Long drive day from Riyadh

 Long drive day from Riyadh 

It was to be a long drive day, mae longer by an hour due to a diversion to avoid a traffic accident on the main road. But we saw a lot of desert...with some unusual formations such as this  column of rock, like a butte. Poor photo as it was early and misty, taken from the truck.

There were plenty of sand dunes, with the prevailing wind coming from the west (left of the photo) to push dunes eastwards with a smooth slope on the west and a steep slope on the east side.

There were other formations such as this igneous intrusion, resulting after erosion of the softer surrounding rock in a pinnacle. Other shapes were domes, many smooth sided and some with boulders perched on the top.

One road hazard were camels, who don't know their highway code but they have learnt to cross the road, they walk steadily and purposefully and have learnt that the traffic slows down for them, Most drivers want to avoid a camel as they are big and would do a lot of damage to a car.

There were plenty of opportunities for a bush camp, with flat sand for the tent and easy to push tent pegs into the ground. We stopped not far beyond Bisha. It was a gorgeous sunset. It was a clear night and would have been good for stargazing but there was a distant glow to the north east from the lights in Bisha.