We clearly made up for not caching last weekend, and went all out to find all the caches we had previously missed in the Dibba area, and at the same time ensuring that we didn't need to make this trek for a while! (Well, at least till the rains come along, cause some of these cache hunts must be awesome with water in the wadis).
No less than seven caches found! Wooohooo! And boy, did we have luck on our side (The Geocaching Fairy and her geo-dust)! My trusty Prado went to places and did things I just cannot believe it could do!
After setting out at around 10 am, we started the trip heading for Dibba. As we were nearing our targeted area for caching today, I did a quick check and noticed that there was still a cache "hidden" that we couldn't find last time. Last time also being 50 degrees, and today being a little cooler at 42. The cache Dibba's Friday Market by Liveonce was not going to get away from me again!! A wouldn't you know it, it took less than 5 minutes to find!! I honestly didn't believe we would find the cache, so I was a little unprepared - no goodies to put in - but that will no doubt be fixed one of these days.
It was then off to the three caches, seemingly close together and the first being only 9km away! So we set off following the GPS and reading the instructions for Winding Wadi (Desert Challenge Red Key)! It quickly became apparent that we were going to need to drive all the way around to get to the entry point indicated by Desert Trekker in the Winding Wadi cache description. Conveniently, we had to pass right by the other two caches : Surrounded! and Wadi Bashing. Once, at Wadi Bashing, it was apparently only 4.97 km to Winding Wadi! Sweet!
Drove to the end of the tarred road, and then carried on off-road! And I gotta say that the scenery along the route was fantastic. I keep wondering how Desert Trekker keeps finding these exotic locations! So many of them are so out of the way, and yet so wonderfully creative. Let me put this trek in perspective for you all:
Mountain climbing goat. The goat was actually level with us when we stopped, but then decided to climb up the side of the mountain to get out of reach, so to speak.
Not to say that it wasn't very interested in what we were up to!! It was incredible to see this creature gracefully scale the side of the mountain like it was nothing. It would take me the better part of the day!!
What I really love about these trips is the stark contrasts you encounter. For huge stretches you will see nothing but rock and gravel. Then you encounter an oasis of sorts, then nothing again. The most astounding experience if finding homes along these "wadis" and some of them are not too shabby. Mind you we haven't even arrived at the cache site yet.We finally reached the approximate cache location, after a bit of a detour - as we, along with our caching predecessors, took the now legendary and infamous "wrong" turn and had to back-track quite a bit - about one and a half hours later. Calling this a winding wadi is an understatement if I ever heard one!
Sadly, the cache contents were a little meager, and I was a little short on caching bait, which I will most certainly return to contribute (especially when the rainy season hits). There are no words to express how much I recommend going for this cache, this has to be one of my favorites. While we were at the cache site, we had someone pull up right behind "Casper the friendly 4x4", and we were certain they were fellow cachers, because we passed them on the way back from the wrong turn. Turns out they were just curious about where we were going, and they were Dutch and Belgian (Dubai Waterfront) contractors exploring on their day off.
Poor "Casper" took a beating on this trip, but its just one of those days that you realize that the Prado is just one of the best cars you could ever buy!
(Casper in the wadi pic in the first photo of this blog)Of course, we got to enjoy the scenery on the way out, and about an hour later we were on track heading for Keyring cache. The was a fairly straight forward cache find, though my "athletic" frame (Hey, I spent quite a bit of cash establishing my well defined figure), had some trouble couping with the loose rock and limited solid footing! I really thought I was going to see my ass (excuse my french, but butt just doesn't work in that expression), but thankfully I escaped the experience unscathed! The time was rapidly approaching 5 pm now, and as we were rushed trying to take advantage of daylight, we seem to have neglected taking scenic photos.
Now, let me put something else into perspective. We originally just planned to do one or two caches out there. So we hadn't read all the cache entries and details and "stuff"! So we basically were going on GPS entries alone. Now, I had read the entry for ME4x4 No1, purely because we had tried this before and failed miserably. So, we had to decide what we were going to do... darkness approaching at a rapid pace and all that. Needless to say, I remember there were two caches in the same "wadi", so it was a no brainer for me :)
So it was decided! We were going for them!
Oh my! ME4x4 No1 was doable, purely because the Geocaching Fairy showered us with geo-dust on this marvelous day! We found a brand spanking new, freshly tarred road (that we took on a hope and a prayer) that led us right to the base of the mountain, and path/road/... you can't really call it either of those, cause it was BAD! Don't do this at night mind you, life is too short! Anyway, in the lowest gear, crawling along, desperately needing a kidney-belt, we finally made it to the summit just before the sun started setting. And oh my... the view was just breath-taking! Again, a picture says a thousand words...
Yeah, I know it looks like there is plenty of daylight left, but there wasn't. We rushed off from this cache, determined to find our last of the day: Wadi Asimah. We basically had daylight (thankfully) until we got to the bottom of this mountain, and once again, we were navigating the wadis. This is were the fun ended and the nightmare began!
Holy crap! (Excuse my french again... but holy crap!) I will spare you some of the details of this last bit of our adventure... well, because it would require many way more colorful expletives to describe the experience!! At one point, I was thinking to myself - "We are so going to get stuck and end up spending the night here!". Now, I have experienced some things in my 34 years, but I can tell you there are few words to describe driving in wadis in total darkness (experiencing full on bone-jarring 4x4ing), with only the cars headlights to guide you along. You couldn't even see the sides of the wadi, and I often wondered "What is that... could that be an exit? A way out? Another road that we should be on?" Again, our lady of Geocaching luck was on our side, because as we were about to start panicking, we came around the bend that led us to within a few meters of the cache (a couple of hours later). Being ever vigilant and absurdly prepared, I had a flashlight in my day-to-day bag (don't ask, apparently I am a touch paranoid). We used it to find the "shiny" cache container in no time, and conveniently, not being able to see your surroundings makes the trek up and down so much easier! :)
Greatest respect to the cache owners of this wonderful cache though. It is a great cache location, but certainly not suitable at night! And unfortunately our bones were still shaking from the hectic drive up to this point, and we didn't manage to contribute anything to the cache... we just wanted to escape this nightmare and find civilization. We shall return however, and do the necessary to inspire other cachers to visit this cache.
Unbelievably, as bad as we thought it had been so far (again, way too many expletives required to describe this experience), it was nothing compared to what lay ahead... in total darkness! All I can say is that "Casper" coped very well, and made me proud! Every time we thought we had finally passed the worst of it another challenge presented itself! At just about 8:30 pm we finally escaped the nightmare and encountered a settlement with electricity (a good sign!!!). We were only too happy to finally hit the road home!
Phew, we made it. Thank goodness I had my better half, phoenixdxb, to keep me sane on this hectic trip!
Next week promises to be equally challenging as we plan to take on the desert caches!
