In which Sid and Doris go to the United Arab Emirates to help run a World Rally Raid Championship desert rally.
The UK weather is typical for February so when Ian Barker writes to Sid to suggest coming out to the United Arab Emirates and messing about with cars in a warm climate on the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge Sid is soon signed up. And with Doris’s Boston singing trip Covid-cancelled the doughty duo are on. That Doris still has the plague is a problem to be overcome.
The story goes back a way to when your duo lived in Dubai and met the Barkers Ian and Sheila through marshalling at Yas Marina F1. Sid is the penpal who keeps in touch with friends down the ages and has tried to catch these mates in Spain and UK, but always we were in different countries messing about in cars.
S and D lived in Dubai for four years so The Emirates hold no fears. The country is just fifty years old with a federal form where seven emirates ruled by seven connected families. Before the event we will be staying with Sheila and Ian in Ras Al Khaimah, the most northerly emirate and then the event goes to (but not over) Abu Dhabi’s southern border with Saudi Arabia.
Flying in overnight we land Thursday morning, are met by Ian and immediately taken into the heart of Dubai to the Ford Raptor workshop in Al Quoz to be sure our steed is fit for duty. The Raptor is a sturdy thing, 6.2 litre V8 with Fox suspension built in Dearborn with Rouge pride. This will be Sid’s home for the event, running as Sweep 2, actually in amongst the competitors along the rally route. So bikes and cars will be pinging past, our warning being a GPS Sentinel alert from competitors as they bear down on us.
Raptor fettled, we have a day to get over the time difference, sort out our local covid compliance and to see a bit of RAK. We head north along the-road-formerly-known-as-the-Emirates-truck-road, playing the usual UAE game of “That building is new”.
We’re staying in Ian and Sheila’s home in Al Hamrah “village”, a very nice development backing onto the water and with a golf course threaded through it… and with parking ample even for a Raptor which is a big ol’ beast.
The marina is an easy stroll away. This is bird spotting time with bright green bee eaters, guava coloured palm doves, chatty mynah birds, a striated heron, bright blue roller birds and pencil head hoopoes.
And of course, cars.
The marina is a bit light on boats but we do spot Lochmarin, 55’ all in aluminium and tidy with a solid history of world girdling sailing. It still has the wind vane attachments.
After lunch on the dockside in shorts and T shirts (pretty much on the Tropic of Cancer) we walk on to Al Jazirah. In the 1960s this was a pearling and fishing community. The village clan fell out with the tribe that ruled Ras Al Kaimah and when the Al Nayans offered them land near to Abu Dhabi they upped and left. We walk about their abandoned village as Ian knowledgeably points out the construction methods and the fearful effects of wind-blown sand as soon as you stop mending things.
We wander over to the very restored fort to see photography, art and subtitled oral history films as old dudes tell how life was living on dates, camel milk and not much fish in these little houses. See Dubai? I remember when this was all dunes and thirst.
They have also provided a very interesting overhead photo of the abandoned area we had just been exploring.
In the evening we all go for our PCR tests where Sid is a twit and argues with the receptionist about the queuing system despite being so old he is given his test for free. With only an hour’s work Doris sorts out the Al Hosn app (local equivalent of NHS certificate app) and we are cleared to go down to Abu Dhabi the following day.
PS Yes, the local people do dress like this routinely. And behind them you can see some Emiratis. (Ha ha ha!! I am such a wit!! – Doris.)
