It was with pools in mind that we set off. The exert from our 1970s map above was indeed intriguing with that many pools shown. Prompted by the map questions followed. What would it be like now as a lot of development has happened since then. Water is very precious and with the population growth would all the water have been sucked up?

We set off. Once we reached the “Friday” market we knew we were close. A quick stop, a coconut and two inflatable Dora the explorer dolls later and then we kicked onto the wadi.

As we drove up the wadi Friday jovial families were BBQing left right and centre.  At the head of the wadi we took a quick walk along a pleasant bare rock babbling brook. There was a great potential camping spot after an initially pretty rough entry track. 

We proceed to the largest walk of the day. The car track passed the tower as shown on the old map and finished abruptly at a private residence. We parked up outside, shimmied round the outside of a compound and dropped into the wadi below. The wadi was full of large shallow pools and it slowly became clear we were no longer in the land where the human rules. We only noticed small tad poles at first, but gradually as we made our way up the wadi they sprouted legs, then they were mini frogs with still half tales and finally a full adult frog. We scrambled up the nearest hillside immediately! We made it to the ridge, traversed and dropped down at the first col back down into the wadi. We quickly came across more frogs of various hues. As the afternoon rolled out before us there was a very delicate soundtrack of amorous frogs! We strolled down the wadi and next to every pool we heard frogs, amorous frogs cooling off by plop, plop, plop plop. 

After we narrowly escaped the amorous frogs we tripped to our third location of the day. As we approached the top of the first large col the road was becoming steeper and steeper. Just as we reached the apex it became rutted where other people have struggled and then we struggled. After a fair amount of wheel spin it was time to take our medicine. The track was narrow and steep and so when reversing down the track our car was more under the influence of gravity then the steering wheel! We reached the bottom. I was very keen on having another crack with a bit of extra juice but the misses was less keen. Discussions continued then we both noticed what looked like a parallel track. This finished all discussions and we tried again. This second track was less steep but more uneven. We reached the top to a magnificently glowing vista. The sun was getting low and it made the landscape look warm. After going in and out of the wadi we reached the end of the track. As the sun was going down we quickly dashed up the wadi and stopped at the first pools and had to return.

Is was a lovely day, just beware of the amorous frogs!