The colourful sands and craggy mountains of the Timna Valley, 25km north of Eilat, are full of minerals including copper, iron and manganese. This park incorporates traces from one of the world's first copper mines, and is home to thousands of ancient mining shafts, the remains of smelting furnaces dating back to ancient imperial Egypt, temple remnants and ancient rock drawings depicting ostriches, ibex and Egyptian battle chariots.
Other attractions are geological phenomena including Solomon’s Pillars (two huge columns of granite formed by rainwater some 540 million years ago) and the Mushroom, an eroded monolith in the shape of…you guessed it.
You could easily spend a whole day hiking here, but the park is so spread out that you'll also need a car. Information about walks is available at the visitor centre, accessed off Hwy 90.
