Rub Al Khali

I was going through some old photos of Saudi and came across a few that I had taken using a Minolta Dimage 7 (5 Mp). Unfortunately, the originals were shot as jpegs, which limited the scope for editing but I have cleaned them up as far as possible without too much degradation.

The area of Saudi concerned is the Rub al Khali, otherwise known as the Empty Quarter, and all of the following images were shot on the way to a very isolated place called Sharurah (close to the Yemen border). A quick search on Google earth just shows how desolate the area is and where the boundaries for off road driving are dictated simply by how much fuel you can carry.

Believe it or not, this garage serves fuel and has a small shop!

The prevailing winds have a marked affect on the orientation of the dunes, the peaks (as above) stretch for miles in virtually straight lines and run parallel to each other. If you travelled along the dune line (NW) for about 700 miles, you might eventually reach Oman.

This area had a very different landscape hundreds of years ago and as a consequence, the entire region is littered with manmade flint objects, ranging from arrow heads to shaping tools. Wind and time have uncovered sites where these artefacts can be plucked from the surface of the sand, the above location being one of them.