The Desert

This weekend we went camping in the Wahiba Sands, a desert, with a few members of staff and the boarders - that's about 40 kids. It took us two and a half hours to drive to the edge of the desert, and by the time everyone had been ferried in a few kilometres by 4x4 and set up camp at the base of a great big sand dune, another hour had passed. This had better be worth it, I grumbled.

By this time the sun was beginning to set, so we decided to head up to the top of the sand dune, which was about 200m above camp, to catch the panorama. It really didn't look that high from the bottom, and the kids had earlier sprung up to the top like a herd of gazelle on steroids. All I can say is that they must be practised in the art of dune-climbing, because it's not exactly your usual hill walk - with each step, one's feet sink right down into the sand, and so the effort required is pretty hefty. After eventually stumbling to the top (I wasn't the only one) the view was magnificent, with the sun setting over an endless expanse of desert below us.

Dinner was followed by a good chat and a roaring little camp fire; then at 1am Marcus and I decided to climb up the sand dune again. Since the moon was full, there was a surprising amount of light, and so bizarrely we could see well into the distance as we roamed further into the desert and ran like idiots up and down the dunes. I do hope nobody was watching. Not likely.