The desert oasis and more paddling
Any self-respecting desert must have an oasis so we went to visit Al Ain, Abu Dhabi’s oasis city on Friday. Al Ain is on the Oman border and half of the town is in Oman (strange, because visitors like us need a visa to go across town!). Its about 140km from AD along a magnificent road which, like the road to Dubai is double carriage, three lanes on each side and fully lit the whole way.
As one approaches Al Ain the most extraordinary mountains, Jebel Hafeet, rear up , over 1000m above sea level & 800m above Al Ain but not mountains as we know them. They are huge heaps of tilted, sedimentary, rock and Heidi and I were looking for adjectives - barren, desolate, bleak - but also very dangerous looking. Chapman’s Peak drive in Cape Town is nothing compared to the (admittedly excellent) road leading to the top. There are precarious rocks just waiting to fall onto the road and really - the warning signboards ‘beware of falling rocks’ are unlikely to help anyone as the rocks come tumbling down. However, we obviously survived to tell the tale.
At the top, surrounded by lush gardens and trees is a 5 star hotel (did they lug all that top soil up that winding road?), Mercure Grand Jebel Hafeet, where we were going to have tea. But while we were exploring around and marvelling at the view (barren, desolate, bleak ) the children went to the playground. Wonderful playground with the main jungle gym built in a paddling pool of water about a foot deep . So when we went to collect the kids for tea what we got were three soaking wet and very happy youngsters who had to change into their bathing cossies for the rest of the day as we had not actually thought to bring spare clothes for them! So - no tea!!.
Next stop was picnic lunch at a completely uninspiring park, back down in the foothills named Green Mubazzarah Park, which boasted several enclosed hot springs fed swimming pools. However only one pool was open and this was a children‘s pool - no ladies allowed. Yes really - no ladies allowed in the children‘s pool. So Darrell took the kids in and Stephi (not counted as a lady being only five) was the only girl amongst vast numbers of dads and boys.
As one approaches Al Ain the most extraordinary mountains, Jebel Hafeet, rear up , over 1000m above sea level & 800m above Al Ain but not mountains as we know them. They are huge heaps of tilted, sedimentary, rock and Heidi and I were looking for adjectives - barren, desolate, bleak - but also very dangerous looking. Chapman’s Peak drive in Cape Town is nothing compared to the (admittedly excellent) road leading to the top. There are precarious rocks just waiting to fall onto the road and really - the warning signboards ‘beware of falling rocks’ are unlikely to help anyone as the rocks come tumbling down. However, we obviously survived to tell the tale.At the top, surrounded by lush gardens and trees is a 5 star hotel (did they lug all that top soil up that winding road?), Mercure Grand Jebel Hafeet, where we were going to have tea. But while we were exploring around and marvelling at the view (barren, desolate, bleak ) the children went to the playground. Wonderful playground with the main jungle gym built in a paddling pool of water about a foot deep . So when we went to collect the kids for tea what we got were three soaking wet and very happy youngsters who had to change into their bathing cossies for the rest of the day as we had not actually thought to bring spare clothes for them! So - no tea!!.
Next stop was picnic lunch at a completely uninspiring park, back down in the foothills named Green Mubazzarah Park, which boasted several enclosed hot springs fed swimming pools. However only one pool was open and this was a children‘s pool - no ladies allowed. Yes really - no ladies allowed in the children‘s pool. So Darrell took the kids in and Stephi (not counted as a lady being only five) was the only girl amongst vast numbers of dads and boys. 
By this time I was complaining that I hadn’t yet seen anything even remotely resembling an oasis (palm trees surrounding water as we all know from our childhood literature) so we went to the National Museum. It was far better than the AD Cultural Centre but still sadly short of any sort of information and reading matter. But we were informed that the oasis was next door - and so it was. At last we went into a real, real oasis. The winding single lane roads, all cobbled in good condition, were like a maze and we got completely lost and on either side were these forests of palm trees, The oasis was big - I have no idea of the area covered, but certainly not just a circle of trees around a pool of water. We drove on and on, completely confused and lost but it was wonderful . Eventually a guardian or warden of the oasis (I assume) told us that we would have to leave as it was closing in ten minutes. Somehow we found our way out and were not locked in for the night - and that was our first oasis experience.The town itself does not really merit the romantic description of ‘oasis town’ as it looked just like Abu Dhabi so we just drove through then and hour and a half later arrived home with three sleeping kids in the back seat. Lovely day out!!
This morning we left the kids with Daisy and the four of us went to paddle amongst the islands. This was one of those outings that is lovely in retrospect but quite tough in the execution (sort of like cycling the 94.7 !!). It was a long paddle across open water, clear up to about 2 meters, to a faraway island; there was a lively breeze and the tide was going out. It was HARD work. On the way over Gerron and I had our own canoes and Darrell and Heidi shared; on the way back, against the wind, Darrell (courageous man that he is), decided that he and I would share. The ± 2km back was a long way - but we made it and, actually, it was super despite the rising wind and the ’deep’ swells (all of 150mm!). Kirsten you would have loved it.Christmas is coming and, what with all the trimmings and decorations , you wouldn’t think that this is a Muslim state.
No comments:
Post a Comment