We had been thinking of going camping all together, but the recent heat made that a less appealing idea. Thus, we were keen to join when colleagues of Michael and Lina’s asked us to join on a picnic trip to a wadi nearby.

Wadis are valleys and rivers carved mostly by rain water. Some of them have running water at all times, some just after rainfalls. The one we went to today has water all year round enough for a swim in some places.

Given that we want to have as much time as possible for my arm to heal and we did not know the road, we decided to stick this one out in our friends’ 4×4. It turned out to probably have been the wiser choice nonetheless, since the road up the wadi had deteriorated quite a lot since our guides had last been there. Michael clearly had fun with it, which may not be true for everyone in our little tin can. Either way, Gandalf the White (their car) did a splendid job with the gravel track.

The picnic spot was superb and would be just as good for camping. Nice, even ground raised off high enough off the wadi floor and river to drastically reduce the risk of being caught in a flash flood (not that there was rain today, but people die every year in these). The view was great, the water was pleasant and there were perfect swimming holes nearby, shielded from the road.

So we enjoyed ourselves – first with a great picnic of delightful turkish food and later with a refreshing swim in the wadi. It was a bit awkward since we have the least appropriate swimwear for a Muslim country, but the good old Rarotongan sarong came in to the rescue. The water was beautifully cool and clear.

After a couple of hours we quickly packed everything up. The sun had come out in the meantime and the views all around were just stunning. Eager to have a bit more fun with the car, Michael convinced Lina and the rest of us to go and explore a bit further down the track and up the wadi. We drove up a hill, down the other side, crossing the river twice for about 800m when the little convoy was stopped again.

The recent rains seemed to have had a bigger impact than just making the road a bit worse. Here, the entire road has been washed away since our guides had last been here, down to the bare and jagged rock underneath. Even the decent 4×4 were not ready to cross the 60cm steps of rock that now lay were the road has been. It was nice enough, we walked around a bit more and enjoyed the landscape on foot before finally turning around and heading home in the golden afternoon light.

After all this excitement, we were all pretty hungry again. Instead of cooking home-made burgers for two hours, we went for lazy pasta which was soon done.