Friday, September 25, 2009

Canyoning in Oman





Area: This is one of the few hidden places that no other tourists probably know about. We discovered it last year in an exploration trip. The area is in Sultanate of Oman closer to Mahda city. It is some 200km away from Dubai, and the tarmac almost goes to the end.

Distance Covered: 450km

Offroad : Negligible

In our Vehicle: The whole family

Vehicle used: Honda MRV / Pilot


When: Eid's second day in Sep 2009


Travelogue:

This is a hike up the stream through some very rugged terrain. It goes through few very narrow gorges full of water. Last time when we did there was a lot of water on this 5 hours hike but this time there were hardly any pools left due to a very hot summer and no rains. The hike consists of starting from a small abandoned village, and first we had to hike down into the gorge / dried river bed to climb upwards in the canyons, swimming through the pools, climbing the dried and some sticky water falls. This time we made sure that we had rope to pull people out of some tough pools from where there is only one way to climb up the water fall and the rope proved to be very handy. The other thing what we did was, took our camera to click some pictures. It was wrapped in two zip locks before going into my hunting jacket. Though it only survived half way and while climbing one water fall (as I had to climb these first to pull others) the zip lock gave way to water and the camera was toasted. I pulled out the batteries immediately to save the memory car, and I'm glad there are some pictures saved and I'll able to post them.

Overall it was a great day. We were 7 adults and 6 children. The oldest was my father who really did well to achieve this goal (I assure you that this is not for unfit people, especially where its not only a hike rather it has hiking, swimming, climbing, crawling and what not in this short hike), there was only one woman this time and that was my wife, and the youngest was my daughter Iman (7 yrs) who did it better than any one else in terms of stamina and enthusiasm. We had left one party at the camp to prepare the chicken and other cooking stuff at our return.

We completed the hike in about 5 hours or so and then we prepared the stove by the rocks collected from the area and then collected wood to burn as a fuel. So this time we didnt carry any stove or anything and used the natural stuff to cool our lunch. Trust me it was one of the best meals to kick off the camping season.

Here are some pictures from the trip........