A very slow 6 hour drive through a wadi at an average speed of 10km an hour brought me into Thumrait in southern Oman where I met Daisuke Nakanishi.

He had just cycled into Thumrait from Yemen and was on his way north a small segment on this round the world journey.

We chatted over snacks and naturally his concern was to find out the availability of drinking water on the almost 800km ride he will take along the edge of the Empty Quarter.
http://www.daisukebike.be/en/index.html. Ten years at roughly the same speed as my crawl (10kms an hour) made my extended wadi trip pale into minuscule insignificance. From Thumrait he will travel north into Muscat – it goes without saying, but he will be cycling on the edge of the Rub Al Khali near mid-summer and certainly in early summer temperatures around 40Centigrade.
Later in Salalah Port I enjoyed meeting some staff and passengers of the cruise ship Prinsendam who had arrived from Mombasa Kenya – being escorted along the Somali coast by a naval frigate – and they brought with them the first rain of the Monsoon season in Salalah.
You must be logged in to post a comment.