EPIC, continued

...and so we set off at 6:30am! It was just me and Toad driving the 100 km back to where the car had been abandoned.

Now let me add a little more context to this day. In just 5 hours, we had to back in the heart of Dubai as I was hosting the Dubai WWFM (World Wide Flash Mob) event at noon. And since it only lasts 15 minutes, I really needed to be on time! Now we had to drive 100 km out into nowhere land, thats about an hour, and we would still need to drive back and hopefully make it home in time to have a shower and get ready.

Ever the optimist, this was the plan of action. As we were driving we saw that there was a cache nearby that wasn't normally accessible due to the number of muggles around this busy location. Being really early we figured it would be worth our while to stop by quickly and see if we could pick this one up, as an added incentive for getting up so darn early. We got to the general vicinity of the cache, parked, and looked around... and under, and over, and... well, twenty minutes later, we still hadn't found it. Toad made the call to hit the road, as we were just wasting time now. And all together we did end up wasting a precious 30 minutes.

The road to where the car was buried is a long road. Most remarkably, on the drive out last night we saw dozens of cars parked by the road side with people gathered around little fires, on dune tops... basically everywhere. The first thing that seems odd is having a picnic beside the highway is "fun", and I literally mean beside the highway (10 meters or so)? The second is only apparent the next day, as we noticed on our drive back. Apparently, they all bring all their garbage from home, collect some from the neighbors, go to the local supermarket and collect theirs, then pack a picnic with beer and other bottled beverages and go have a get together by the side of the road. Then when they are done, they make sure to unload all the garbage, distribute it about a bit, just so only a little bit of sand can be seen, and go home.

It is just appalling! I have lived in many different countries. and seeing my fair share of third world countries, but I have never seen anything like this! I realize I keep ranting about this, but I just don't understand. I mean, if you want to have a picnic in this area on a Saturday morning, you can forget finding a clean, litter free spot to stand on, never mind the gazillions flies that would pester you. How is this not obviously recognized as a major problem? I suppose being a desert climate and not having a lot of living environment to destroy it really doesn't have any impact, but do you really want to live in a country that looks like a garbage dump?

Anyway, yet another rant out of the way! Onwards to where the car was buried. Of course, I did mark the exact location of my car, so it took no time getting to the actual location.
And there she is... buried in the sand! A picture tends to say a thousand words, so herewith some pictures showing how very stuck I was (keep in mind these are after digging for a couple of hours)!
As you can see, not a pretty site. In case you are wondering, those tires were found lying not to far from the car, and we figured, if we could jack the car up and use these to fill the holes, at the very least we would get some traction! After trying a number of things, digging some more, rocking the car, etc. our luck began to turn.

The geocaching fairy was clearly waking up and happily sprinkling her geodust all over us! ... a bulldozer drove by! ToadNet was frantically waving and ran up to the bulldozer, and had a quick chat with the driver. Amazingly, .... the driver didn't speak a word of English, but we kind of got the idea there was an office down the road, and we needed to go there. We wasted no time in deciding that maybe asking for some help was not going to be a bad thing! So Toad jumped in the car and sped off in the general direction that the bulldozer driver was pointing in.

It wasn't 10 minutes later when I heard the crackle of the walkie-talkie, and Toad announcing victory and that he was bringing help! Excellent. By now it was about 9:30 am, and we were no closer to getting the car out of the sand. Stress was beginning to mount, and I had flashes of having to leave my car here yet again to go and do the WWFM event and then come back, maybe with some help from those attending the event! As Toad pulled up, another 4x4 pulled up next to him, and a gentleman (along with his "foreman" I would guess) climbed out and climbed down the dune to come and investigate.

He walked around the car, nodding in appreciation, and actually took a moment to compliment me on my superior skills in getting so stuck! (I swear, I'm not making this up, I got a thumbs up and a "well done"!). He sized up the situation and reckoned he had a pickup truck that he would send that would pull me out no problem. So he disappeared and 20 minutes later a pickup arrived with some helpers to dig in the back.

Help arrives.

After a lot of digging, setting up the pickup, hooking up the tow rope, and giving it a good pull, absolutely nothing happened. I didn't even feel a tug in my car... and this was not looking promising. They only really tried once or twice, very briefly, and somehow and alternate arrangement was made shortly after the first attempt. They decided they were going to call in the big guns now. A road roller.

Now, you may, as I did, wonder what on earth that is, and how exactly that is going to work, being in the middle of the desert and all. Well, we waited for a while... and then waited some more. And then in the distance a shadow materialized!

Ten minutes past and the shadow got slightly larger... another 10 minutes and you could almost identify a shape... must have been well over 30 minutes for the leviathan to travel the 4 km to come to the rescue!

What a monster! It also has the added benefit of creating a nicely flattened and compacted stretch of desert in its wake. The road roller was pulled in parked in front of my car, and hitched up by means of tow ropes.

A little more digging... and then we were all set for the main event!! At this moment in time I was having day-mares seeing my bumper tear off the front of my car and being launch into outer space!

I must say that the crew that was helping out was extremely friendly and most helpful. They went about it like it was just another task, although I suspect they were relieved by a break from the monotony of flattening a 4 km stretch of road!

And we were off... the road roller pulled my car forward like it was nothing... 50 cm is all it took, and my car was parked on the sand (not under it).

It was starting to look like the road roller was in trouble, as the round flattening thingy on the front was sliding off to the right and down hill. Then you gotta ask yourself: "Ok, so they got a Caterpillar road roller to pull me out... what do you get to pull a road roller out??"

Yeeehaaa, after the guys filled in the massive craters left by my wheels I reversed all the way up onto the little dune... and since my tires were now well deflated, I cruised around some of the dunes with great joy and relief before driving up onto the gravel road and parking next to Toad.

We wasted little time, hurriedly inflating tires, stopping by the construction office thanking everyone for their help, and then hitting the road. It was around 10:45 am and we still had an hour drive ahead of us. A shower and change of clothes was out of the question now, and the best we could hope for was to make it back to Madinat for the WWFM event.

That officially ended the epic 17 hour cache hunt for Hand-me-down. We went for the cache at around 5:30pm and ended up leaving the cache site at around 10:30am the next day.

Needless to say, we did make it to the event, and it was wonderful. Not really much of a flash mob, more like a casual gathering, but it was fun all the same! We had a total head count of 12 (including partners and all), which is a small contribution to the total 4337 cachers that attended globally, but ours was still the best!

We did our duties according to the event agenda, and then all met up afterwards for some lunch at Trader Vics some 100 meters from the cache gathering location. Many wonderful stories shared, a great meal had, and lots of laughs heard! Great to see everyone once again, and nice to GeoCRAt, org and Lucky Stars join us at this event.

After the lunch, I raced home to collapse! Man, I was exhausted and needed a whole bunch of rest!

Lessons learned today:

• Always deflate the tires when going into the desert
• Make sure to pack a Caterpillar road roller in case you get stuck
• Have good friends on speed dial
• Oh and... deflate the bleeding tires!
  

EPIC

Oh my goodness, this past weekend was a HECTIC geocaching weekend! It seemed like one long blur, and I am now all cached out and aching all over! Two days of caching, the first day being Friday, was a full caching day from 10am till 9pm.

My other half had to work today and I was still keen on getting out, so I joined TheToadNet and family for a day of geocaching! We decided to go for the caches on the route that Jamesdxb had clearly taken when hiding his latest batch of geocaches. We kicked off the day at around 10am, which we've come to realise is a little on the late side, since we keep on becoming more and more ambitious when we are out on the road (you know how it is, there is always that one more cache to go for!). By the time we got to our first cache, it was almost 11am.

Decided to start the day by taking the Toad's to one of Phoenixdxb's caches, since it was in the general vicinity of where we wanted to start! So it was on to the UAE Cache, for the family Toad to find.

I thought I would take the opportunity to snap a little scenery while the Toad clan did the deed.

After this, it was off to go and start the Jamesdxb route! First cache on the route was Halloween so that was the target. On the main road and just a few miles from the cache, Toad Snr. had a the urgent need to pull over... to hide one of his own prepared caches! We drove through the mountains a bit and found an interesting spot. So we all bailed out of the cars and Toad Snr. scoured the mountain for a suitable hiding spot. I followed until he found some really dodgy mountain side, on the way to the top... at which point I thought it would be wiser to just ... uhm, watch him :)

Apparently, there was a really good view from up there... apparently.

Toad Snr. was very busy "building" the cache hiding spot, and the cache was later published as The Art Cache. Anyway, Toad Snr. was very pleased with himself, and soon we were back on the road in no time!

It was a mere minutes and we left the road again, heading for Halloween! I was once again plagued with the disoriented Garmin illness! I stopped right in the middle of the path and got out of my trusty 4x4. Took a couple of steps and I was on 0m to the cache. Toad on the other hand reckoned his (exact the same) said it was still some 200m off. Now that is a really large discrepancy!!! But wait... there's more! Then all of a sudden, I was 20m... no wait 30m... no wait... 10m ... uhm what the heck! I wasn't moving and yet the GPS distance to cache was changing! Ok, while Toad headed in the direction he reckoned it was in, I performed the traditional three finger salute (for those of you not technical, it means hitting Ctrl-Alt-Del in PC terms and effectively means reboot the machine). When my Garmin rebooted, tada, it suddenly had me heading in the right direction. By this time Toad Snr. had already found the cache, and it all that was needed was to do the necessary logging and trading.

Not surpisingly, the scenery was very similar to the previous location and so pictures are omitted :)

Yeehoo, my first find for the day. Thirty minutes later we were back on the road heading for DAM nano. Now this one was odd. A dam wall built apparently in the middle of nowhere. One thing is undeniable. There is no respect for ones country or environment in this part of the world. Black rubber marks on all the roads, where the local idiots have conducted various handbrake turns and burnouts. The crap lying everywhere, most notably the abundance of broken beer bottles (in a Muslim country - where they aren't aloud to consume alcohol)... yet when the sun goes down... sigh! With great respect to the people of the UAE, it just upsets me to see the environment destroyed and ruined the way they do.

Anyway, Toad Snr. was on a roll today, and only took him a few seconds to actually find the nano. A few minutes later, the log was signed and put back, with the usual great difficulty! With that it was time for a spot of lunch! Toad, being the master chef that he is, doesn't just bring along a simple picnic. Heck no, he brings along a ton of ingredients, and prepares the stuff from scratch (I mean, French baguette, meats, cheeses, etc)! All I can say was, it was a killer sandwich... you just had to be there!

After a delicious lunch we were back on the road heading for Tara's Ark. When we got to the approximate location, we realised we needed to be on the other side of the road, so we decided to get this one of the way back and carry on to Road to Kalba. This one turned out to be a bit more time consuming than expected; a quick drive down a dirt road to a hill, up the hill and then... oh no. Frigging rocks everywhere. The cache could be hidden anywhere!

We searched and searched, lifted almost every rock, and were about to give up when Toad Snr. made the all important discovery. It was a fairly small cache hidden in this very rocky landscape... very evil!

Ok we got to the end of our route, and now it was time to head back. Next stop, Tara's Ark! And oh boy, another one of those oh-so-favorite mountain climbing exercises.

Setting off.
Halfway up.
Holy crap, I made it! Yay!
Just so you know how darn high it is up here! Man, I am once again reminded of the stellar shape I am in... nothing like having the lungs burning and heart pounding in my ears! Wow, I was drenched in sweat... nothing like a little exercise to break up the monotony of driving! (Yeah right!) We eventually made it back down and remarkably, by the time we got back, there were 5 other cars parked in that area with people coming to admire the view?? Strange.

Now it was the lengthy drive back to the next cache on the route, Hand-me-down with a quick stop so the Toads could get Live Once in Al Maliha. Figured this one would be quick and considering it was just a couple of kilometers from Hand-me-down, reckoned this would make a nice additional find. Of course there was the added benefit of watching Toad Snr. suffer another grueling climb to the top of the next mountain (heh heh). I cunningly opted to direct Toad from the foot of the mountain :) Oh so nice to chill by the air conditioned cars, getting my fill of Pringles and water, while knowing that Toad was struggling up the mountain! I know the pain of course, since I did this one before.

We ended up losing quite a bit of time on this one, and a good 45 min later, Toad Snr. made it back to the cars and we hurriedly got back in the cars and raced of to the final cache for the day, Hand-me-down. The sun was fading fast, and beginning to set!

The race was on! We made it to within a few 100 meters of the cache in about 10 minutes, bailed out of the cars and headed down a large dune in the direction of the cache location. The sun had set, but we still had a little twilight to guide the way. Once we were in the general location, we discovered another rock covered mountain with a million-and-one hiding places! I am sure that in broad daylight it would be much easier to find the cache, but we were at a serious disadvantage! Again, after about 30 minutes and as we were about to give up, Toad Snr. the lucky bugger, once again (I swear he was super blessed this trip and the ever present geocaching fairy must have baptized him in the lucky geo-dust) found the cache! We didn't was much time here, and each took a coin, signed the logs, put stuff in the cache, and high-tailed it back to the cars. Climbing up the dune, took the last bit of energy we both had left, and we were completely finished by the time we got back to the cars.

That's when the the geo-fairy obviously fell asleep and things started to go pear-shaped! Toad Snr. quickly discovered that he couldn't find the coin that he had taken, and he searched all around himself. He reckoned he might have accidentally put the coin back in the cache container, but he didn't know for sure. And one thing was certain, there was two chances he was going back to go and find out... none, and none whatsoever! Oh well, hopefully it wasn't dropped next to the cache or something, and it did actually end up being accidentally replaced in the cache.

Now, we had parked about 100m off a gravel road on the top of one of the dunes. We turned around and started heading back. Over a seemingly little dune, and then... oh no. Toad can't make it up the dune onto the gravel road. I suddenly hit the breaks, realising he was going to need to backup to try get some speed to make it up. Big mistake... HUGE! My fully inflated front wheels dug in quite nicely, and there was no way I was going forward. I tried backing up a bit, then going forward again, backing up a bit, forward... eventually I had backed up into a small dune at the bottom of a hill. Bugger, no more movement.

I got out the car, to see that Toad Snr was having a similar problem. It was a only a matter of minutes before you could hear the harmonic whistle of air being carried on the dark night air as tires were being deflated. Seems like we both had the same idea. Unfortunately for me, it was too late for me, but Toad managed to recover himself and pull up onto the gravel road.

It wasn't looking good! The two of us spent almost an hour digging and trying, but we were getting nowhere! To make matter worse, we couldn't really see anything in the dark, and we were really struggling. With the everyone exhausted and aching, and still being some 100 km from home, we decided to leave the car and head home, and come back early the next day to try to recover my trusty companion!

Lesson for the day: ALWAYS deflate your tires when heading into the desert! Always!

Hiding Caches

Oh my! The week started well, and I thought I would live up to my promise to the community and hide a couple of caches. I started off well, hiding two nano's in one day, and have them both published fairly quickly.

1. Curse of the Nano I: Towers over SZR
2. Curse of the Nano II: Education Central

Phoenixdxb went for Curse of the Nano II: Education Central the next day at lunch time, as it was close to work, and called me to tell me she couldn't find it. I quickly popped over to the location (since I work about 800 meters from the cache :) ), and was horrified to find that it had already been muggled. My goodness, less than 24 hours.

That really killed my cache hiding spirit... until today!

Today I decided, since it was going to be far less busy, and Phoenixdxb had to work, that I would go and hide another few caches.

Weeee... and so I started the day by hiding a replacement for Curse of the Nano II: Education Central, but this time, I made sure it was going to stay for a while :)

But this was only the beginning. I then drove around for a while, till I saw something interesting, and made a new discovery. A tiny stretch of public beach close to where I work. Wow. And it gets better, there are a couple of dunes that makes for some nice Urban Dune Bashing!! It's just so very out of place! Did the necessary and then there was another one hidden!

After this, I decided to head back to my home ground. I had an idea when I left this morning and wanted to go and explore around my home area to find a good hiding spot. After spending about an hour driving around, making a U-turn and heading back, I finally found a location that looked suitable. I also made a new friend, and I call her Betsy!

It is remarkable how similar the fur color is to the sand, don't you think? Anyway, she was my geocaching muse today, and I decided to find a nice spot to hide my bigger cache, Springstone's Coin Market. This one should be more fun for everyone, as its a geocoin exchange, and fairly accessible - a little stroll is required.

Phew, 4 caches hidden this week, and 2 in one day. I'd say that this was a good week!

Next weekend, it's caching time!!!

UAE Cachers Get-Together Event

The day has finally arrived, the first geocaching event in the UAE... nay, the entire Middle East!

What a superb day, after a number of delays we set out and hit the trail heading towards Jebel Hafit (or Jebel Hafeet depending on the sign board), the location for the first geocaching event in the gulf region. Jebel Hafit is an amazing feat of engineering, and the summit is officially the highest point in the United Arab Emirates (standing at some 1100 meters above sea level). Now, that doesn't seem like much, but considering that nearly the entire country is just a few meters above sea level and fairly flat, it is impressive. This is all the more apparent when you park in the parking lot on the summit and look out, where you can see for miles, and everything around the summit is as flat as a pancake.

It's about a two hour drive if you follow the posted speed limits, and about 180 km from home. We made really good time, liberally interpreting the speed limits, and decided to go for a cache near our final destination in Al Ain (the town close to Jebel Hafit). Have a Jahli good time! was one of the new caches posted in recent days, and still hadn't been found yet, so we figured we would see if we could get the FTF. Finding the park in which the cache is hidden was easy enough, and then walking to the actual cache and finding it was pretty straight forward. Trying to fish the logbook out of the nano cache was another story. After a quarter of a hour trying to get the darn thing out, we were finally able to sign the logbook. And yes indeed, we were the first to find!

But then things took a turn for the more frustrating. As we turned around to go and hide the cache again, we discovered two indigenous gentlemen had come and sat on the grass, facing the cache hiding spot, not more than a few meters away. So now how do we hide the cache again? My other half thought if she walked to the other side of where they were sitting, she might be able to distract them. One then watched her, while the other watched me... sigh! After about 20 minutes, realising that time was running out, we figured the only was to go was to pretend to drop something while walking past the cache location, and while retrieving it, quickly put the nano back. And so it was done!

Having wasted a great deal of time on this one cache we were now running a little late, and no longer had time to hide a cache of our own as intended! We had to race up the mountain, to get to the summit first, as I was the one who had organised the event in the first place, and it would just be wrong for the host to be late!

We timed it well, and with tires screeching around the corners up the mountain we managed to get there before anyone else.... but only just. Not 5 minutes later, and the first of the UAE Cachers arrived (Liveonce). After about another 10 minutes, everyone started to arrive one after the other.

It was just great to meet all the people you read about caching in the community. We also managed to get a really great group photo, thanks to Desert Trekker and his seemingly unlimited supply of gadgets! Camel Master and Camel Mistress, Desert Dueler and Desert Rose, Jamesdxb and Tara, US-A-Rabia, Liveonce, The CADs and of course Desert Trekker and his better half!


We spent about two and a half hours just talking about things... setting up for the Rat Race (more on that later) and just getting to know each other better. It was wonderful finally putting a face with all those cryptic names, and to discover that our caching community is really full of wonderful people.

However, as I was just having such a great time, I neglected to notice how I was getting a nice deep sun tan... err... burn! Holy moly, I am still red like a lobster! Arms, feet, neck and face took the brunt of the punishment! No matter, it was a small price to pay and the experience was totally worth it! Someone mentioned that this event was once of the most rewarding cache "finds" to date, and I must agree!

Just before 3pm we all went our separate ways, and all climbed in our cars to go do some geocaching in the area. As we were the last to leave, on the drive down the mountain we kept running into each other going for the obvious caches along the route! That was quite funny...

We managed to get a couple of caches in, Jebel Hafit (finally found this one, thanks to Desert Dueler and updated coords, and it is the oldest cache in the UAE!) and Jamesdxb's Work your way up!. The latter gave us a little trouble, until we figured we would test the Dubai Marina theory (my own cache), and were pleasantly surprised to find it hidden in a similar fashion.

After these two, there were still a whole bunch to go for... but I was starting to not feel so good. Probably as a result to not having eaten a thing the whole day, and the generous dose of UV/A and UV/B (aka sun). So even though we got near to a cache, we decided to just press on home instead, and plan a day to come back and maybe meet up with US-A-Rabia (since he lives in the middle of nowhere!).

All in all a great day, meeting great people. Next weekend my other half has to work, and I might have a day to spend hiding caches! Who knows... be sure to check back soon!

Social Geocaching Day

Today was a different day! A lot of fun, doing the geocaching social style! My best mate, ToadNet and family (Mrs. ToadNet and ToadNet Jr.) joined us geocaching in the Hatta area. We kind of helped them get to and find some of the more challenging caches around that part of the UAE, and had a good excuse to go for the three new caches hidden out there.

I also had the opportunity to spend a little more time on photography, and managed to get some great photos along the way!

Ok, to be perfectly honest, for most of the previously found caches that we visited on ToadNet's behalf, I remained close to the cars and masterfully avoided climbing those much loved mountains! My other half, I swear she is part mountain goat or something, bounced up and down all these treacherous mountains like it was nothing.

So all in all, it was a great day. We set out at around 9:30am and headed straight for the Hatta area. As we approached the area we made a bee-line for Memories of Dubai. The cache is a deceptively easy cache to get to, considering all the other caches in the area, but is a great warm-up for geocaching in the area (being the first cache as you approach Hatta). Everyone dropped some form of trackable in this cache, so we all had to sit on the lid of the container and use some magic to close the cache container again! (It was bulging).

Then it was on to one of Phoenixdxb's caches that ToadNet needed to find. Pay it Forward, which is quite close to Memories of Dubai, is easy enough to get to if you make the right turns :)
Everyone took a nice stroll to the cache, and did the deed, while I remained behind taking pictures and worked on some creative photography.

(I managed to find some shade :))

(Toad Jnr and Mrs. Toad heading back from the hunt)

As you can see, we had a beautiful day to enjoy geocaching, and it was only around 36 degrees Celsius. After everyone did the necessary at Pay it Forward, we drove down along the base of the mountain to the next cache, or should I say first part of it. Arabian cache is quite a treasure of a cache. If you haven't done it yet, I highly recommend it, but do plan to spend at least 4 hours on this one cache hunt. It is essentially a multi-cache, and you just have to see the first cache container... its fabulous.

Now the reason I mention this is because Toad Snr. somehow managed to put it in his pocket while shifting things around in his hands. Somehow, no one noticed that the container was not put back where it was found... until everyone was back at the cars... after a loud groan from Toad Snr., he had to turn around and head back up the mountain to go a hide it again. While Toad Snr. ventured up the mountain it gave the rest of a chance to play the fool, and shoot the breeze.

Ok, it was just the two boys playing the fool :)

Fifteen minutes later, soaked in a healthy dose of sweat, he returned a slightly pinker shade of tomato! There is no denying the expression of triumph as he returns...

It was now time to replenish our fluids!


After everyone was suitably refreshed, we all piled into the cars, and headed back to the road onto the next cache. Checking the GPS was a bit of a pain, since all the ones I had already found were no longer showing up in the "find geocaches" menu, and I didn't want to miss any along the way that Toad may not yet have found. Having isolated the next candidate, Hatta's GOLF cache, we plotted our course. For a change we drove right past it before realizing we had to make a U-turn to head back in the correct general direction. Letting Toad and family take the lead, cause they hadn't found it yet, was entertaining, as we knew exactly where we should have been going. Funny to watch someone else, and realize that what they are doing is exactly what you were doing the first time you tried to find it. Straight down here... a little to the right... no, wait and little to the left... back a bit... oops, wrong turn... etc.

Now, along the way to the final cache location, we came across a bush that was just plain full of garbage. How on earth so much rubbish can end up littering a location seemingly in the middle of nowhere is beyond me... and even worse, is the apparent lack of concern for the environment prevalent in the region. I say this broad sweeping statement, but I have been to many remote locations in the UAE, and have often encountered piles of rubbish just left behind or thrown out in the middle of nowhere.

Anyway, we finally got the parking spot as close to the cache as possible. Now, there wasn't a snowflakes chance in hell that I was going to do this climb again. I gracefully bowed out and volunteered to keep Mrs. Toad and Toad Jnr. company with Phoenixdxb (aka Mountain Goat) and Toad Snr. went ahead a scaled the mountain.

And so TheToadNet and Phoenixdxb set off up yet another mountain. TheToadNet was lucky to be able to walk back down again, without flight-for-live or air rescue assistance, as we watched him take a tumble up in the mountain. Apparently his head just missed a rock, and it could have been very ugly. Thankfully, no injuries sustained, and the two mountain jockeys did their business and returned about an hour later.

In the meantime, Toad Jnr reckoned he looks cool behind the wheel!

This last one was caught just after he was trying to show me how he had lost his first tooth! Many unflattering posses later, I caught him checking to see if he could see the gap left by the missing tooth.

After this cache, we decided it was time to head out for some lunch... it was already after 1pm and it was the first day of Eid Al Fitr. We figured the only place to really find lunch within a reasonable distance was the Hatta Fort Hotel. The food there is good, and really cheap. Apparently, everyone else in the area also thought so :) My goodness, there were a lot of cars, had to pay a gate fee, and the parking lot was very busy. Thankfully though, we only had to wait about 10 minutes to get a table in the restaurant. And as usual the meal was very nice, and everyone manage to restore themselves to a normal color, and adequately rehydrate themselves.

Near 3pm, I suggested I would lead the way, because I had, via Google Earth, found a spot I wanted to hide a cache. After getting lost for about half an hour, and ending up right where we started, I decided to give this one a skip, and instead focus on getting the other caches, that were just over the border in Oman.

We first made a stop at one of the new caches in the area, This & That. Yay, another find... but my goodness, this place was dangerous and disgusting. The sheer volume of flies around the cache area says it all! This is one of those spots frequented and popular by the locals, which was apparent by all the cars with blacked out windows (one parked right under the cache site). It was really busy here today, and we lucked out because there was a tree that was obscuring the cache site from one of the parked cars. Thankfully, I was also wearing my hiking boots, so as to avoid cuts from the shards of glass spread all over the place. Broken Heinekin bottles on the mountain side, shards sticking out of the sand... it really is a disgrace!

Anyway... it was a relatively quick find, and the cache had some nice goodies in it! I liked the skeleton travel bugs and was no time in snapping up Fatso!

We dashed back to the cars to escape the flies that were just everywhere, and then headed down the road to the mini border post crossing into Oman. It was manned for once, but they were only checking for Oman car insurance. We then carried on down the road to Grand Stand, which was just wonderful.

Wow, the view/location was fantastic. Finding the cache was a little challenging as the coordinates on the GPSs (we had 3) were a little off seemingly, and after a thorough search of the surroundings, TheToadNet found the cache! It was nice a big! Full of goodies all sports related. Sadly, it was missing a mini outfit of the soon to be Rugby World Cup champions... (hint: not England!)... because that would have been mine!

After everyone had signed the log and made their trades, we drove down another 2 km to Hatta's LOVE cache which Toad Jnr found all by himself (with a little help from dad :)). We had already found this one, so it was just a quick, and very nice find for the Toad family (that really does sound wrong... I wonder what on earth inspired Toad Snr. to use Toad as a nick?).

After this, it was time to head home, as the sun had started setting. We originally wanted to got for Pink Rock, which is in the desert, so Toad Snr. could try his hand at desert driving, but the day got away from us, and dune bashing in the dark is no fun!

It was a great day, fun was had all round... and it was now time to head home and rest up for my other favorite past-time the following day... visiting the Hard Rock Cafe when Shine (the band) is in town.

Watch this space next week, because Friday coming is the UAE Cachers event, so it should be interesting!

4 Day Weekend

Yeah baby, yeah! It's a four day weekend this weekend, so expect a lot of news after this weekend!

The Mountains To The Desert

What a wonderful day! Bearing in mind that we had a kinda late start, we only really hit the road at around 10:30am.

The plan was to go for the caches hidden in the desert and the more remote locations, so it was necessary to take at least two cars (you know, in case one gets horribly stuck, etc). We also figured we should go for some of the newer caches hidden in the Dubai/Sharjah area, and we decided to get those out of the way first.

We started our adventure be visiting Zabeel Park. There are currently two caches hidden in Zabeel Park, a couple of hundred meters apart, namely Purple Rain Cache and Za'abeel Park. The geocaching fairy was on our side help us navigate the various detours and roads, right to the parking lot of the park. Zabeel Park is really beautiful and very nicely presented. I personally preferred visiting this particular park to Creek Park, but to each their own. Zabeel Park is totally different but no less of a wonder, considering the arid and unfriendly nature of a desert climate.




While entering Zabeel Park, we encountered a family just leaving, and they looked suspiciously like they may be fellow geocachers (I don't know, I reckon the GPS in hand is usually a dead give away!). I think they were thinking the same thing when they saw us, because as we approached each other we came to a stop, and just said, "Geocachers?". No surprises, they were, and they were none other than michaeldb (the De Beer family), the first geocachers we have met on the job! Although on this particular day, there were a whole bunch of cachers going for the new caches in Zabeel Park, and we must have narrowly missed the others! It was nice meeting some of the folks that play in this part of the world, and was not really surprised to find they were from South Africa (I reckon SA is representing half the cachers in the UAE).

From here we decided to go for the two caches not so far away, but bordering on Sharjah and in still undeveloped areas (though that will no doubt change very soon). So it was Pennywise and Pin-Head, both easy enough to get to, and fairly convenient as caches go. With "Casper", my trusty Prado, I had no problem parking practically on top of the cache sites :).

No here is where we had a little trouble, and I reckon the geocaching fairy had to dash off and help one of the other cachers in the area. We found the two caches easy enough, but from Pennywise, the plan was to catch the main road up to the desert and end up near Fossil Rock. Problem was that there was no obvious connection between the road that takes you to Pennywise, and the main road seemingly just 500m further. Now, I was NOT going to drive all the way back to catch another road that led to the road, and do another 30 km detour. Oh no. So off road we went again, travelling on a convenient service "path/road" that ran along the power lines. Eventually we got to the end and there was a nice spot for us to navigate our ways onto the main road! Having spared ourselves a 30 km detour, and having still been heading in the right direction, I was well chuffed.

We also spotted an interesting site. A couple of camels having lunch.


Anyway, we carried on for about 50km or so, until we were within a reasonable distance to Sand Track (Desert Challenge Yellow Key). As we were looking for a way into the desert we realised that the other two caches were now getting closer, and we eventually found a dirt road leading from the main road that looked to be heading in the right direction. So we ended up heading smack dab in the middle of Live Once in Al Maliha and Fossil Rock, with Sand Track (Desert Challenge Yellow Key) now some 10 km ahead of us. We opted to start with Live Once in Al Maliha as we reckoned this would be a quick one, but oh boy, were we wrong.

The problem with these mountain caches, in particular the ones NOT on the summit, is that the mountain tends to block your GPS reception. So, while you can get to the general vicinity of the geocache, you basically have about a 30 meter radius to search in - if you are lucky. Also, being the spur of the moment cachers that we are, we didn't really do any research on some of these caches, we kind of go for them as they pop up on the GPS. BIG mistake on this one. We climbed this ridiculous mountain (I do not like mountain climbing, climbing a hill pisses me off :) - this mountain wasn't too bad... but I could really do without). Let me add some photos to illustrate.

Anyway, we spent about 45 minutes climbing all over the place looking for any tell tale cache hiding spots. Alas, we just couldn't find anything. So I then decided to go back to the car and consult the oracle, GPXSonar. I swear, I love my oracle with all the add-ons... firstly, its paperless caching (I am a big fan of this, I don't believe any activity promoting the well-being of our environment would go well with wiping out forests), secondly, I have access to all the info that is on the actual site, off-line, including the spoiler pics :). Have reviewed the hints and checked some of the spoilers, I passed the information along to my better half still on top of the mountain. A joint effort finally got us in the right location, and tada!!!!

Phew, we spent over an hour and a half at this cache and we still hadn't even start the desert stuff. But now it was on to Fossil Rock...

It's the mountain outcropping in the middle at the top. You can also see our cars down there, just so you have an indication of how far up the cache was hidden. As you can see it is well surrounded by desert, so after driving back and forth looking for an easier was in, we deflated the tires and took the plunge. Now this was my first dune bashing session in about 8 months, so I was a little weary (till I get my sand driving instincts going). And this is probably the worst place to cut you teeth on dune bashing - I would not recommend starting your dune bashing experiences here, it was pretty hairy. After navigating the various dunes we headed for the mountain, and I must say it is pretty challenging trying to get up a sand dune mountain! But we made it!


The view from up here was amazing! Well worth navigating the dunes and taking the challenge. On to the hunt. After spending 30 minutes scouring the mountain side, getting send from one end to the other, I opted to consult my trusty oracle of all things cache! And low and behold, US-A-Rabia posted updated coordinates (which are usually spot on). So while my better half was up on the mountain, looking in all the holes, I took the updated coordinates, and was pleasantly surprised to find the cache just a few meters from the "road", and not in the mountain (did I mention how I loathe mountain climbing yet?). Ding Ding! This was a great cache location, but we were starting to get a little concerned as time was ticking by and we were rapidly approaching 4pm (sun sets at about 6:30pm and you don't want to get stranded in the desert in the dark).

So we wasted no time and hit the dunes in no time! We still needed to find two caches which were both in the middle of the desert. So no on to Sand Track (Desert Challenge Yellow Key), the prize and ultimate goal for today. We tried to find the easiest way to get as close to the cache as possible without actually driving straight through the dunes (cause its so time consuming). We found a road running parallel to the mountain range in the picture above, which took us about 5km closer to the cache. Then we encountered a tarred road with, oh my goodness I wet my pants... PORSCHEs galor parked by the side of the road!!!

... and they just started pulling off as we were parked here contemplating our next action! Arrrr arrrr arrr! (From Tim Allen's Tool Time - the primal grunt :)). Porsche is my ultimate car, always has been and this was just beautiful!! There were even a couple of GT3 RS's in there!!

Anyway, after recomposing ourselves, we set off trying to edge closer to the cache, minimizing the amount of dune bashing we needed to do to get to the cache - as light was rapidly fading! We eventually found a good spot to hit the dunes again, and only needed to do about 3 km or so to the cache! Brilliant!

Yeeeeehaaaaaa! I had strangely forgotten how much fun dune bashing is!

... breath-taking!

And then we got to the cache, and parked right next to it!!! Yay, #4 of 5 of the Desert Challenge!

I really enjoyed going for this one, and it was a thoroughly rewarding and fun experience - not insanely stupid and risky dunes to traverse, just plain fun!

As you can see the sun was rapidly starting to set and here is the kicker... a whopping 10 km to Pink Rock. And all desert between! Oh boy, but we really needed to go for this one! So we wasted no time, in the cars and off we set.

Oh my, only half way there, and there goes the sun!! And this also marks the last of the photos!

We were rejoined by the geocaching fairy who helped us find a well traveled stretch of desert heading in the general direction we needed to... we closed the gap very quickly, in a matter of minutes we were within a kilometer of the cache!! But now we got to the general Pink Rock area, and we needed to start heading up hill again! And the light was almost completely gone. The dunes heading up hill are generally quite treacherous, and can be quite dangerous - multiply by a thousand in the dark. And worst of all, you don't want to get stuck in the sand in the dark, because there will be no help until the next day.

Anyway, we made it about half way up before I nearly got stuck in some really soft sand, so I reversed out, turned the car around, pointed it downhill and parked. It was only 400m to the cache, so we figured, instead of taking any more chances, to make a run for it! Ok, it was more like a hobble, skip, limp, as the sand was really soft! But we got to the general location of the cache soon enough, but it was now dark. Being ever prepared, I whipped out my flashlight, and found a suspicious stack of rocks in a hole in the side of the mountain. What an ingenious cache stash location, like it was made to hold the container! Brilliant!

Eek! Now it was pitch dark, literally, and dune bashing in the dark is not so much fun. You can't really see the dunes and what they are doing - do they drop sharply, can you make it over it safely, if I go there then where do I go next... etc. There is no way we could even think of attempting to forge a new path towards the main road in the distance. Really, it would take all night. So I opted to retracing our route (which was reliable and safe from recent experience), so we followed our tracks back to the well traveled path through the desert and then carried on following it in the direction of the main road.

After a couple of "oh no, where did the road go" experiences, we finally made it to Big Red (a massive sand dune) that we knew to be right next to the main road. Phew, we made it!

We really must be geocaching addicts and slightly insane, to have attempted dune bashing in the dark, but all in all, this was a fantastic day! Eight geocaches found, and so much fun hunting for them!