Wadi Bani Kharous and Wadi Al Hijayr - beyond hiking

If you are searching for an easily accessible wadi where you can still experience what Omani nature can offer at its best - Wadi Bani Kharus is your place! It is just the perfect weekend gateway from Muscat and here is why:

✅ You can reach it under 2 hours from Muscat.
✅ There is no need for 4wd! The wadi has great road network, perfectly suitable for saloon/sedan cars.
✅ You can still find great off-road routes!
✅ There are tons of fantastic hiking options from shorter to long and technical hikes - you can hike to Jabal Akhdar from here !
✅ It offers a fun falaj hiking,
✅ or you can hike through the wadi bed and immerse into one of the pools,
✅ or hike to a fortified abandoned village built on a dramatic cliff top!
✅ You can find wonderful and picturesque villages and stroll through lush plantations.
✅ Bonus point you can get a glimpse into traditional Yemeni-style architecture!

In this post I will cover everything we learnt about these wadis - except the hiking part, what we covered in this post. 

Yemeni style houses

Accommodation

These wadis are just perfect! The only downside - if you can call that - is the lack of accommodation (at least we did not find or see any). You have to camp if you want to stay overnight. Finding a good camping spot with a sedan car can be tricky - you do not want to camp next to someone's house after all. But I am sure if you drive around you can spot something workable. We did camp in Wadi Al Hijayr - the rough coordinates are 23.2147, 57.4958. It is next to the dirt track connecting this wadi to Wadi Bani Awf - it is quite a steep road and although we did see a saloon care daring it, if it was mine, I would not take it here. But along these road there are plenty of nice spots and the added bonus is the view: you camp under Jabal Al Jaru and you can see both Jabal Akhdar and Jabal Shams in the distance! As usual though, trash is a problem - we often start with a quick clean up once we find our preferred spot.

Update: we have not been, but noticed a local accommodation on the map, Hajir House. 

Food

There are plenty of "Fudd Stuff" stores or small cafes in the villages, we also saw some bigger grocery stores.

Sightseeing

The road through Wadi Bani Kharus is really pretty, dotted with villages and plantations. Hadas gardens and the gardens around Istal looked particularly pretty. We were walking around in this village which had plenty of nice old houses and it has a very  picturesque mosque as well. Al Alya (or Al Uylyah in Google maps) is stunning and the falaj walk through the plantations and the village is a great option for warmer days as well or with kids as well. There is a nice view point overlooking the village and plantations - you will need to pass 23.180120, 57.650223 to get there. You can read about more of our visit here.

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Little Yemen

Did you know that there is a little Yemen here in Oman? Yep, in Wadi Bani Kharus! Some of the locations names are clearly referring to the neighboring country:  Sokatra, Sana. And there are beautiful old budlings built in Yemei-style as well. Some of the nicest houses are located here - you need to take a turn to the wadi here: 23.186896, 57.634798. It is worth to walk a bit in the wadi bed to look out for more houses.

 

This is the same house also pictured in the Oman off-road book - unfortunately just in a much worse condition. On that photo the right side of the building still have proper walls, now it is collapsed.