Day 8

Three of us started the day by visiting the museum of the Golden Mummies from the Greco Roman period, quite unusual (at least to me) and rather exotic looking. Then it was off to three archaeological sites, the last not looking much at all, but claiming to be a temple to Alexander the Great from 300BC (definitely no photos in any of them!).

Then it was off to the Black Desert - named because the black hills are crumbling and covering the yellow sand with a layer of black (or rather dark grey) gravel.

At this stage, I introduced last year's Xmas cake from my freezer. A variety of comments, but as soon as Ian plucked up courage to give it a try, and immediately wanted a second piece, my stock in the group rose drastically.

Next stop was the Crystal Mountain, but I think we have to say something of a great exaggeration. Rather a very small hill but parts were definitely of translucent quartz.

Then the White Desert, which is like a different planet - very weird. This is where we camped (sorry "wild" or "bush" camped). Demands from all for more Xmas cake (I seem to have made my contribution already to the entire trip), before watching the sunset, followed by a meal around our camp fire.

The sky above is as I never seen it before - seemingly trillions of stars and the Milky Way. Not a bad day.

By the way, I think I should apologise as the photos do not seem to follow in the sequence I intended - hope you can make sense of some of them