We took advantage of the recent long weekend to spend two nights at our favourite camping site on Jebel Akhdar.
The border was, inevitably, pretty busy on the Thursday morning, but once inside the visa building things went smoothly, as most of the travelers were either Omani or Emirati.
With air temperatures hovering in the mid-forties, the white beast (1991 Range Rover Classic) got a bit hot under the hood, and spewed the contents of her radiator onto the tarmac in a fit of rage whilst waiting in the border queue on the Omani side. Luckily, Mr. Range Rover is well prepared for such tantrums, and she soon calmed down, as opposed to Mrs. Range Rover, who was beginning to wonder whether she should not have insisted on taking her very reliable Toyota Prado (see forum section on overheating - top tips - hood up, heating on, check for leaks, carry spare coolant and water).
Lunch was devoured at the Rainbow restaurant in Ibri, with Mrs. Range Rover making the momentous discovery that they do actually have a toilet there. The dead cockroach in the corner indicated that the plumbing was reassuringly up to Omani standard.
We plodded on for the final few hours to Nizwa, at which point the white beast suddenly started to lose acceleration. A bit of fiddling under the hood and bending of wires was all it took to fix the problem. We filled up with petrol and started up the mountain, at which point both the Range Rover and the LR3 encountered fuel stoppages. No doubt they had both picked up a tank of dirty petrol, and struggled their way up the 2,500 meter climb until the blockages cleared.
On Friday some of the more energetic members of the party explored the mountain, by car and on foot, and others just enjoyed the mid-twenties temperatures. As usual, there was evidence of previous campers / picnickers in the form of piles of rubbish and discarded cans and plastic bottles.
Saturday morning showed the evidence of the previous two nights of mosquito feasting, with Mr. Range Rover sporting over thirty bites on his legs. Needless to say, by the second night the non-tent camp bed dwellers were regretting their minimalist set-up, and the roof top tent cartel was considering charging for bed space by the hour.
A brief excursion to a village at a dead end resulted in our good deed of the day, which was to right an overturned Land Cruiser people carrier. Thankfully only the driver had been in the car, and he was shaken and stirred, but otherwise quite alright. Brake failure (or excessive speed) on a turn resulted in him coming off the road and rolling down the hill, leaving the car on its side and pointing uphill. Mr. Land Cruiser's winch was attached to the chassis, and the winch slowly brought the car back to an even keel.
Mindful of the long drive home, we briefly stopped in Old Tanuf on the way home, only to find that the falaj is being "upgraded" to a concrete encased plastic water pipe, and the piles of rubbish among the ruins are in danger of turning into mountains.