Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Desert camping FTW!

The weekend just gone we went camping at Brouq. It's off-roady to get there but not as off-roady as the weekend before. This time there were 4 cars, 8 people and 5 tents. Nothing at all went wrong, which was quite surprising considering it was our turn to be tour leader. We managed to get everyone there safely, though not without having to do a couple of u-turns when we followed the wrong set of tyre marks. On the way we saw wild camels, ostriches and flamingoes.

Our favoured camping spot is on a beach in a little cove, backed with a small cliff. Here's our camping spot and the view from our tent:

That's our tentA room with a view
We swam, ate lunch. and relaxed in the sun. Then when the sun started to go down we fired up the barbie and the camp fire. Later we toasted mashmallows over the fire.

Round the fire
Toilet facilities are non-existant. A large spider was spotted in the rocks by the toilet spot. Here's Rob going round the headland with a shovel. It was not for protection from spiders.

I might be some timeWe stayed up til the firewood ran out around midnight. As we were getting ready for bed, one of the party heard something moving behind her tent. I assumed it was a fennec fox as you can see their little foxy footprints everywhere, but when we shone the torch it turned out to be a cat. It looked like a domestic cat, not a sand cat, though how it got to be so far from human habitation I dread to think. So I left a piece of meat out for it. The meat was gone by the morning.

The next day we were awake bright and early for a swim. The sea was flat calm and perfect for swimming. We saw what we thought might be an osprey sitting on the next headland. They should be migrating this time of the year so she might've been on her way to Scotland. Turned out to be quite a good weekend for wildlife.

On the way back we stopped for a look at the weird rock formations and the film set. The rock formation is real; the little stone hut on top is part of the film set.

Hut on a rock

Then we safely got everyone out again with no mishaps. I drove, and of course did a superb job.

It's easy to forget when we're slaving away at work all week that this is what living here is all about.

2 comments:

Jane said...

Beautiful pics. Love that camping spot!

TutleyMutley said...

All sounds like my idea of heaven! Not that I'm envious. NO, not at all ;-P