Al Wahbah Crater and the Dakar Rally

 Al Wahbah Crater and the Dakar Rally 

We left Jeddah  by truck. Martin and the truck were eventully freed from the sand with a lot of help, more tan a dox=zen vehicles and two giant bulldozers from a local mine deliverd by low loader and a wide load escort.

We moved north en route for Medina.

We had been drving all day when we reached one of the end stages of the Dakar Rally.

Some of the motor bikes used.

Just one of several very nosy vehicles...

...and others...

...cars and bikes...

...a car coming through the finisg=h gate...

...and another....

...plus a bike.

A map of the route painted on the sde of one of the support vehcles.

A head on view of a vehle coming nto the finish gate.

One of the cars beng flagged down by an official.

And then we moved on to our bush camp.

We were stopping at the Al Wahbah Crater. It is 250 metres deep and two kilometres wide. It was formed by volcanic activity which created a phreatic eruption, a specific type of eruption when molten basaltic magma comes into contact with subterranean water, causing the water to instaneously turn to steam which expands so rapidly that it creates a deep hole and crater. 

I started walking around the rim but had to turn back as the ground became too steep. We buch camped on the edge of the rim and had another opportunity to explore in the morning. Ths time I walked anti-clockwise but only got halfway round before I had to return to the truck to drive on to Medina, the second most holiest city for Muslims. and where the Prophet Mohammad is buried.

Another view of the crater.

And en route to Medina, we passed the remnants of a basaltic lava flow that had erupted from a fissure nearby hundreds of years ago.