The limestone peaks of Al Hajar (‘The Stone’) form the highest mountain range in eastern Arabia, paralleling the coast of the Gulf of Oman and stretching southeastward in a 700 km arc. Rising up out of the surrounding desert, these spectacular mountains reach a maximum height of 3075 m on Jabel Shams ('Mountain of the Sun'), which lies in Jabal Akhdar (‘Green Mountains’, at the heart of the range. Fed by many wadis, remarkably fertile gardens and plantations hide in this essentially desert landscape. Wadi Ghul is the largest and best known of these valleys, and supports a great variety of flora (such as fig, apricots and pomegranates trees) fauna and nomadic peoples.