Monday 3rd of June - Muscat, Oman

After 7 days at sea it was very nice to see some land!! that was a very long time between ports.

The Satellite TV went out 4 days in - so no news from home, no sport - Dave was getting antsy.  It's not something that can be fixed on the go - someone is coming to fix it when we get to Dubai.

Muscat

We've been to Oman before click HERE to see what we did, it was mostly along the shoreline.

Today our excursion is a  Quriyat Fish Market & Desert Wadi Safari.

When we got off the boat the temperature was hovering around 36-37C - and there were a dozen Toyota Land-cruisers waiting for us! (or as our head guide calls them: "Japanese Camels")

And as luck would have it - it was just Dave and myself and our driver! we just happened to luck into having just the two of us instead of 4 people!

We set of with a driver named Mohammed - he was great, giving us some good info as we went along, detailing the development of Oman, pointing out various things (new hospitals, construction/etc).  The ruggedness of the country is really impressive, and the desert is more of a mountain-desert than the traditional sand dunes that you think of with desert.

4wding through Oman

Our little tour was travelling along nicely at about 140kmph on one of their highways when there was a loud bang - we'd blow one of the rear tires - the side was basically missing and the tyre shredded!  Mohammed pulled over immediately - what was particularly good was that the company that was running the tour had a backup 4wd following the convoy - Dave and I were swapped into the new 4WD.  Unfortunately our new driver (also named Mohammed) didn't speak to us at all, I'm not sure if he didn't speak English or was just in a bad mood having to have some tourists in the vehicle with him.

Brett at the Fish Market

We headed out to the fish market, had a look around there (it's during Ramadan so there were no shops open or fish being sold, as everyone fasts during the day) - the temperature continued to rise - and as we left the fish market it was hovering around 45C according to the car's temperature readout.

Dave sitting on the edge of the Arabian Sea

We stopped in at the 'beach' for a look-see and some people had a swim.

Convoy at the beach

At this point we went off-road and up a Wadi (think riverbed) - it looked like when there was rain there would be a massive flow of water down the wadi - people had built homes and orchards right down in the canyon (not sure what they do when it rains).

Did some medium-level 4wding to get to an oasis at the end of the wadi and had a small bit of lunch.

"Oasis" at the end of the Wadi

Then we started on the way back, again through some 4wd tracks back to the main highway.

All in all it was a good day - quite enjoyable!