The road to Aqaba, or to Collieston ...?

Sherif Ali: There is the railway Collieston*. And that is the desert. From here until we reach the other side, no water but what we carry with us. For the camels, no water at all. If the camels die, we die. And in twenty days they will start to die.

T.E. Lawrence: There's no time to waste, then, is there?

From the film script of David David Lean's 1962 epic Lawrence of Arabia.

* As the crow flies, Collieston lies 3 miles from Newburgh on Ythan, across the Sands of Forvie. Aircraftsman Shaw, better known as T E Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) holidayed there in 1930, at 15 The Cliff, with his two companions, Jock and Jimmy.

Are we high up, looking across the vast expanse of the Arabian desert, or kneeling on the Sands of Forvie? Thanks to the fractal nature of sand, it's a tad difficult to be sure .....!