Changing Landscapes (Riyadh to Ha'il)

Bismillah, we are off. The car is packed, the kids are squished in and the car is ready. Just 24 hours before we were due to leave one of our hotels informed us that our booking had been cancelled due to a royal ceremony. It was the main attraction for us, Shaden resort in Al ula looks amazing and was planned to be our rest place for three days in the middle of 10 days and 5000 kilometres of travel. I couldn't believe it but did as I always tell my kids to do when they face a problem, eat the next meal, clear your head then fix it. That's exactly what we did! Being New Year's Eve and with limited decent hotels around it was not an easy task but we rerouted and rebooked and then took a mad dash to pack just hoping for the best! It just shows how you can plan every single detail but what will be, will be!

Our first stop was just a resting place in a familiar hotel in Riyadh. I love the drive from Dhahran to Riyadh. This time we left later on the day than we usually do so we were greeted by the most beautiful skies.

The next morning we left early for our 6 hour long trip from Riyadh to Hail. Our first hold up occured when we realised our tyre pressure had dropped significantly. As car novices, we spent some time learning all about tyre pressure so that we could diagnose the drop as being caused by the huge drop on temperature and pumped up again thanks to the tyre pumper we purchased 'just in case'!

The journey to Hail was really surprising and beautiful. I don't think, in all my travels I have ever witnessed so many changes in landscape in one country across one distance like this before. We started out with rugged desert flats, we saw many traditional tents and huge herds of camels of all different shades much to the kids delight. The flats gave way to smooth , powdery orange dunes as we approached Qassim. The dunes looked like scenes from the movie Lawrence of Arabia and I was just mesmerised. The dunes disappeared and the roads cut through rocky mountain until I spotted in the distance that magnificent, shadowy mountainscape that I love so much. As we got closer, the misty sky enveloped majestic peaks that seemed to go on and on forever. The sight was awesome. Hail is truly a beautiful place that I never knew I needed to visit.

We headed to Arif Fort but in keeping with the theme of the day, the fort was closed for construction. We got to see it from the outside though and the kids loved seeing 'the giant sandcastle on the hill'.

We headed to our hotel, tired and hungry. The Hotel told us they were fully booked and had cancelled our booking without telling us. It felt typical by now. Thankfully we found an amazing hotel. Much better than the one I had booked. I will review it in detail soon as I loved it so much!

Alhamdulillah. So far so good!

Next stop, the main attraction: Al Ula.