Category: Destinations

Reaching the Hidden Jewel in Arabia’s Crown Feeling at home outside your comfort zone sounds like a contradiction in terms. But once you reach the plateau of Oman’s jaw-droppingly beautiful Hajar mountain range after three hours’ gruelling uphill, off-road motorcycling, you’ll know where you belong. Despite the sweat, exertion and dull ache of muscles you never knew you had, ascending the precipitous, snake-like path 150kms outside the Omani capital, Muscat, rewards you with a vista beyond compare. The steep, sandy passage way strewn with steel-coloured scree and slippery shale, flanked by terracotta boulders and towering antediluvian rock formations scintillating in the Arabian sun forms part of a package offered by Oryx Adventures, a newly-launched motorcycle tour company. The trek up the 800 million-year-old massif near Mudayrib - the only place on Earth where the Moho, the boundary surface between the planet’s crust and its mantle is visible - is not for the faint hearted: you’ll need to be an experienced off-road biker immune to the paralysis of ‘WTF’ moments as you calculate sheer drops on barrier-free mountain ‘roads’. But for sheer exhilaration and a once-in-a-lifetime experience, it’s hard to beat. The sultanate of Oman occupies the far eastern and southern cusp of the expansive Arabian peninsula and is on a big push to attract tourists to its many unspoilt hinterlands. Vast tracts of vertiginous wilderness are being made navigable by new, relatively empty twisting roads throughout the country - perfect for motorcycling and cycling enthusiasts alike. Meanwhile, breath-takingly verdant destinations like Salalah in the far south boast cool crystal water springs, the spectacular Wadi Darbat, Arabian leopards, gazelles, ibex, wolves and big game fishing.  Vivid pink flamingos, spoonbills and oystercatchers that flock along the coastal strip at Al Wusta on Oman’s east coast strip make for a twitcher’s paradise. The