Over the mountains to Fujairah

On our last weekend and to celebrate my birthday - Neville drove us up and over the mountains to the Emirate of Fujairah to spend a couple of nights by the sea. We stayed at the very lovely Intercontinental that looked out over the Gulf of Oman with the barren mountains directly behind us. The UAE has one of the world's largest crude oil storage facilities in Fujairah, at night the horizon was lit by a line of the oil tankers that weren't visible during the day because of the perpetual haze. The water was quite wonderful to swim in and we were able to snorkel around the rock form they call 'Snoopy' because of the shape of the rock formation (it is just off the coast in the second photo).

I was spoiled with Champagne and lobster on Sunday night, by the time we were eating dinner it was Monday 19th in Australia - so yes I had a fabulous birthday!

In the emirate of Dubai it is acceptable (in fact expected) practice, that you can travel up to 20 kph over the speed limit - literally everyone does it. It would seem that is not the case in either Sharjah or Fujairah as Neville received a couple of very polite reminders by text message on Tuesday morning!