23-Dec-2007 -- As we were not traveling this year abroad for our winter vacation, we decided to drive from Kharga Oasis to Abū Simbil through the desert. Unfortunately we were late in organizing the permits for this trip and ended up keeping Kharga as a base for organizing day trips into the desert and visiting confluence points. We were joined by family Elmi and their guests from Norway, family Ahmed Nur. For our ever first confluence point we were very excited and had done a lot of research on satellite maps to have a good idea of the terrain to expect.

We left Kharga on 23 December in two 4-wheel drives in direction Dākhila Oasis along the sealed road connecting the two oases. After approx. 61.5 km we left the road and drove south towards our point. The point was approx. 24.6 km from the road. The route was easy going as the terrain was a sandy, hard surface with occasional rocky areas, gravel, and patches of softer sand; we reached the point without any problems. At the location of the point, the surface was not sandy but hard as can be seen on the photos.

This was for all of us our first confluence point and pretty exciting, for the children as well as for the adults. Having made it so easily, we were determined to visit further sites.