Not much explaining to do here in this set: we are making our way down on the mostly narrow, fairly rough gravel and rock-strewn mountain road, frequently with sheer cliffs on both side of the road and have quite a few white-knuckle moments - while I am a fairly avid and adventurous driver myself, I was glad that I did not have to sit behind the steering wheel on this segment of the trip.
In a couple of photos, we find the "blue rocks" that some viewers in the earlier segments were mentioning.
Note that all of these pictures were taken from a moving car - whereby the word "moving" is a very generous label: leaping, jumping, shuddering, twisting and turning would basically be more appropriate descriptions.
I look forward to your comments and questions and recommend viewing the downloads.
.
1 - Driving through the rugged Al Hajar mountains
(
Download)
2 - Here we get the wide view and look down to possibly a road work camp
(
Download)
3 - Twists and turns and different hues in the mountains
(
Download)
4 - Great view onto contorted layers
(
Download)
5 - Close-up view of a section of the road, at center a ravine cut by periodic water flows
(
Download)
6 - The ever-changing panorama continues
(
Download)
7 - Lord of the Rocks: this goat might be wondering what these crazy humans are doing in his kingdom
(
Download)
8 - A changing hue in the light of the sun
(
Download)
9 - A trickle of free-flowing water amidst ocher and blue tinted rocks: at left, our road leads through a calm water bed which could be a raging river when it is or was raining
(
Download)
10 - "Houston, we got a problem …." - passing a bunch of ascending cars is not an easy manoeuvre in this narrow location
(
Download)
Gorgeous scenery, Joe. About how many miles did you have to travel on that wagon path?
RobertW
Loc: Breezy Point, New York
We drove that road in 3 LandRovers, almost always in 4 wheel and love gear. It’s as hairy as driving in the West of Ireland and Wales used to be!!!—-BUT worth the effort. Many thanks again for soldiering on and recording your trek!!
NMGal wrote:
Gorgeous scenery, Joe. About how many miles did you have to travel on that wagon path?
Thank you Barbara - I am with you: Gorgeous and wild!
As to the distance, tough to say, I even looked at Google map and found the road from the mountain top, where the asphalt road stops down to the bottom of the valley where "civilization" returns - Google refused to give me the distance for the descent through Wadi Bani Awf, instead showed a "huge" detour 695 km/430 miles. I would very roughly guess that the distance was about 30-40 miles. It is easier to say how "long" it took us, as I can look at the time the photos were taken: it took us about 2:50 hours, including maybe 40 minutes for our picnic lunch break in the middle of the descent. So on the average going about 15-20 miles per hour sounds about right.
Wonderful landscape work, Joe!
azted wrote:
Ya gotta love the GOAT!
Thank you Ted for looking in on the trip again! Yes, these goats were omnipresent and really added some "live" character to the rocky landscape - I loved them too and probably showed way too many in the past presentations. I believe there is only one more to come and then that's it for the goats!
RobertW wrote:
We drove that road in 3 LandRovers, almost always in 4 wheel and love gear. It’s as hairy as driving in the West of Ireland and Wales used to be!!!—-BUT worth the effort. Many thanks again for soldiering on and recording your trek!!
Thanks, glad I could rekindle some memories Robert!
UTMike wrote:
Wonderful landscape work, Joe!
Thank you Mike for your kind comment - yeah, I loved it over there!
weberwest wrote:
Not much explaining to do here in this set: we are making our way down on the mostly narrow, fairly rough gravel and rock-strewn mountain road, frequently with sheer cliffs on both side of the road and have quite a few white-knuckle moments - while I am a fairly avid and adventurous driver myself, I was glad that I did not have to sit behind the steering wheel on this segment of the trip.
In a couple of photos, we find the "blue rocks" that some viewers in the earlier segments were mentioning.
Note that all of these pictures were taken from a moving car - whereby the word "moving" is a very generous label: leaping, jumping, shuddering, twisting and turning would basically be more appropriate descriptions.
I look forward to your comments and questions and recommend viewing the downloads.
.
Not much explaining to do here in this set: we ar... (
show quote)
Awesome road. Great images.
rgrenaderphoto wrote:
Awesome road. Great images.
Thank you very much for looking in on the ongoing travelogue and your kind comment!
If you want to reply, then
register here. Registration is free and your account is created instantly, so you can post right away.