Into the Empty Quarter

Thursday 25th March Neville took us into the desert - it was his birthday gift to himself and happily I just tagged along. We headed out on a 3.5 hour drive into the depths of Abu Dhabi to a beautiful oasis resort in the Empty Quarter,

'...a desert second only in size to the Sahara, it is the largest expanse of sand in the world, its skyscraping dunes and otherworldly salt flats crossing borders into four countries: Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates'.

Getting there was fun, the speed limit on the freeways was 140 km/hr in Abu Dhabi and on one stretch 160/hr! On the very longest stretch of straight road into the desert the limit was 100km/hr with speed cameras every 5km powered by clearly visible solar panels - so all vehicles slowed for the cameras and sped the rest of the time!!

The resort was lovely and the desert was quiet, serene, very beautiful with ever changing light and colours of the sand. Out from our balcony the sun set behind the dunes, a great place to enjoy our G&T and watch the colours change. After watching several people climb the dunes the first evening to catch the sunset, we decided to give it a go. We waited until it cooled down the second afternoon (a relative concept, it was still 32C), and headed up, it took about 30 minutes to go up and 10 to come down!! Like a camel I took my own water, unlike a camel - I did end up sliding down on my butt on one particularly steep section, I deleted those photos!!!

On Friday, we took what turned out to be an amazing drive to the Moreeb Dune, one of the world's largest sand dunes. It has a 50 degree slipface, the height of 300 metres and apparently a perfect place for sand drags. Given it was quite hot - 39C we decided not to climb it! On the mud flats at the base of the dune are various car parks, buildings and a camel race track used for the annual Liwi Sports Festival. It was literally at the end of the road into the desert, the only thing over the dunes was Saudi Arabia. We only saw 2 other vehicles once we turned off the main road to the dune - it felt very remote and as if we were almost alone. We did see a couple of Bedouin camps and quite a lot of camels but it felt very much like the edge of the world! If you click on the map below it will take you to the Google earth page - as you enlarge it you will see the sand dunes, mudflats you'll see the Moreeb Dune, carparks, camel track and grounds.

Moreeb dune - impressive!

The Dhafeer Fort was on the highway on our way out - it is a recently restored 19th Century mud-brick fort mentioned in Neville's bible of travel (The Lonely Planet Guide). Forts can be seen throughout the UAE, used to protect the oasis back in the day from rival tribes.

On Saturday morning we were up and ready for a 0530 camel ride for sunrise over the dunes. The other 4 people that were booked must have slept in - so we had our guide Ashton, 6 camels and driver all to ourselves. Ashton was quite the photographer. You'll note that my camel had great taste in men - it kept nudging Neville for a kiss. The camel ride took us to the top of dunes...yep - that's me on my butt again on the way down!

The Empty Quarter was a total surprise to me - whilst the heat and sand in crevices were challenges...the quiet, the immensity, the colours left me in awe. Maybe also it was the contrast to the glitz and noise of Dubai.