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DUQM ROCK IN A HARD PLACE

Postcards from nowhere The town can offer you nothing more than a
tank full of petrol and a meal of fried fish, lentils and flavoured rice at its best-known restaurant

hammering the seaFRONT

A devastatingly long way away

We’re 550km into the middle of nowhere, staring at thousands of rocks – many larger than SUVs – lying enigmatically on a few square kilometres of soft white sand. Welcome to Duqm’s rock garden, a patch of natural, surreal architecture that would have continued to bask in blissful anonymity if it hadn’t been for a multi-billion rial port project now underway in its backyard. This means that when standing on what many say should be a natural reserve you will look out on pristine sabkha, blue sea and a fleet of massive trucks puffing over the new road that leads to freshly dredged silt, concrete mixers and earth movers.

This also means that although Duqm is a devastatingly long way away, easily six hours on a road that doesn’t do much except drop south as quickly as it can, you should get there as soon as possible. The town itself is so sparse you will drive through it within minutes, and can offer you nothing more than a tank full of petrol and a meal of fried fish, lentils and flavoured rice at its best-known ‘foodstuff shop’ and restaurant.


But it’s most photogenic attraction is also its least advertised. You’re more likely to shoot through Duqm than realise you must take a turnoff, just before the massive police station, towards the sea. It is here, after rattling over a dirt track made unbearable by the tracks of earthmovers, that you will discover the rocks, lying carelessly sculpted over the sand.

Counting kilometres

Zero your odometer at the al Sahwa clock tower roundabout as you head out of Muscat down the Nizwa highway
100km: Turn right to Izki
106km: Turn left to Sinaw
185km: Sinaw roundabout. Turn right, drive through the town
377km: Mahoot roundabout. Drive straight on
550km: Duqm

For the stone garden, turn off on to the dirt track to your left, if coming from Muscat, 2.5km before the Shell filling station. The rocks are a couple of kilometres down the track, on your right GPS waypoint of stone garden 40 Q 0569230, 2173180