We made the 2 hour drive pretty quick, lots of giant roundabouts on the way...car handles nicely around those. Finally over the 1000k mark so I was cruising ~160kph as much as I could. Gas mileage was just under 20mpg, so not bad. We both rode in the morning before our drive so we just wanted to get there and sleep at the pool. We had nice 3 hour ride. Once there we slept at the pool for 3 hours or so. Got some sun, that I needed badly. The view from our room at the Hatta Fort Hotel.
The hotel has jogging/hiking trails and if we would have got up earlier, it wouldn't have been so warm. It's much much drier here, but still very warm. We did the 5k loop and called it a day. Next up was to drive out to the Hatta Pools.
The road is paved most of the way, however there is some graded (gravel) roads for 8k or so, then some wadi tracks. 4motion in the R is nice for the super steep sections, no slipping. The view is from the top of a super steep section heading to the pools. Hajar Mountains in the background.
Once there I attempted to keep going on the wadi track, cause it looked the same, but it became apparent real quick that I needed some clearance... so I parked. The sport suspension doesn't like going more than 20kph in gravel either.
Once parked we had to hike a little ways to the pools. We brought lunch, for us, but these guys (Oriental Hornets) thought it was theirs! I didn't get a good comparison size photo like a good CSI, so you get Wiki info instead. They were double the size of yellowjackets though.
We swam a little ways in the pool, but since there have been many reports of dangerous high levels of E Coli, we made it a short one. Plus, visitors don't like to take trash out the pack in, so that was gross too. Lots of plastic waters bottles all floating at one end of the pool. It'd be much nicer after the rainy season and when water is actually running into and out of the pool.
The hornets were getting annoying and aggressive, so we bolted to the car and started home with the plan of stopping at Big Red! We rented a 350cc quad and off we went to the top. I have never driven a quad, let alone on sand dunes, let alone in a foreign country...list goes on. It was 45 (113F) and blowing sand. It was awesome and I look forward to doing it again. Next time with something to cover my left ankle from being burnt on the engine, something over my face and ears for blowing sand and more sunscreen... Photo looking up to the top.
The photo in my title is of a camel train we came across just before the dune we rode. Over 20 camels in a train, very cool sight.
This weekend we are off to Al Ain to ride Jebel Hafeet again and then to Fujairah, another Emirate NE from here. Some snorkling and twisty mountain roads await!
1 comment:
Good good good......
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