The Empty Quarter

 The Empty Quarter

We left Muscat after a few days to get on the road. We drove through the mountains, over passes, up wadis and across dunes to reach Nakhal Fort. The first fortification here was built in the 17th century. What can be seen today was built in 1834. It is a large fortification where the mountains meet the plains. There are several springs here that feed an oasis, a few fields and some date palms. The site also sits on several trade routes and links up with the former capital at Nizwa. It was extensively refurbished and renovated in 1990 and now houses a museum and some canons 

After negotiating several tight turns in the outer walls, I was into the inner courtyard.

The entrance to the castle from the inner courtyard.

Many of the rooms were furbished as they would have been at the height of the fort's heyday.

With mannequins in traditional dress but sadly lacking detailed information boards in English

And then it was an afternoon drive out of the mountains and into the Empty Quarter. This is a vast undulating area of sand and sand dunes. There is insufficient rain for much to grow so there are no animals and so no domestic or indeed feral animals. It is a vast area in the south east of Saudi Arabia that spreads into neighbouring countries such as UAE, Oman and Yemen that is larger than France.

We stopped for a bush camp on the Oman side of the border with Saudi Arabia. There were a few sand dunes a few trees but behind the camera, iy was an open expanse of flat sand or gravel for as far as the eye could see.

I didn't take many photos as so much of the route is unchanging, with no farms, houses or even petrol stations. People ensure that they have a full tank and some spare before crossing for the three day journey across just a small section of the Empty Quarter from Oman, bypasing UAE through Saudi Arabia to reach Qatar.

We camped in the Empty Quarter. We had seen signs showing a much reduced speed limit in case of fog, but when it was so hot with clear skies, it seemed hard to belive that there would be fog. I woke up in the morning after our second night in the Saudi Arabia Empty Quarter to discover that I couldn't see the top of the communication tower that we had camped nearby. Just half an hour later, from my tent pitch, I couldn't see the base of the tower. The fog had rolled in and had reduced visibility to ten metres. So our onward journey was slow across more desert with little to see through the fog.

We crossed from Saudi Arabia having seen no one other than border guards and other drivers into Qatar...and the scenery had hardly changed...except that as we approched Doha, the capital of Qatar, there were more roads, more traffic and water from desalination plants to water plants on roundabouts and central reservations. It was late afyernoon when we arrived in the centre of Doha, so no time for sight seeing, just to settle into our hotel, get changed and go out for a farewel meal for those that were leaving the tour, some who had been on the truck for weeks but many of us were still due to be no the truck for another ten weeks up the Gulf, through Saudi, Jordan, Iraq and Turkey before flying home.