Wild camping is once again allowed on Dartmoor after the national park won a successful appeal against a ruling in a case brought by a wealthy landowner.
Life at the edge: wild camping in Oman
21.07.2023 - 08:01 / roughguides.com
It’s legal to wild camp in Oman. And, done responsibly, it’s one of the most rewarding ways to take in the country’s varied terrain. Fiona McAuslan pitched her tent in the mountains of Jebel Akhdar – and found some surprises along the way.
Camel in the desert
Of all the things I expected to find wild camping on an Omani mountainside, an invitation to dinner was not on the list. But finding the unexpected is what happens when you pitch a tent 3000ft high in the Jebel Akhdar mountains.
Their beauty is wild and austere. By day, you can see for miles and miles across hundreds of dragon-teeth ridges – but we had arrived after dark, following a drive along a dirt track with a hair-raising gradient. In the flickering glow of a single camping light, the mountains now appeared inimical and inhospitable.
Lost, we’d stopped the car to watch the sunset. Our feet crunching on rubbly grey gravel was the sole sound as we took in the crags beneath a citrine sky. The only way was up we decided.
A few miles further along the knife-edge track, a small compound erupted into view. A mother with children clutching her abaya covered her head as we approached and pointed out the direction we should have taken to reach the road. Far below us, the nearest town glittered on the slopes: too late to turn back, we forged on into the encroaching darkness.
Wild camping, pitching a tent on public land, is legal in Oman. And it’s the best way to explore. The sheer variety of terrain – the sculpted dunes of the desert sands, the jagged drama of the towering mountains – means you’re spoilt for choice.
Logistically it’s not difficult either: an infrastructure of decent dual carriageways, cheap fuel and plenty of companies from which to rent camping equipment make it eminently doable.
But best of all, away from the orchestrated experience of the much-promoted tours and beach resorts, you’re free to connect directly with the land and the real experiences hiding within it.
Finding the unexpected is what happens when you pitch a tent 3000ft high in the Jebel Akhdar mountains
This was never more apparent than when my partner and I found ourselves battling to start our barbecue on our first night on an inky precipice in the Jebel Akhdar mountains.
Formed by the underwater tectonic push and shove of bygone millennia, the Al Hajar mountain range spans much of the country from east to west. Granite rocks are hoved into sharp peaks largely naked of vegetation.
Surprisingly, though, this seemingly inimical terrain is a popular spot for Omanis wanting to escape the city – and we were lucky that further up the plateau a group of friends had taken an interest in our plight. “We saw you pitching your tent,” said one of the men, Marhoon, who came down the slope to
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