Starting and finishing in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, this entire trip was done in the comfort of a hire car. With good roads throughout, bar a few sandy moments here and there and some rough tracks in the mountains, my standard 2WD was quite ample and the trip of almost 6000 km went like clockwork. In short, this section of the report covers the first half of the trip, a route that took me from the U.A.E. to northern Oman and thereafter down to the fantastic tidal flats at Barr Al Hikman, before crossing the vast deserts to reach Dhofar, the endemic-rich southern district of Oman.

The manic second half of my trip to Oman and the U.A.E., journeying from Dhofar back to the superb Barr Al Hikman, this time finding the Great Knots, before travelling to the Al Hajar mountains and onward to the fantastic Musandam enclave. After Eversmann's Redstarts, Trumpeter Finches and loads of wheatears, I then returned to the U.A.E. for a few days in the Dubai area, an amazing finale with flocks of 47 Cream-coloured Coursers and 52 White-tailed Plovers, along with a Grey Hypocolius, a vagrant Brown Shrike and a Red-tailed Bluetail, the latter a first for the Arabian Peninsula!