Oman road trip: camping on top of the world at Jebal Akhdar

Some of the most epic tales of adventure have occurred in the desert. T. E. Lawrence fighting alongside the Arabs during the first world war, and… well anyway there’s plenty of similar tales. The desert itself is the real star of these stories. We wanted to get the kids out there to experience it first hand. What better way than car camping – the car being our very own ‘camel, ship of the desert’. The great thing about Oman is that it remains one of the places in the world where you can legally wild camp pretty much anywhere. We have both been to Oman before with work and also on holiday (as it happens, Rafe ate his first solid food in Oman – tuna sashimi since you asked – he wasn’t messing about with rusks). But we had always stayed within a day trip distance of Muscat on previous visits (except for the time we drove across the desert from Oman to Dubai, and the friendly border guard with the AK47 took a young Rafe away to play at operating the barriers).

“Nine tenths of tactics are certain, taught in books; but the irrational tenth is like the kingfisher flashing across the pool, and that is the test of generals”

T. E. Lawrence

One of the great benefits of having a tent on the roof and gear in truck is the freedom it gives you to take advantage of opportunity as it comes, so we didn’t plan a detailed itinerary. We did glance at a map to determine a rough direction of travel, and it was only then we were reminded quite how large an expanse of country Oman really is. With around nine days available it quickly became clear we couldn’t hope to do more than scratch the surface of the place, and we had two main choices. 1) fly to Salalah and hire a 4×4 based out of there and cover some of the south western quarter of Oman, or 2) hire and depart out of Muscat and cover some of the north eastern end of the country. We decided to go with option 2 out of Muscat primarily because the more mountainous areas are in the north. With it being the back end of the hot season we would have more chance of some cooler nights up in the mountains compared to warmer southern areas. It would have been great to get down to the less-visited Salalah and we will do so sometime in the future, not least to visit Mirbat which was the scene of a stand by SAS troops and other forces in support of the Sultan during the Dhofar rebellion. As well as the spectacular and largely deserted lands and beaches.

So with the sketch of a plan in mind, we set out in our hired 4×4 in the direction of Jebel Akhdar. Why Jebel Akhdar? Well, it is within two to three hours drive from Muscat so a good first stop. It is one of the highest peaks in Oman at over 2000 metres, and there was a good chance of a moderate climate. It is after all known as the ‘green mountain’ as some parts get a whopping 300mm of rain a year. It is the next main peak along from Jebel Shams, which is perhaps the more well known of Oman’s mountains although Jebel Akhdar is rapidly catching up.

We were headed for a lat/long coordinate location that we had been told offered the best views as well as nearby camping opportunities. This involved the simple drive out from Muscat towards Nizwa and the majority of the standard paved road up Jebel Akhdar itself. This road is notable because there is a government checkpoint at the start where they log your vehicle and make sure you are in a 4×4 – only four wheel drive vehicles are allowed up the mountain. We could only assume that they had mislaid tourists in the past hence the precautions. Once up the majority of the mountain we then turned off through a map-marked public park / campground and out the other end of it. This was where the off-roading began as we followed the track for 20 to 30 minutes all the way up to our pinpoint destination.

As we arrived one of the themes of the road trip made its first appearance. It would seem that the track we had been following may have been originally established by Omantel as they erected and now maintain their mobile phone cell mast that we now encountered at the peak here. It’s presence however couldn’t detract from the utterly spectacular 360 degree view across the surrounding valleys to the peaks beyond. What’s more, we then carried on slightly further across the summit plateau for more spectacular views and zero cell towers.

We already knew from past experience how welcoming the Omanis almost universally are (as long as you adhere to local cultural decent attire). This was reaffirmed at the summit as we were quickly joined by a 4×4 party of local Omanis who had also come up to admire the sunset. Greetings were made and they were good enough to share a piece of their nougat with us and the kids.

It was between these two places that we camped our first night out. Rafe and Odessa built a small firepit and made like happy savages collecting firewood for it and lighting it themselves. The night itself passed with little incident except for the periodic braying of an apparently nearby donkey (a now-recurring theme, avid readers will note). At this altitude and time of year we settled down pretty warm, but by sunrise we had all donned our silk sleeping bag liners for extra warmth and were wishing we had brought the sleeping bags up from the truck with us – chilly. It didn’t take long at all to warm up to a brisk 30+ celsius in the morning though.