Wow

Yesterday I went to the Empty Quarter – the Empty Quarter is difficult to describe from the perspective of a tourist really.  It’s thousands of square miles of nothing, just sand dunes as far as the eye can see………..unless you are in a Ford Mondeo, in which case you can only wonder at anything within the eyes reach from the side of the road…..

Pictures (especially pictures that I take) don’t do the subtlety of the colours and the shadows, or the constant shifting of the sand (in true stereotypical fashion – but it’s true) anywhere near the justice that it deserves….

or the sheer scale of simply the very edge of something nature has created basically for herself – and bloody good luck to her I say, it’s beautiful.  Having said all of that, there is always a nutter using nature as a playground….

This is the top of a 300m high dune called the Moreeb Dune, the highest in the Middle East (allegedly).  At the bottom is the permanent residence of a branch of the Abu Dhabi Motorsports club which for some reason has a permanent residence 20km into the middle of nowhere at the bottom of the regions larges pile of sand……Could it possibly be anything to do with this……

or this……

or even this….

Just turn up in your Landcruiser and have a go !  We set off to climb to the top and got as far as the top of the fence on the left hand side of this picture before my legs and lungs gave way.  It’s like climbing a 300m ladder where the rungs move backwards about 75% of the way as you put your bare feet onto them.  Hell of a view though, even from three quarters of the way up !

The side of the fence I am on here is the official racing side (9 seconds from bottom to top is apparently the record), you’ll notice that it’s floodlit as well (as everything around here is cause it’s dark by 7 most of the year, and where’s the fun in not being able to go to the playground after 7 !).  They have a grandstand and a pit lane, and paddock, along with huge car parks and a helipad marked out for at least 6 helicopters !  I’m trying to find out when they do the proper stuff cause I can imagine it’s like tractor pulling or drag racing – just general madness with an engine !

Anyway, the point of the wow was that when we got down to the bottom a bloke in one of these stopped and said “do you want a ride” or words to that effect……

so obviously mindful of my need to continue to stay safe and earn money to send home, so that my small children and fluffy animals could continue to live in the manner to which they have now become accustomed I say “you bet” !  lets assume that because I returned safely, that the driver knew what he was doing……….lets just say that shall we………

As he was accelerating DOWN the hill I was having grave doubts…….

Still, here we are, all in one piece, so we can assume that he did know what he was doing.  It’s one of those things.  I’d love to have one to drive about but I think it would be a little more sedate whilst I was doing it, and I would stop to take in the views a little more often I think.

Lastly, because I haven’t got the energy to type any more, here is one for all the pointing fans out there……

“point at something” said I, “anything will do”……that’s the trouble with Germans – and she beat me to the top !