Wadi Qurai - the perfect Wadi for Wadi-Virgins

I have been searching for hiking opportunities close to Muscat for some time and finally found some good leads. There is no hiking guide or easily available information - I found one book written 20 years ago and most of the hikes are 6-8 hours long or multi day hikes. And there is the offroad Oman book, but hikes are not well explained. And there are a few official hiking marked routes but they are not close to Muscat. So I was searching the net, FB and Instagram and finally found some blogs and posts with information and this is how we ended up in Wadi Qurai, a wadi less than 1.5 hours drive from Muscat, with no offroad driving and reasonable hiking time (3 hours round trip with swim included). It was totally fantastic and our first real wadi hike, with swimming in pools and scrambling over rocks etc. Also it was convenient that we just needed to follow the falaj - impossible to get lost. It was an incredible experience!

Coordinate for parking the car: 23.1681,57.8483. From here just follow the falaj, best is to actually walk on the falaj! 

Car: Salon car is ok, and it a great wadi for younger kids as well.

Time: It takes around one hour to reach the main pool, so min 2 hours for a round trip.

Update 2021 October : the trek has been marked with the usual tricolor flag marks!

Update 2022 November: the markers continue after the pool, deep into the wadi. We followed them for an other hour but they continued on so we did not reach the end - boulders got big but manageable. There were beautiful huge stones with fossils and the wadi is really nice. And super silent. It absolutely worth to venture deeper! Scroll down for pictures.

On the way in, basically at the mouth of the wadi we went all fours to climb under a rock sticking over the falaj. There was a local guy with goats looking at us and quickly concluded: first time here? He certainly did not need to go on fours :).

Can you find Finn?

Can you find Alma?

2022 November  - the section after the main pool