UAE West Coast Road and Camping Trip

Gloomy day last Thursday but who cares? That doesn't stopped us from our camping adventure in UAE West Coast Region!

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.

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.

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."

Look at that! Yes, it's in UAE! :)

 

Vlad enjoying this low tide Maldivian rocky scenery and thought
of doing the bbq in the middle of the sea!



There's a port in this area where they transfer people (even cars)
to Delma Island and Sir Baniyas Island.

Free as a bird! :)

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!

Camping at Fujairah

It's holiday and it's winter season, meaning - it's camping time! We planned and decided to go to Fujairah to see some rocky mountains and at the same time, to swim in the beach.

I'm telling you, camping preparation was not that easy. There are people who you would think would come and will end up backing out, there will be fights with regard of who does or buys what and all kinds of inevitable shitty things.. but I think it's all part of the adventure. So yeah, before we even enjoyed our winter camping trip, of course, there were few dramas we surpassed. I think life will be so boring without these. Hehe..

Anyway, so we left Abu Dhabi early morning as travel time is roughly 3 hours. The exciting part? It was raining cats and dogs on our way there! During the trip, I was skeptical to go any further. We even stopped not so nearly halfway as Stewart couldn't see anything on the road with this heavy rain. We warmed ourselves with some coffee and waited for a few minutes and then we went on and stopped, and went on and stopped, so it goes. I was like, what the heck?! I just kept on thinking or should I say praying for the rain to stop.

First stop for coffeeeeeee.

Once upon a wet day...

Our second stop.

Strike a pose. Third stop.

Eventually, after quite some time, we arrived at this camping spot. The place is okay. Good side is that there's a beach, downside is where the f*ck to pee??? This is not the same as in the dessert where aside from the moon and the stars to watch over you doing your thing, you will only expect camels to catch you off-guard! Of course we managed but in a very uneasy and uncomfy way.

We arrived about lunch time and we started putting up our tents and do some grilling. Since the weather is acting up that day, we just ate, entertained ourselves by playing cards while boozing and then slept cuddling eachother inside the tent around 6PM. And oh, one more thing I hate about this place is that it's so crowded. We couldn't feel/hear the nature because of our neighbors' heart-thumping lame music.


Wot?



Our bad moods were changed the next day - the sun is up, shining and smiling at us! We spend the morning barbequing, swimming and sunbathing. So this trip wasn't so bad after all. At least we enjoyed half a day of our almost two-day adventure. We packed and returned back to AUH in the afternoon.

Goofing under the sun.

with Cora

Going home. 

Honestly, I didn't enjoy this trip that much. Don't get me wrong. I wouldn't mind going back there but I prefer to go some other place. For me, camping over the dessert is still the best.

Stay tuned for my next sandpit adventure! Toodles!