Al Batinah South

Nakhal is the classic first stop and the one that photographs best. The fort sits on an outcrop of natural rock, and because the builders worked with the shape of the stone rather than levelling it, the walls follow the rock's contours and the interior steps up and down with the ground underneath — it reads less like a structure placed on a hill than like part of the hill that hardened. Below it the palm oasis runs green and dense, and a short distance away hot springs surface at Ain A'Thawwarah, warm enough to be startling, channelled into open runnels where people sit with their feet in the water under the palms on a Friday. It is a genuinely local scene rather than a facility, and it is free. The fort interiors, and what to look for in Omani fort architecture generally, are covered on the interior forts guide.

Rustaq is the bigger of the two towns and was for a period the seat of power in this part of the country, which is why its fort is the more substantial structure — tall, blocky, with towers at the corners and a spring rising inside the walls, which is the detail that mattered most when the building had a job to do. The town around it has a souk and an unhurried working atmosphere, and on the edge of it another thermal spring feeds bathing channels. Between Nakhal and Rustaq the road passes through date country and a string of villages that see very little tourist traffic, and the drive between the two is a pleasant twenty-five minutes rather than a transit.

The serious half of this region is a wadi that cuts back into the mountain front and keeps going. A graded track follows it up through terraced villages, narrows into a gorge where the walls close to a few metres and the surface turns to loose rock, then climbs a series of switchbacks to a pass before descending toward the high plateau on the far side. It is spectacular and it is not a casual drive: steep, exposed in places, unforgiving of the wrong vehicle, and genuinely dangerous in wet weather because the whole route is a drainage channel. Four-wheel drive with low range and someone who knows the road are both required rather than advisable — the transport guide sets out the vehicle question in full. Walkers use the same gorge on foot, which is the better way to see the narrow section, and the villages along the lower wadi are worth stopping in regardless of how far up you intend to go.

The gentle circuit — highway, Nakhal, springs, Rustaq, and back along the coast — is a straightforward day from the capital in an ordinary car, and it makes an excellent first excursion because it gets you a fort, an oasis, hot water and a mountain view without a long drive or a technical road. The demanding version, crossing the mountains through the canyon and coming out on the far side, is a full day in itself and lands you in the high country rather than back at the coast, so it works better as the first leg of an interior trip than as a round trip. Either way, go early: the light on the mountain front is best in the morning, and the springs fill with local families as the day goes on, which is charming but not quiet.