16-Jan-2003 -- We were on a 5 day trip to the Ḥā'il area of the Kingdom, which is approximately 6 hours drive north of Riyāḍ. We had left after lunch and travelled for 4 ½ hours along expressways through gravel plains out of Riyāḍ, sand dunes near Burayda, and then instead of heading to Ḥā'il, continued on the Burayda - Madīna road heading west. There are many farms and small villages and this makes it difficult to find suitable camping. But just as sunset was nearly upon us, we came across some nice small granite hills just off the road, which offered us some protection from the strong winds. It was a cool night and the tents were flapping.

It was a short drive back to the main road in the morning and after 5 km we pulled off and crossed the gravel plains to the confluence point. We were not able to go straight from our camping site as there were farms in between, and also there were several Bedouin tents and their camels grazing on whatever small growth was around.

Continued at 28N 41E.