaper hotel that we are staying in tonight won’t go and get it cleaned for us like the Al Aqqa Beach Resort did ( I really miss that place - it was lovely - as all I wanted when we got into the hotel tonight was a bath, and the rooms only have showers )

Tomorrow the elder Ade’s have mutinied and won’t get into the car, so we are spending the day walking around Muscat, taking in the sights, and more than likely the shops as well. I just hope that the rain goes away!

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Photos

Oops
she was so nice and clean before