Offroad Brothers and Sisters Trip, Friday 22 July 2011
Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2011 3:45 am
Its 2300 Hrs. All's quiet while Geni, her friend (Samhit/ Samedh...Sorry buddy I forget your name) & I lie in the sand and look at the stars. And then suddenly we realize that its a bit too quiet; a quick look confirms what we suspect but did not expect... Only two cars and three clueless persons standing in Iftar Bowl while a couple of cars disappear over the next dune. However one phone call(Three cheers to Etisalat) and we had three marshals come on the double to accompany us back to the road; and as they say all's well that ends well (albeit with a 15 minute delay in our case)
That may have been how our day ended (with some lessons to take away) but we had an amazing time until then. For starters, we had a combined drive with uaeoffroaders members; And man I've not seen so many cars at once in Badayer (looked more like a traffic jam in deira or sharjah). Intermediate + Advanced went off in one convoy while the newbies split up into two convoys.
After which the fun started, with Silvester zooming off and challenging us to keep up which gave us a great opportunity to step up our driving a couple of notches. Personally it was a far more confident day for me, with the worst spot i got into being remidied by engaging diff lock and backing up. I think having been previously on the route also helped quite a bit, though a couple of bits were new. One of these bits provided some comedy (yours truly going around like a headless chicken trying to cross the dune) and tragedy, with our friend in the Black Pathfinder (forgot his name too... damn) first having a pop out and then losing all his transmission oil due to leakage. That poor beast is now parked near Madam awaiting the arrival of a recovery truck in the morning.
So after all these adventures we reached the Iftar Bowl for the fun and games. First up was trying to climb the big dune in front of the bowl which I very nearly topped out before falling off; 3 subsequent tries were no better. I later discovered the fundamental error I made (thanks Naser!) by failing to switch off my AC thereby losing crucial horses when I needed them the most. Then came the watermelons, ice creams and juice followed by the Tug of War. Our friends at uaeoffroaders had anchored their end to a Nissan Patrol behind them, but we still showed them that we could pull a fair bit (thanks are due here to the two uaeoffroaders marshals who joined us in the pulling). Ultimately we chose not to pull too hard because we didn't want to damage that Patrol!! After this some of us got T-Shirts from uaeoffroaders (I got my size... yayy) and more yummies in the form of lemonade and fruit salad by Al Shamsi followed in the end by burgers grilled on the spot. A big thanks are due to all those who generously got us the food and drink. If offroading means having the chance to enjoy healthy and tasty food I say lets go daily! All in all a great day where I drove with more confidence, made some new friends with some wonderfull food being the icing on the cake.
As a footnote, I remember Shamsi always telling me that we could always expect surprises on these trips. While we probably would'nt wamt to have another of this kind, it certainly had some valuable lessons as takeaways.
1) When you go away from the main group do inform the leader or sweeper that you are going for a walk.
2) Go buy that Walkie-Talkie set you have been procrastinating about for so long.
3) As far as possible stay put until more experienced vehicles arrive. If you do have to move out then make sure you have all the equipment required to get you out of any sticky situations.
Thats it for this trip.
Until next time, Cheerio,
Prashanth.
That may have been how our day ended (with some lessons to take away) but we had an amazing time until then. For starters, we had a combined drive with uaeoffroaders members; And man I've not seen so many cars at once in Badayer (looked more like a traffic jam in deira or sharjah). Intermediate + Advanced went off in one convoy while the newbies split up into two convoys.
After which the fun started, with Silvester zooming off and challenging us to keep up which gave us a great opportunity to step up our driving a couple of notches. Personally it was a far more confident day for me, with the worst spot i got into being remidied by engaging diff lock and backing up. I think having been previously on the route also helped quite a bit, though a couple of bits were new. One of these bits provided some comedy (yours truly going around like a headless chicken trying to cross the dune) and tragedy, with our friend in the Black Pathfinder (forgot his name too... damn) first having a pop out and then losing all his transmission oil due to leakage. That poor beast is now parked near Madam awaiting the arrival of a recovery truck in the morning.
So after all these adventures we reached the Iftar Bowl for the fun and games. First up was trying to climb the big dune in front of the bowl which I very nearly topped out before falling off; 3 subsequent tries were no better. I later discovered the fundamental error I made (thanks Naser!) by failing to switch off my AC thereby losing crucial horses when I needed them the most. Then came the watermelons, ice creams and juice followed by the Tug of War. Our friends at uaeoffroaders had anchored their end to a Nissan Patrol behind them, but we still showed them that we could pull a fair bit (thanks are due here to the two uaeoffroaders marshals who joined us in the pulling). Ultimately we chose not to pull too hard because we didn't want to damage that Patrol!! After this some of us got T-Shirts from uaeoffroaders (I got my size... yayy) and more yummies in the form of lemonade and fruit salad by Al Shamsi followed in the end by burgers grilled on the spot. A big thanks are due to all those who generously got us the food and drink. If offroading means having the chance to enjoy healthy and tasty food I say lets go daily! All in all a great day where I drove with more confidence, made some new friends with some wonderfull food being the icing on the cake.
As a footnote, I remember Shamsi always telling me that we could always expect surprises on these trips. While we probably would'nt wamt to have another of this kind, it certainly had some valuable lessons as takeaways.
1) When you go away from the main group do inform the leader or sweeper that you are going for a walk.
2) Go buy that Walkie-Talkie set you have been procrastinating about for so long.
3) As far as possible stay put until more experienced vehicles arrive. If you do have to move out then make sure you have all the equipment required to get you out of any sticky situations.
Thats it for this trip.
Until next time, Cheerio,
Prashanth.