Gloomy day last Thursday but who cares? That doesn't stopped us from our camping adventure in UAE West Coast Region!
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| Fancy looking but not so helpful book :P |
It was planned to go camp somewhere west where we can swim so we chose Al Gharbia. According to reviews, this is the place where you can find a vast amount of dessert plus a never-ending coastline with stunning beaches and islands. Btw, going to this place by road is approximately 250kms-ish.
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| Huge trucks on the road starting from Musaffah to West Coast! |
First stop, Mirfa. We went to Mirfa Hotel as we read that there's a public beach right beside it. Surprisingly, there's a huge warning banner that welcomed us saying "photography is prohibited" and "swimming prohibited - deep water". What the heck?! I can't help but think how funny it is to drive all the way there and stay in that hotel right infront of the beach where you can't even swim. Lol. So we decided to look for some other place to stay.
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| Nice view eh? But oh no you can't swim! |
Since we had this book as a guide, we looked for a decent place nearby where we can camp. Next stop - Jebel Dhanna in Ruwais. Allegedly, this place is one of the "best" places and something tourists need to check out for when going to this part of Abu Dhabi. Apparently, this place is an industrial town with two fancy hotels and private residential areas. Again, a no-no for campers! There may be parts where you can put up your tent but we found those areas filthy and abandoned.
It's past noon with all our stomach crying for food and we still haven't found our perfect spot. As we keep driving further, I'm seeing that we are going far from the coastline. I started to think this part of the country sucks. Turning every page of this unreliable off-road book that we bought and checking on some answers from the gps and map, we decided on going to Sir Baniyas Island. I was like, "OK" since this is nearly 30minutes drive from where we are right now.
As we approached Sir Baniyas, I was pleased with the quietness and calmness of the place. Seeing brownish to white sand and different shades of blue sky/sea around it made me happy. We saw a few cars parked right beside the road while the owners are sitting laid-back with their fish gears. We went off-road to find this suitable spot. T'was a bit of a Maldivian style beach except for those huge rocks scattered in every place. But it's alright. That's the thing with camping - you won't be able to get everything perfect. We made a joke like "What's the point of having hundreds of kilometers of coastline? People here don't understand why we need beaches but on the other hand we don't understand why they don't need beaches."
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| Look at that! Yes, it's in UAE! :) |
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| Vlad enjoying this low tide Maldivian rocky scenery and thought of doing the bbq in the middle of the sea! |
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| There's a port in this area where they transfer people (even cars) to Delma Island and Sir Baniyas Island. |
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| Free as a bird! :) |
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| I made a friend, a really gorgeous one! His name is Errol. :) |
Overall, I would say it's a good experience going to Al Gharbia but I wouldn't really recommend it. For me, in this country, if you wanna go for camping, best place is still over the dessert and if you wanna go swimming, just go to Corniche Beach. But who knows? Maybe there are places out there that's worth visiting that I'm not aware of. So far, the book guide and some links over the net are not so reliable so we'll see. Till my next adventure! Ta-ta!
