Episode 17
Well, I wasn’t wrong, I didn’t do much for the rest of our stay in the UK. In fact I spent it mostly sitting on the lounge in our van doing nothing, just watching the weather. We did have some glorious autumn days and some terribly drab drizzly ones.
D did most of the work he wanted to on the car. Spent weeks getting those blend motors sorted. It was a big job that required most of the dash being pulled out. First he fitted a replacement one he’d got but that didn’t work either, so then he played with them, testing this and that and finally got a working one out of several that only partially worked. As I said this took weeks. He also had another gear box put in, a heavier duty one and seems happier about it. The last thing he was in the process of doing is making a spare wheel carrier for the rear. He has it well under way and should be able to finish it off when we come back to the UK in April. He had trouble getting people to do the welding for him, they are all very busy with bigger jobs.
As for L, well she, like me didn’t do much. She did clean and polish the car inside and out and walked down to the shops in Littlehampton on numerous occasions whatever the weather. One Saturday we all caught the train to London and went out to Heathrow to meet up with Maggie and Oliver some friends of ours who had several hours stop over there en route to Cape Town.This was a great occasion for us to catch up with each other, me too, and we had a thoroughly enjoyable day. We heard much about their recent tour through Australia with their own vehicle which they’d shipped over especially for it. By the time they get to Cape Town that vehicle will be back there waiting for them and they will be doing more trips around Southern Africa with it.
Then a couple of weeks later we were back at Heathrow as we were the ones setting off. This time we are flying to Abu Dhabi where we shall have a 9 day stop over. L, in a fit of efficiency had organised this, and also booked a hire vehicle so that we can explore the UAE and Oman too while we are there. It should be somewhat warmer than it is here in the UK now.We landed in Abu Dhabi early one Friday morning just as the sun was rising. L looked out the window of our plane and could see the stark desert meeting the brilliant blue of the Arabian Gulf, and the large modern city that is Abu Dhabi.We didn’t do much on that first day, neither of my lot had got any sleep on the plane so they were very tired. We did walk down to the Corniche and had a look at the water front. We all found it very hot after cool, damp England.
The next day we picked up our hire car and set off through the desert. First we headed south to Liwa Oasis. Along the way we saw many camels, these are one hump ones and they vary a great deal in colour from almost white to almost black. My lot hadn’t seen such a variety of colour before.The roads are really good and the traffic very orderly. Even heading down to this remote oasis we had a good 4 lane divided highway. The speed limit is mostly 120k’s and there are sign all along the way that the road is continually monitored by radar. Trucks must use only the right hand, outside lane and can’t overtake and they stick to that religiously likewise with the speed limit so it must be tightly monitored we believe. Its amazing to see such orderly traffic this far east.
All along the way the wind is blowing the sand across the road, you can even see this in Abu Dhabi. where the road runs beside sand dunes those dunes seem to be overtaking the road. The desert varies in shade from a pale faun to a cinnamon red/orange and some of the dunes seem dimpled. Then each village or town is a splash of green with the date palm plantations and often strips of green lawn along the roadside.
Nearly all the main roads seem to have a narrow strip of date palms or other shrub on both sides, every tree has trickle irrigation and those lawns and garden full of colourful petunias and pansies are all underlaid with trickle irrigation. My lot ponder if the water comes from massive de-salination plants or underground bores. Out from Liwa Oasis we found the 300m high dune Tal Morib, It might be autumn in this part of the world but with the temperature well over 30C neither of my lot were up for slogging to the top through very loose red sand in these temperatures despite my urging so I had to be content with seeing it from the bottom only. We did find around the bottom there is a racing complex. There are camel and horse racing tracks, not that we’ve seen any horses, and a car racing track but the whole place was deserted at the time of our visit.
We took a lessor road, only 2 lanes this time, back north east and headed for Al Ain near the Oman border. Even though nothing is shown on the map we passed through many villages where there were extensive date palm plantation all with tricky irrigation. We left the high sand dunes behind and came back into flat country but still with drifting sand.In Al Ayn there is a very large date palm oasis in the centre of the town. Thousands of trees and there are lovely shaded walks through this oasis. Not only date palms, here there are figs and some sort of citrus that produce a large yellow knobbly fruit. Date palms look like a nice palm but they are not friendly, they are very hard and spikey. Loads of pretty little black and white birds can be seen flitting around and through these trees.
We meandered through the gold souq where the numerous small shops display vast amounts of gold jewellery. If the local women wear such jewellery then no one gets to see it as the majority of them still wear the traditional Moslem attire. Still, there are quite a few, even older women who are wearing western clothes, though not the skimpy summer wear we see at home. Just an odd one or two of the younger ones wear the skimpy clothes seen at home in the summer, and they may not have been local but family of foreign workers who make up the majority of the population in the UAE. The way L dressed didn’t seem to cause any problems, but then again she is a bit old and decrepit so perhaps no-one noticed her. She did find that mostly she was the only woman in any of the small restaurants we, not me, ate in.
A very high point in the Al Ain area is Jebel Hafeet, 1240m, with a really good, wide tarmac road that goes almost to the top, ending in a big carpark with a small restaurant. The track up the side of the peaks looming above was closed so we couldn’t go further. There is a very flash hotel we passed just before reaching the car park. the view from the top isn’t that extensive due to dust haze. Peering through this haze we could see that Al Ain and the date palm plantations are both very extensive. Huge housing estates forming small cities seem to spread out across the desert.
The border crossing into Oman that we chose was very quiet in the late afternoon. Despite reading that we wouldn’t have to pay for an exit visa, we found that we had too, about $14 AUD each. The border official has a card reader ready for all of us who don’t have the cash, just swipe your debit/credit card and your through. Similar situation on the Omani side where we had to pay about $17.50 each, again with a card reader. When it came to the car, no-one really cared if we had a car or not, let alone it being a hire car. We had been warned we would have to pay a fee but no-one here was interested so off we set.
we headed for the capital Muscat, we drove south across the desert seeing high mountains off to the east.In the Ibri area we set out to look for some ancient tombs. We probably found the longest route to them but after asking directions in a couple of villages we did succeed in locating them and arrived just as a group of tourists were leaving, so fortunately we had them to ourselves.These tombs are said to date back 5000 years, perhaps they do, however, L doubts that any of them were still standing in their original condition after such a time. Judging by the many rocks scathed about it seems that whoever has rebuilt them has been more economical with them than the original builders. Still they were interesting to see, sitting on the ridge top as they are overlooking a small wadi. Each housed many bodies and a few artefact have been found too.
Driving towards Muscat, the capital, on a busy 4 lane divided highway we passed through high, barren mountains. In many towns and villages there are old forts that are either crumbling ruins or have been rebuilt. Later these highway proved to be very annoying. Often we found that we had to travel great distances beyond where we wanted to go in order to find a place where we could get off the highway, and then if we wanted to cross to the other side that proved even more difficult as then we had to look for a place where we could do so, covering even more miles. Oh, how frustrating this got over the course of several days. We did learn to say off these highways as much as we could, not always possible I fear.
Muscat, the capital of the Sultanate of Oman is a very spread out place. It is more a collection of large town that are now joined together by massive housing estates and even more huge shopping centres.
The northern area is Al Ghubrah where the grand mosque is to be found. that mosque is a massive modern example of fine Islamic architecture. A gift to the people from their sultan on the 30th anniversary of his reign. We just missed out on a visit to the interior as it is only open until 11am, and it was just that time when we arrived. It will be high on our list for a visit if/when we go back to Oman.
A few k’s south is where we saw the equally massive opera house and there are some beaches near by with very white sand and brilliant turquoise water. Quite a distance away further south is the main port area at Mutrah. Between the two is Ruwi Heights district but we never did work out where to get off the highway to visit that area. Plenty of highway interchanges but not so easy to get off it.
In Mutrah we found our visit has co-incided with that of some damn great cruise ship with a thousand or two passengers. Also moored in the same harbour and at least half the size of the cruise ship was one of the Sultans yachts (his dingy as L calls it). We were told by a Filipino woman working here that he has two about the same size. L supposes he has to have a spare just incase one has a flat battery.With this cruise ship docked here the souq and the water front esplanade was crowded with its passengers. The same Filipino woman told us that it was an American ship though it seems to have had a large number of French speaking passengers. We heard more French than English as we made our way through the Souq and got thoroughly lost.
It took us a good while to find our way through the maze of narrow back streets and back to the Esplanade. My lot had left the sat-nav in the car, big mistake.What did pleasantly surprise my lot was just how clean it was everywhere. There was almost no rubbish about, the souq was really clean and there wasn’t any bad smells permeating the atmosphere anywhere, even in those back streets. We did see just one cat and no dogs at all.
Talking about dogs, we did see only two during the whole time we were in this region. They were both in the same small village. It was so good not to have stray dogs hanging around everywhere. L did some checking and it seems people are allowed to keep dogs, but they must have very strict rules about keeping them under control. L says we could do with the same rules here. Didn’t see many cats either so perhaps they have controls on them too, we certainly need something to be done about cats here in Australia where they cause vast damage to the wildlife.
Then just a little way further south is Old Muscat where the Sultans Palace occupies most of the area fronting the small harbour. Wonder how many wives and concubines he keeps under wraps in there? Makes you wonder if Madeline McCann (the young English girl who went missing in Portugal in 2007) wasn’t spirited away to just such a place, no one would every know.
We did consider going further south but as we didn’t have much time thought it would be best to head back north along the coast and visit some of the many wadis hidden back in the mountains.So that is what we did. We went into the coast and drove along the shore where there was many fishing boats either moored close to shore or pulled up on the beach. Each fisherman seems to have a small hut on the beach, some are built just of rushes, while others are of wood and even some built of concrete block. Not sure if they are permanent homes or just somewhere to keep the fishing necessities. There was masses of all sort of rubbish spread about here too. the sea is calm and turquoise in colour.
We passed a half built resort, it seems to have been left in that state since the GFC hit the tourist industry even in this region.
Following some roads inland we passed through many interesting small town and villages. Back in the mountains the small streams have water flowing in them, but that water disappears before reaching the sea. We meandered along some dirt tracks through the mountains and forded such streams several times, very glad that we had hired a 4WD with plenty of clearance. With fuel at around 40 cents AU per litre we didn’t care how many miles we covered even in this ford explorer that sucked up fuel like a thirsty camel.
One Friday when looking for a place to eat we saw men coming from a Mosque and heading into a small shop, then coming out clutching bags of take away food. As it was only men venturing into such shops D went off and came back with two serves of the meal of offer. It was rather good, not that I got to eat any of it. Under a mound of tasty, fragrant rice and veggies was a succulent piece of cooked chicken, the rice was enough to feed half of Burnett Heads. Another day we had a similar rice dish served with a mutton stew that my lot thinks may have been Australian mutton from what the fellow was trying to tell us. Whatever its origin my lot would be happy to have such a meal often. Whereas the fish L had at Mutrah was of the supermarket frozen variety available all over the world it would seem.
We did so enjoy our trip north in Oman and crossed back into the UAE at a different and supposedly busier border crossing. No fees to pay here but we were sent back to the Omani side because we’d missed the place where we should have had our passports stamped. I still haven’t got one of them either: The passport office turned out to be a tiny office at one end of a building housing motor insurance and on the wrong side of the road for out going traffic, you are just supposed to know its there. Anyway, that didn’t cause any problems, we just went back, got the passports stamps, then back to the UAE border where we were stamped in again very quickly and off we went.
We drove up along the coast here where we found similar boats and sheds on the beach but not the rubbish. Just before reaching the border to the tiny enclave of Oman that occupies the end of the peninsula we visited a tiny mud brick mosque that has been dated to 1446 and is possible the oldest Mosque in this part of the middle east. It seems the Mullah here has developed a relaxed attitude to the dress of foreign women visitors and L got away with wearing a skirt that covered her knees and a scarf over her head. Need to be more covered up than that for many of the Russian orthodox churches.
It is a lovely little mosque that is well maintained.Crossing the peninsula to Ras-al-Khalmah, one of the smallest of the Emirates, we found it was rush hour in the city so didn’t venture very far. Instead we headed south along the coast and saw some lovely stretches of fairly secluded beach where families were enjoying a picnic and a swim away from prying eyes. L considered a swim and did go for a paddle only to find that the sand also has a large amount of crushed coral in it that is very hard and sharp on bare feet. The water was pleasantly warm and it was calm. the main reason she didn’t go for a swim was because there isn’t anywhere to have a shower and wash off the salt.
We returned to Abu dhabi avoiding going through Dubai. Here we visited the Grand Mosque where visiting times are far more generous although L did have to dress in a ‘halaba’ that was supplied at the entrance. This is another huge modern Mosque. The interior is vast and decorated with marble in a huge range of colours. Even the flower motifs are made of inlaid marble in a range of colours, and the tiny flowers had ‘mother of pearl’ centres. It was just beautiful.
Back in the city we returned our car to the hire car people and spent a while here before heading off to the airport and catching our flight home.The Abu Dhabi grand prix was due to be held the following weekend but nowhere did we see any advertising for it. The taxi driver did point out the track on our way to the airport.So, we returned to Brisbane where Helen meet us at the airport.
After spending a few days with Helen and Cliff and all their greyhounds we returned on the train to Bundaberg and Peter and Tracie met us at the station and took us home. Soon I was washed so that now I am once again clean and sitting on the sofa resting until the next trip begins.
A very Merry Christmas and happy New Year to all my readers and fans, I love you all.
Benny Bean Bear xxxxxxxx
© Lynette Regan 6th December 2015