tableland

Atop my list of recommendations are hikes around Um Bogma, a ghost town atop rugged tablelands in the northwest corner of the trail, near the Suez Canal.

Fish Slough, a National Natural Landmark on the eastern edge of the tablelands, includes vivid petroglyphs chipped into bizarrely eroded volcanic tuff formations that overlook a verdant desert oasis laced with meandering spring-fed creeks.

Some of the art at the site, which is on private property west of Armidale on the NSW northern tablelands, was known but had not been fully documented.

With its odd mesh of rainforests and moon-like tablelands, the landscape changes abruptly from Yorkshire Dale to Jurassic Park, while the night skies are a blowout of frighteningly bright nebula.

Equally striking, Amirov’s team found dozens of desert kites arrayed like a giant net across a hundred miles of tablelands east of the Aral Sea.