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!