Liwa, how I love you!

It was time for another trip to Liwa at the weekend – got to take advantage of the good winter weather before the “season” ends at the start of April. So we loaded up our cars and headed to the Liwa area for the third time in six weeks!

We camped in a very secluded and private area near Himeem, with easy access to a gatch. It was heaven, so very quiet at night as we watched the stars round the campfire.
We woke up early the next morning, keen to hit the dunes and see the sunrise, however when we opened the tent, this is what awaited us!

And it was a real pea-souper too, visibility maybe 20m, but by 10am it was up to 100m so we headed down to the crescent. Now we have a favourite super-easy route following old gatch and dried up sabkah, however someone has only gone and fenced half of it off!

But undeterred by both weather and man, we had a great day’s driving, took lots of lovely photographs and just enjoyed the scenery – didn’t see another living thing until we were almost back at civilisation!
It was cool enough for me to hike a few hundred metres up the dunes to get this shot.

Gorgeous sand patterns

Water in the desert – but groundwater, not from rain.

My car in the terrain it was made for!
One of my favourite shots from the weekend.
The next day there was no fog so we got some lovely sunrise photos. Here we have some undisputable proof that I was awake for sunrise (not a regular event)!
We had four separate trips in three different areas, none of them particularly difficult, since we only had two cars, three is a better number but we wanted to be alone on this occasion. Total stuck count was 4, one me, three Neil (leading), winch used twice, once because we needed to and the other time because it was the easier option.
It wasn’t all slumming it, we had a night at the Tilal Liwa, then off for some more offroading, culminating in a stop at a camel farm where we were given tea by the owner.

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