كهف خادر عفرار

Khadr Afrar Cave - Khader Afrar Cave

Useful Information

Location:	Botanical garden, 18th November Street, Harbur, Dhofar Governorate, Oman. (17.130110, 54.235850)
Open:	no restrictions. [2024]
Fee:	free. [2024]
Classification:	Karst Cave
Light:	bring torch
Dimension:
Guided tours:	self guided
Photography:	allowed
Accessibility:	no
Bibliography:
Address:	Khadr Afrar Cave.
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then. Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.

History

Description

كهف خادر عفرار (Kahf Khadir Eifrar, Khadr Afrar Cave, Botanic Garden Caves) is a huge portal and an entrance hall of a cave, which is easily visited. It is located at a site with 1001 names, which are partly contradictory or plain wrong. There is a parking lot and toilets at the end of the road in the northeast of Salalah. The park is called منتزة عين رزات (Muntazatan Eayn Razaat, Ain Razat Park) and is also called Botanic Garden. There is a bow of an intermittent river, the botanic garden is located in the valley floor near the tip of the meander spur. The valley is named Wadi Razat, and this bow, which is water filled despite the rest of the Wadi being dry, is called عين رزات (Ain Razat, Razat Spring).

The site is definitely a karst feature, despite the fact that its actual type is a little hard to interpret. There is an intermittent river, which is not a karst feature at all, it's a result of the area being semi-arid with two months of monsoon every year in July and August. But it seems there is also an aquifer and so the lowest point in the bow is water-filled, which is obviously groundwater. So the name spring is justified in this case, although most other springs in the area are actually waterfalls or plunge pools. Nevertheless, it is not a spring which actually produces water, there is no outflow. It is just a place where the groundwater reaches the surface.

But we listed the site as a cave, because across the river in the valley slope there is a huge cave portal. It is reached on a well-prepared staircase and paved trail with a railing. The cave entrance offers a view across the botanical garden.