06 November 2004

Wadi Driving in Hatta

For the first time this autumn we have made it out of town for a drive.

Until the last few weeks it's still been too hot in the day time to be fun, specially since we never seem to be able to get going till 11 am for some reason. But today we got out and took some friends to Hatta Pools. We went in three cars, Kelly, Mike and the kids in a Ford Explorer, our Range Rover and Peter in his trusty Jeep Cherokee. We hoped that some of the rain we have been getting lately |(not in Dubai, but nearer the mountains) had replenished the pools enough to swim in. As it turned out the rest of Dubai had the same idea. There were barbies and picnics everywhere - despite Ramadan! But even the crowds and the excessive rubbish they had left behind couldn't disturb the peace of the pools. We swan, we paddled, we floated, then went for a drive.

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The wadi extends for miles in a deep canyon, criss-crossed by shallow pools and littered with boulders. There wer a few points where we thought we had to turn round, but squeezed through or scrambled across anyway.

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As it turned out Kelly is a natural wadi-driver, fearless on her first trip into the wild. We stopped a lot to look at the scenery, once saw a frog, and while photographing it, a thin black dangerous-looking snake slithered between my legs in the water and disappeared up the hillside. After that we decided it wasn't safe to go back into the water...

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