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!