The Descent….

We decided to go to a place called Mibam which has a river in it with a nice waterfall and some swimming pools which are formed by (we think) Wadi Tiwi. The road up to the Falls is quite steep in fact in some parts it’s over 40% gradient. For those in them know 50% gradient is a 1 in 2 so 43 or 45% is just slightly under a 1 in 2 gradient. For a heavily laden Land Rover this is almost impossible.

In fact the factory specification for a Land Rover Defender 90 or 110 is 45°. Or 50% and this is for an empty vehicle not a fully loaded vehicle I would suspect. I don’t know what the maximum percent angle is for a Pulse Ambulance let alone one that is fully loaded. We didn’t try anymore of the hills in the region as once I had checked the track logs that they all included some 40 plus percent inclines.

If you watch the video above you will hear the wheels start spinning as we got up to the steep bit because there was some slightly loose debris on the road surface and then as we lost traction. I braked but what this did is just meant that we slid backwards with all four wheels locked coming to an eventual stop after I’d somewhat shat myself.

At this point the guy following us, a local that we had seen us on the way up and had asked are we “going up in that” with a smile on his face. He proceeded to sell was a trip to the top and the back for 3 OMR about £6.

In his completely unloaded four-wheel drive he got up to the top quite easily but he did have to put it in four-wheel drive just to get up some of the slopes to be honest if we had got to the top I don’t know how we would have got back down as there was nowhere to turn particularly and all the car parks and parking spaces were completely full.

The taxi as we shall call him was so persistent with wanting to take us to the top he didn’t give us any time to get changed or get our swimming costumes so we never actually got into the water at this wadi. We did however manage this at a subsequent one which will be posted later.