Walking 1,000 Miles Across "The Empty Quarter" Desert in Oman and UAE

Pulling the cart through relentless heat

The Empty Quarter: Meet the men who spent 46 days in the wilderness

In The Empty Quarter

One cart, two adventurers, and a desire to replicate explorer Wilfred Thesiger’s 1940s journey across the Arabian sands. Our featured contributor Leon McCarron describes his own 46 days in the wilderness with fellow adventurer Alastair Humphreys.

So wrote the English explorer and great traveler Wilfred Thesiger in his book Arabian Sands, which details the journey he took in the 1940s across the Rub ‘al Khali, or Empty Quarter—the world’s largest sand desert, taking up most of the southern third of the Arabian Peninsula.

Thesiger’s name is synonymous with British exploration and immersive travel. He spent years living with the local nomadic Bedouin tribes, crisscrossing the Arabian Peninsula, and traveled 1000 miles from Salalah on the south coast of Oman to the then-small fishing village of Dubai, perhaps his greatest journey of all.

In late 2012, two young adventurers from the U.K, Alastair, age 36, and Leon, age 26, who were inspired by the life and exploits of Thesiger, walked 1,000 miles across the Empty Desert, towing behind them a specially-built cart laden with food, water, and camping supplies. They wore RailRiders VersaTac Light Pants and Madison River Shirt, or rather lived in them, for the entirety of their 35-day desert walkabout which ended in the shimmering Oz-like city of Dubai.

“It was in the autumn of 2012 that I received an email with all the eccentricity of Thesiger himself—if not necessarily the poetry” Leon said.

“Hi, Leon. Hypothetically speaking, would you be interested in another long walk. 6-8 weeks. Desert. Pulling a cart. Home for Christmas.”

The writer was from Alastair. They had only met a handful of times but, having exhausted his existing friends, he wrote to Leon on the recommendation of a mutual acquaintance with the proposal of retracing Thesiger’s journey.

Al pointed out that, while Thesiger traveled with the Bedouin and a caravan of camels, he didn’t know any Bedouin, and suspected that camels would be pricey and hard work. Instead, he suggested, they could drag food and water behind them in a large steel cart. They would also have to leave within six weeks for the best weather window. Objectively, it was a reckless plan indeed but Leon accepted it immediately.

They walked long distances—sometimes upwards of 30 miles a day—because there was little to distract them. There were no weather patterns to predict nor remonstrate over, save the occasional sandstorm, and there was little to see other than more of the same sand and gravel that occupied their every waking moment. Yet they were not bored. A journey like this encourages attention to detail, and they began to notice how the texture beneath their feet gradually changed, and how the earth occasionally rose, almost imperceptibly, from perpetual flatness to great, towering dunes sculpted by the wind.

Every now and then, they met oil workers in the desert, and thus their wilderness trip became pockmarked with wondrous, spontaneous social interactions. They met Omanis and Syrians and Egyptians; Indians and Americans and Filipinos. Some offered cold drinks from their trucks; one passer-by even gave them ice cream. Surely there is no greater gift to receive than the unsolicited kindness of strangers. Especially in the form of ice cream in the desert.

When they eventually reached Dubai, they had been walking for 46 days without changing their clothes. They tramped in along an eight-lane freeway; necks craned skyward in awe of the alien landscape all around. They couldn’t have found a greater juxtaposition if they tried. Their endpoint was atop the Burj al-Khalifa—the tallest building in the world—where they stared out over the vast swathes of desert that surround this fabricated oasis of glitz and glamor.

Into The Empty Quarter – Official HD Trailer

“When I look back at this journey, I’m amazed at how inexpensive it was. We spent less than USD $1000 (£715) each. It was an expedition characterized by good humor at every turn and this, let’s not forget, is the Middle East. Oman is about as safe and welcoming a country as I’d ever visited, and that too is worth highlighting.” Leon said.

“Above all, it felt like an adventure in its purest form. It was silly, sure, but it was the unpredictability and self-inflicted hardships that made it so memorable. I like to think that Thesiger, while he would have rightly thought we were chancers, might just have had a sly smile to himself by the end.”

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