Swimming & Cliff Jumping in Bimmah Sinkhole – Oman Road Trip Pt. 4

On the third day of the road trip in Oman, we had just left Wadi Dayqah canyon and were heading to one of Oman’s most renown sights: the Bimmah Sinkhole.

We got back on highway 17 and drove for about 30 km southwards until we reached our desired exit at 23.0264 / 59.0739, a few km after Thibab village. We then drove down to the coast and followed the signs to Bimmah Sinkhole. We were soon parked in front of the park’s entrance. We put our swimming shorts on and in we walked.

The local authorities have developed a fenced public park around this natural wonder, in order to preserve it, as well as make the visitors’ time (in their view at least) more delightful – personally, I would have preferred it if it was left in its wild state.

Anyhow, this park is dubbed Haweat Najm Park. An admirably valiant endeavor has been undertaken to make this place look like a proper park-like one with trees and bushes and flowers and stuff – but it doesn’t really look like one. It was pretty busy in terms of people, however; coaches, campervans, cars, bicycles; tourists and locals alike.

So we got walking amid this dispersed with flecks of green flat, brown terrain towards the park’s hub. It wasn’t obvious at all from the distance where the sinkhole might exactly be. I’d seen a couple of pictures of it before, but they hadn’t helped me much to appreciate the actual greatness of this natural wonder.

That I appreciated when, all of a sudden, I found myself standing before this massive depression. Its sheer size was plainly mind-blowing: an all but perfect circular hole of a 60-metre mean width plunging down for some 20 metres to a turquoise pond. I’d never chanced to see something similar before.

A long, steep staircase led down to the bottom of the sinkhole on a small rocky bank beside the pond. A pretty large number of people were accumulated there enjoying the cool waters and the grace of the place.

It’s a strange thing – peculiar to humans – that, seeing a tall cliff beside a deep body of water, the thought to jump in from as high as possible for the sake of fun alone naturally occurs. Down we went, too, and occupied a shady piece of the bank beside the pond shore. We had a couple of dips and examined the depth of the water, so to make sure that no unfortunate, bone-breaking collision is going to take place. It was cliff jumping time.

On the opposite side of the pond, there is a nice platform on the rock. There we reached via a narrow ledge on the cliff wall. That’s some light shit to warm up, a mere 2-3 metres tall, good for headlong dives. Then it was time to try out the top. Up the stairs, I climbed and reached a ledge almost at the very top: some 17 metres above the surface. One, two, three… you surrender yourself to gravity. A length of time that is actually much shorter than it feels like later, you hurtle into the water carrying a great deal of kinetic energy. You emerge on the surface again without as much energy, but with a good invigorating adrenaline boost.

The sun was in decline and the 3rd day of the Oman road trip was nearing its end. The plan now was to settle in Tiwi for the night and venture into the Wadi Shab Canyon tomorrow.

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