Wadi Shab
Interesting facts
- Cyclone Gonu, which built the gravel banks that created the lagoon, was the strongest cyclone on record in the Arabian Sea and the strongest to hit Arabia.
- An Italian archaeological mission first identified the prehistoric site at the wadi, known as Wadi Shab-GAS1, in the 1980s.
- Excavators found four phases of occupation left by herders and fishermen between the fourth millennium BC and the start of the third.
- The prehistoric settlement stood on a cliff facing the sea, right beside a permanent source of fresh water.
- Its people lived in permanent structures without using pottery, evidence that Middle Holocene fisher-gatherers on Oman's coast had already settled down.
- The highway bridge over the wadi mouth carries the four-lane road between Qurayyat and Sur.
- Wadi Tiwi, another gorge from the eastern Hajar, runs parallel to Wadi Shab a short distance to the south.
Why it is worth it
Wadi Shab begins at the sea. Where the gorge reaches the coast of the Gulf of Oman, a pale lagoon lies trapped between sheer limestone walls, and the only way in is to be ferried across it by fishermen from nearby Tiwi. Beyond the water the canyon closes in: a perennial stream runs down from the eastern Hajar Mountains over a chain of small waterfalls, feeding turquoise pools fringed with palms and wild fig trees, with the cliffs rising orange and grey on either side.
The lagoon at the mouth is a recent feature. In 2007 Cyclone Gonu tore through the valley and left banks of gravel several metres high across its entrance; the water ponded behind them and now reaches from wall to wall. High above it, the coastal highway between Muscat and Sur crosses the mouth of the wadi on a tall bridge. From the far shore a footpath follows the stream bed upstream, sometimes on rock ledges, sometimes through the water itself, for about an hour's walk. The valley ends in a series of deep pools, and at the last of them a narrow gap in the rock leads, for those who swim through, into a small cave where a waterfall drops under a shaft of daylight. Here the gorge is a dead end.
The valley also has a long human past. Excavations carried out between 2001 and 2005 near the mouth uncovered a Middle Holocene settlement with house structures, a cemetery and a stone-tool industry, evidence of people living on this stretch of coast several thousand years ago. In 2012 the gorge hosted a round of the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series, with divers launching from a platform fixed to the rock 27 metres above the water.
Getting there
Wadi Shab opens onto the coast beside the village of Tiwi, about 160 km southeast of Muscat. The nearest city is Sur, about 42 km to the southeast and linked to the wadi by the coastal highway that crosses its mouth. The nearest airport is Muscat International Airport (MCT), about 130 km away in a straight line.
On these lists
22.83904, 59.24514per Wikidata