Yesterday we drove south to see the fishing and boat building town of Sur and on to Ras al Jinz to see the turtle sanctuary. From there we planned to continue on to see the Wahiba sands, a completely sandy desert. We left at 7.30am and arrived back at the hotel at 5pm after travelling 675km. It was a very long day, particularly when the last part of the drive was on single lane road, stuck behind trucks at 60-70kph. At times we were travelling at 130-140kph so we did get along at good speed where we could.
This picture shows the sand dunes in the distance.
The following posts have pictures of the things we saw.
Unfortunately we missed the turtle sanctuary so that will have to wait for another day. The Wahiba sands are really only accessible by 4wd so the corolla was not put to the test. We drove along the edge of the dunes without entering but in places there was sand blowing across the road as the wind got up. Reminded me of the beaches in WA after lunch when the Freo Dr. comes in.
There were donkeys, camels, goats and sheep roaming the sides of the road and sometimes we had to stop while they crossed. Along the coast we saw dolphins, turtles and people fishing so all in all it was a very varied day.
As you can see, there are some obstacles to avoid.
This was the coast road before cyclone Gonu hit the country in 2007.
A new four lane highway was built further up the hill and this road was left with a gap of about 200m. As a result we couldn't figure out how to access Wadi Tiwi which was signposted to be on this road. We did see it from the highway and we will try to get back there if we have time.
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