Catch me if you can XI

[Dave]

What a day! Where to begin. At the start I guess. Alarm set for 5.50am as Yoghybear's PM stated a 7am meet near Fossil Rock with cars ready to go at 7.15 SHARP. Knowing he wouldn't hesitate leaving anyone that was late behind morning coffee had to be picked up on route at the nearest gas station. There I bump into Yoghy and Zorro who both seem to have the same coffee idea as me. Yoghy proudly points to the Dodge Ram letting me know it's all fixed and that I was going be driving in the first convoy of two, which he was leading! Great. Glad I started the day with a big coffee....!

Arrived at the meet point at 7am sharp. Pulled up next to Green Giant (bonnet down today!) and Ginger, said hello and deflated. All called around for a brief and split into two convoys of 8 cars. Convoy one led by Yoghy and two led by Al Khatib I believe. The plan was to route west from the Sharjah Kalba road close to Fossil Rock onto Al Badayer. Two hours on a good day, except today we would take a little longer.....! Today was not a test we were told....but all eyes would be watching us! No pressure then!

So, "4H" engaged.....and off we set. First challenge was Fida's bowl. Small, but sharp entry and exit. A good trap. RedShark was to suffer most here. First a stuck, then transfer box problems. Here you need 4wd but the Cherokee wanted to stay in 2wd. We were one car down already. A couple of more stucks and 30 minutes later we set off toward Fossil Rock. Convoy Two were being held up by us so were happy to see us move on.

Regrouped at the peak of Fossil Rock, a sharp descent down (over 200m) and onto Camel Rock. A fast pace led to Green Giant having a pop out, followed a few km later by another. Seeing he needing cheering up I tried very hard and eventually succeeded in having one myself! Pop out fixed thanks to Rashid's help just in time for convoy two to overtake us. They seemed very pleased about this...! Al Shamsi had a very big smile on his face as he drove past...

On we travelled towards December 2nd dune and Green Giant threw another shoe off! Now Roberto decided he would join in the fun and wrapped his whole exhaust around his back axel. A quick fix (exhaust thrown in back of truck) and on we continued. At least now if we lost sight of Yoghy we could still hear him. In fact, I bet Caprihorse could here him from his house!

Lots of high speed cresting followed and now we picked up pace. Unfortunately so did the temperature and both drivers and cars were affected. Drifer was coolest out there today but the same couldn't be said of his Cherokee.

We crossed paths again with convoy two and Buti made a break for it and tried to join the back of theirs having enough of us! He was quickly reeled back into ours but it was a good effort. Ginger no longer liked his RTA issued number plate so discarded it at the bottom of a dune. Hockey has no time for litter bugs and promptly gave it back to him.

Approaching four hours now a and a very hot Cherokee best plans were to take it easy and short cut back to Al Badayer off the bigger dunes. All in all, we all drove hard today and did our best to overcome any problems we had on the journey. It was a hard drive, but a great one. We had a buddy system in place to recover our fellow newbies which was practiced a few times. Having seen many pop outs I had my first with the club and enjoyed (wrong word!) the experience of fixing it.

Thanks to the Marshals for watching over us in a professional but friendly way. Kept us safe and on track as always. And my fellow newbies. I love spending my free time Friday driving with you guys. Always a pleasure. Thank you also.

[Dave]

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[caprihorse]

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Nice report, the last image looks like Cherokee :zomg:

[ginger]

Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Catch me if you can has a ‘reputation’ , and combined with the early start time, I think it’s fair to say there was some apprehension at the start. I was in Convoy 1 and we took our time clearing Fida’s Ditch, and a few had trouble climbing Fossil Rock. The ‘trick’ of course in the very soft sand is tyre pressure and momentum. The view as you drop off Fossil Rock is always impressive, and we then picked up the pace on to Camel Rock. Just before this there is Caprihorse’s pop out dune (I forget the name), but we all managed to clear it without incident.

I enjoyed the next section on to 2^nd Dec, but the real fun was the two climbs around Pink Rock.
Later following Yoghybear as second lead I managed to remove my front number plate in a ditch (which Tornado didn’t even feel!) It’s an Xterra thing ... and thanks Hockey for picking it up for me.
All in all, a really fun drive and one which tested our concentration levels, I have to say I was exhausted when I got back!
Many thanks are due to all the organisers for yet another great trip.

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[Dave]

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[Dave]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]1888[/ATTACH][quote=caprihorse;35051]Nice report, the last image looks like Cherokee :zomg:[/quote]

Last photo is (was) a Y60 Nissan Patrol. Suspect at some stage in its later life it was paired with a large turbo resulting in a fire leaving the wreck you see now. Just 200m away at the bottom of the dune was another burnt out wreck. Expensive days out in the desert for the owners! The Sharjah road traffic sign department must be aware of your departure. Your road sign has been changed back to before.....

[Muhittin]

Hello,,,
did not got the chance to join the trip, but here are some photos about it,,, enjoy:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set ... 2ab0128fc9

[caprihorse]

[quote=Dave;35054]Last photo is (was) a Y60 Nissan Patrol. Suspect at some stage in its later life it was paired with a large turbo resulting in a fire leaving the wreck you see now. Just 200m away at the bottom of the dune was another burnt out wreck. Expensive days out in the desert for the owners! The Sharjah road traffic sign department must be aware of your departure. Your road sign has been changed back to before.....[/quote]
The signage was changed by municipality, after I left the country, by countless requests from jealous other off-road clubs :pacman:

[caprihorse]

[quote=Muhittin;35056]Hello,,,
did not got the chance to join the trip, but here are some photos about it,,, enjoy:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set ... 2ab0128fc9[/quote]
Pls change your FB settings, all those who are not your Friends, cannot Like the album or individual pics...