Well Justin found a wadi in his off road book. He was busy on Friday so we decided to go on Saturday. The trip out was nice and easy it was well posted as well so there were no incidents. We did pass the turn off to the 
climbing wall but we did not have solid directions to the turn off. It is kind of like the Hanging Gardens- We have been to both places with different groups but cannot seem to find our way back to them. Granted we have a listing for the turn off for the Hanging Gardens but every time we are on the road we do not see the dirt track to take. One of these days we will have to make a trip specifically to the Hanging Gardens. Also Justin’s book has a turn off to the Climbing/Wonder Wall so we will have to start looking for that when we go out again.
Back to the trip, so we proceeded up the paved road to the dirt road, as I had said the turn off was well marked so there was no mystery to the trip. We drove up the dirt track and took the turn off to the Oasis. There was an actual parking lot of sorts at the end of the trail; we had a nice herd of goats for a welcoming committee in the parking area. We disembarked from the cars and took a short hike up to some pools that behind a small dam. We decided to set up our picnic here 
at the smaller pools. We dropped off our chairs and food and then I went on a bit further with Justin, my kids and a few of Justin’s kids. Justin has 5 children. He is a Mormon and they believe in having large families – kind of like us Catholics in the 60s and 70s. Tita, Justin’s wife Maya and some the younger kids stayed at the base cap while we explored higher up. Well after about 100 meters we came to the first waterfall / pool. The pool is rather large with lots of space on either side. Well it is split into 2 pools, the lower pool which is about 3-4 meters wide by 1 meter deep and the upper pool which is about 2 – 3 meters wide but and at least 2 meters deep. Also the second pool has a small waterfall that feeds it. Well climbing to the second water fall was a bit a challenge as there is a huge boulder in the path, about 3 – 4 meters tall, and we had to help the young kids over this. Once on top of the bolder the area levels off to a nice plateau with a gentle stream feeding the small waterfall below.
On to the big waterfall, once up to plateau it is a short walk around the corner to the big water fall. The big water fall is at least 4 meters high and very impressive especially considering that we are in a desert! It is a
mazing that so much water is flowing constantly in these few spots as the rest of the area is barren rock field. Some people say it is like Arizona but I disagree because in Arizona you have all those saguaro cacti so it is not as barren as the Omani foot hills. Well with the area being explored we went back to the picnic area and had our lunch. It was quite windy and after lunch we decided to take the chairs and other picnic items and drop them back at the cars, so that we could go up to the big pools to go swimming unencumbered. Well it was nice easy trip up to the pools and we kind of skipped the sallower pool and went right into the deep one even though some of Justin’s kids were a bit small for it. Not to worry there were areas in the pool that were rather shallow to play in. And after a while Tita and Maya came up and climbed the big rock to go look at the water fall. At that point Justin ferried the smaller kids over across the pool and they went with their mother Maya. Tita and Maya led the smaller kids to the big waterfall which has a smaller pool that is easy for them to play and swim in.
After swimming for an hour our two we were visited by what looked like an Afghani or Pakistani man from his cultural attire. There was bit of confusion as to why he was there checking us out. He hung out for a bit and we felt a bit nervous and awkward but then he left. It was only until when I went down to the lower pool later that I saw he had come with this family and was 
checking it out as he had brought his young children to play in the lower pool. Actually this made me a bit more anxious to get going as he had his wife with him and she was wearing her abaya (cloak) and shelia (scarf to cover hair). I wanted to give them the area to themselves so that they could have a nice picnic with the worry of us. Well we all got back down from the various pools and waterfalls we were at and made our journey back to the cars. The goats had been eating our leftover food when we came back so they got a lunch out of this as well.
Anyway a great trip and a fun time, cannot wait to go out again, actually we are going today with the Emirates Natural History Group Wadi Nahayan.
No comments:
Post a Comment