Cameron's Camel Campaign

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/fast_track/9695147.stm

Milo in the desert

We decided to give Milo the chance to return to his genetic roots and take him to the desert. It would be our first time letting him off his lead to run free, so it was a bit nerve racking, not knowing whether he would come back! We had taken some advice and let him know that we had food before we let him off - and sure enough he came back! He did actually seem to love being free and enjoyed the sand beneath his paws.

We drove to an "Endurance Village" in the desert, where the locals enjoy their favourite pastimes of falconry, horse/camel riding, desert driving etc. We could easily access this area in my car without a 4x4. We passed loads and loads of camels on their way back from the camel race track nearby.

One find Caroline made in the desert was this falcon head cover they use. I guess the owner must have replaced it and left the old one in the sand.

Here's a video sequence I put together showing Milo's first time in the desert...

Trip to Al Maha Desert Resort

Both Caroline and I have birthdays in March, so as a joint treat we booked ourselves into the Emirates Al Maha Desert Resort. The place is absolutely stunning and it was one of the best things we have ever done. One night did cost what we would expect to pay for a week all inclusive in the sun, but hey - you can't take it with you etc etc!.

The highlight was the dinner in the desert, laid out amidst the dunes in the middle of nowhere. We were given a mobile phone to call when we wanted to be collected. It was fab!

The suites were fantastic, all with their own temperature controlled pools - very secluded, nudge nudge, wink wink ;-)

So, if you are looking for some brownie points for your Mrs - this is the place!

Some pictures at the album link........

Trip to Al Maha Desrt Resort

Camel Farm

We have had Caroline’s mum and Jamie, our nephew, staying with us this week. They wanted to see the desert, so we drove towards Al Ain and stopped near one of the camel farms. Near the camel farms there were some huge stretches of field laid out with straw bales – no idea what they were for.

We stopped off at a park in Baniyas on the way back for Jamie to let off some more steam. It was quite quiet with just a few families having picnics. I think they were a bit surprised to see expats in this park, as Baniyas is really very much a “local” district.

Click to see pictures bigger…

                  

          

                 

             

                

Desert Meet

Caroline is regular on the Abu Dhabi Women's Forum. One of the friends she has made there goes on regular 4x4 outings into the desert. Yesterday we joined them. We all met up at a service station just outside Abu Dhabi city on the way to Al Ain. I guess there was about 15 cars, 3 (including us) in saloon cars. We drove further towards Al Ain and then off into the farm areas in on a tarmac road into the desert. At a convenient spot we all stopped. The 4x4's let some air out of their tires and the saloons were left behind. We then made a short trip across the dunes to form a "base camp". There we set up out chairs/gazebos/BBQs etc.

Others had brought quad bikes, motocross bikes and remote control dune buggies.

Some of there experienced members offered to take out some first timers on a simple dune run. It was right about now that I really wished I still had mine! Instead I went out in a friend's Nissan Pathfinder with him driving. When an experienced driver is driving it looks all so easy, but for the newbies we had to stop every few minutes as another one got stuck - including my friend at one point!

After all the driving etc, some serious BBQing was in order as the sun set and the night turned black. We finished eating a drinking under the stars.

All in all a very enjoyable afternoon....

Meeting at Qasr al Sarab

Today I had a meeting with the developer of many resorts and tourist attractions in Abu Dhabi. The guy I was seeing was on site at one of the resorts, Qasar al Sarab (which roughly means Mirage Palace), so I met him there. Considering it is due to be opened on Oct 25th, it still looks like they have a bit of work to do if they going to make it look like the marketing images! However, I understand that they will be sending in 1000 people next week to clean up the whole place to make it look spick and span.

The location for this resort is about 2 hours into the desert in what they call "The Empty Quarter" - for good reason, there is nothing there! Just sand! So the resort is an engineering feat in itself. The road leading to the resort is still unmade and I was a bit worried at times whether my VW Passat was going to make it - it's in situations like this that I miss my 4x4.

The dunes are pretty spectacular and the silence when the labourers stopped work for lunch was deafening. I reckon at night under a full moon, it would look great.

They are going to offer traditional Arab hunting on camel back with Saluki dogs and Falcons - hunting gazelle etc placed in a reserve for this purpose. This will of course cost an arm and a leg, but there will be plenty of Arabs (and others probably) who will be queuing up for this I'm sure.

I had a classic conversation trying to buy a drink at a small grocery store in Al Hameem, the nearest town to the resort. It went like this...

{Looking in the fridge being watched by the Indian shopkeeper, and seeing only a vitimin C drink and Red Bull}

Me: Do you have any other cold drinks?

Shopkeeper: You want chocolate?

Me: {grabbing 2 Red Bulls} Never mind I'll just take these.

Shopkeeper: You want diet?

Me: {happy becuase I usually drink diet Red Bull} Ah - do you have diet?

Shopkeeper: No.

Me: I guess I'll just take these then.


Photos from Qasr al Sarab below.....

Meeting at Qasr al Sarab

Trip to Sir Bani Yas Island

We took advantage of the lower summer prices to go to this resort which opened earlier this year. The island was Sheikh Zayed's own private island retreat and has continued to be a destination for the royal family to visit. Earlier this year it was opened to the public, or at least those that stay at the hotel and spa resort. The island was first populated by members of the Bani Yas tribe several thousand years ago and there are many ancient sites on the island. Sheikh Zayed had a wish to "greenify" the island, so workers started to plant some 4 million trees and bushes, of which around 2.5 million remain. More about the island can be read here.

We had read some "iffy" reports on TripAdvisor.com but I have to say we really found nothing to complain about. The staff were very helpful and friendly and rooms were great. The buffet, whilst not very adventurous, was fine and the food was good quality. I guess the one and only thing I would say, was that the beach wasn't great. My advice would be if you have a few days to spend, then do a night or two on Sir Bani Yas to do the trips and use the pool, but then go and stay at Danat Hotel Jebel Dhanna if you want to go and sit on the beach for a couple of days.

The game drive is a must. We decided to get up and go on the early trip starting at 6am. We were glad we did as it was starting to get really hot by the time we got back 2 hours later. The best moment for us was seeing one of the free roaming cheetahs still with her gazelle prey having just caught it. This was awesome.

At peek times the price of this place doubles, so take advantage now if you can!

My pictures of the trip below....

(click the pictures to see them larger)

Trip to Hatta

We have just had a lovely weekend in Hatta. We stayed at The Hatta Fort Hotel, which we can thoroughly recommend. The staff were really helpful and friendly, the room was lovely and the sightseeing we did was great.

It was interesting to see the scenery change as we left the outskirts of Dubai towards Oman. The sand became redder to start with and then there was more vegetation and trees more like you would expect in a savanna climate. Then we hit the hills and mountains.

We took a look at the Heritage Village on the early evening when we arrived. To be honest, once you have seen one, you have seen them all, but this was nice with the mountains surrounding Hatta. We were up at one of the battlements when the early evening prayer call started and was once of the most amazing things we had experienced here yet. To hear the mosque prayer callers (or Mu'adh-dhin) begin one after the other, while the calls echoed around the mountains was awesome!

We did some offroading into the mountains today, which I absolutely loved but which Caz may have loved more had she been driving and not me! The mountain road is actually over the Oman boarder, but at this point there is no boarder control. We paddled in one of the Wadis that had water flowing, which was nice and cooling.

All in all, a great trip and if we get chance we will go back and maybe drive further into Oman.

Here's a link to my photos and more comments....

Trip to Hatta

New year, new blog!

Well, I thought I'd give this blogging thing a go! Let's see how I get on.

Caz and I have now been in Abu Dhabi for 6 months, give or take a couple of weeks - and what a weird 6 months! Neither of us has lived abroad before, but I think even if we had it would still seem weird! We are definitely getting used to it, but it has taken some adjustment to deal with life in the Middle East.

This is where we live - we have the ground floor. It's on a development called Mohammed bin Zayed City about 40 mins out of the City Centre. It's quite roomy and provides parking, which is like gold dust in the City. As I have to travel to Dubai regularly it also cuts down the journey time to get there. I work for a Global IT Infrastructure distribution company based in Dubai and Caroline works at a maternity hospital in Abu Dhabi. I guess you will get more of a flavour of our work as these posts continue, but for now I want to talk about this week.

We have had all our kids over from the UK this week which has been great. Christmas Day was a bit of an anti-climax as we both had to work, but we did get chance to "Skype" with my family in the evening which was good. Basically, we saved our Christmas festivities until our kids arrived on the 28th. So a full crimble dinner was a must and we swapped pressies.

A couple of days ago we paid a visit to the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque which is absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately we got there past the time for visitors so we could only look at the outside. Caz and I will definitely go back though to take a look inside.

For New Year's Eve we booked to go on a Desert Safari. We were picked up by our driver and host, Amir who expertly guided us though the desert in his 4x4. The crazy dune bashing was fantastic - the hysterical laughs of terror from the kids were pretty funny! We stopped by some camel farms and watched the sun go down on top of the dunes - very nice, awwww.

We arrived at Bedouin camp where we had Arabic coffee, dates, tea, kebabs and rice. As Amir is a regular host he let us smuggle in our own drinks for the night (!), so a good time was had by all. The girls had henna tattoos which looked really lovely. They even bought some of their own henna today and did some more themselves.

So on the strike of midnight we cracked open the Champagne, but unfortunately as a heavy fog had descended, there were no fireworks. All in all, a great day.

Good job we hadn't booked anything in Dubai as all outdoor events (fireworks, concerts etc) were cancelled by order of Sheikh Mohammed as a mark of respect to the people of Gaza during the current conflict with Israel. I guess the rockets fired into Israel by Hamas over the last couple of weeks, unilaterally breaking the ceasefire, don't count! Anyway... quite a few upset people in Dubai I would imagine.

Today was a little more subdued. Lee was not feeling too great (too many Fosters me thinks!), but the rest of us went to Al Raha Beach Hotel for brunch. International buffets are great! I had salad, sushi, fresh crab, smoked salmon, lobster, beef, roast pots, all manner of puddings, fruits and cheeses! Finished off with coffee. Yummy! ....yes I know, I am a pig!

Tomorrow I think we may be off to the beach......