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Full Day Newbie Desert Drive - Liwa Yellow Truck - Abu Dhabi - 01 Dec 2021 - Srikumar


Srikumar

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What an incredible and truly amazing experience!!! Perfect weather, breath-taking landscape, great convoy team, led fabulous Carnity leads. They are truly professionals, humble and have a never say die attitude even in challenging situations. @Srikumar and @Anish Shad a busy day, thank you for your exceptional skills and patience leading the convoy in & out of Liwa. Lot of other off-roaders whom I know outside this club were surprised to hear that Carnity are taking newbies to Liwa, so well done guys! 

@Asif Hussain & @Chaitanya D, you were brilliant in helping to fix the LR3 and get it out safely on its own wheels. On the way back, it was a treat to my eyes watching your convoy from a distance doing some awesome descents, was simply wow!! Look forward to joining your lead drives very soon.

At the end of a long day, it was perfect way to wind down by camping with some of the other leads and senior off-roaders, hearing their stories and bit of 'entertainment' 😃

Can't Wait for the next big expedition.✌️

 

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Beautiful foggy morning, some of the most amazing dunes in UAE and a fantastic convoy - In my books that's a perfect day out.

Liwa is an experience in itself that every offroader should visit from time to time. It sets the bar interms of having the most majestic dunes while reminding us at every step with it's powder soft sand that this is a terrain that one must respect, else you will be sucked in at the slightest mistake.

With @topgear as my second lead and the amazing @Anish S in sweep we had a lot of experience at the two ends of the convoy. 

Ofcourse going to Liwa and coming completely unscathed is wishful thinking. Just when I was saying to myself that we have had a smooth drive, @Derius Olivier informed on the radio that he hit a bump and his car is overheating. A quick inspection and we found that the radiator hose had come off. After letting the car cool for a while and topping it with 17 litres of coolant and water, the car was still overheating. That's when we realised that the clutch fan was not rotating. Despite a lot of efforts we couldn't identify what was the core cause for the fan not to rotate. @Anish S felt that the fan was stuck to something, but as we were very close to YT, we felt that let's get the rest of the convoy to YT, and then come back to analyze the situation.

At YT, we met @Asif Hussain's Newbie convoy. After a bit if playing around at YT with photo sessions, we went back to have a look at the LR3. After attempts by everyone, we needed a miracle to get that car out. That's when @Asif Hussain was able to free up the clutch fan which got stuck badly to lower shroud due to the plastic melting. That was such a relief to entire convoy and particularly to @Derius Olivier. Thank you Asif bhai for the moment of brilliance.

With the sun setting in. A couple of hours it was a race to get to the track within daylight. The route from YT to the exit is full of steep drops and it was a challenge to get the entire convoy out quickly and in the safest possible manner.

@Ali Shah @Adnan Halepota @Derius Olivier @Karthik Raptor you guys deserve a huge round of applause for keeping your cool, listening to instructions and driving so well in such a terrain. Hats off!! After this experience, I am sure you would have grown in so much confidence.

Big thanks to @topgear for being an excellent second lead, and helping reroute the convoy as needed.

And finally a big shout out to @Anish S who was there at every step of the way helping with tuges, shovels, etc. Thank you buddy for the amazing and wonderful support.

That ends this episode of the Liwa adventure. Till we meet again on the beautiful sands, take care.

 

Please post your pics on the gallery. I have uploaded a few

https://carnity.com/gallery/category/1098-newbie-liwa-yellow-truck-with-srikumar-abu-dhabi-01-dec-2021

 

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@Srikumar@topgear and @Anish S thank you for spending your holiday with our newbie convoy in the big dunes of Liwa.  The routing was fantastic.  Can't wait to join one of your drives again.  Thanks for the lessons.  I put some photos in the gallery.  

@Adnan Halepota @Derius Olivier @Karthik Raptor @Anish S @topgearthanks for the shoveling and pushing to get unstuck in the dunes.  I definitely owe you one!  Hopefully I'll be better my third time out.

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Last year, I viewed a lot of awesome photos and read a lot of great reports about the Liwa drives. This year, I made it a point to visit the Yellow Truck and I am glad that I did. Liwa did deliver on its promise by leaps and bounds. 

My day started well. When I stopped at the 2nd last petrol station to refuel before the meeting point,  I bumped into these 2 legends @Gaurav @Srikumar , after a quick hello, I tailed them to the meeting point. 

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The weather was perfect. It was still foggy when we arrived at the meeting point and slowly more people (and cars) arrived and the buzz, enthusiasm and activities went a notch higher. I had the pleasure of meeting @Niki whom I had communicated over WhatsApp on FJ matters on numerous occasions. and he was ever so informative and helpful. Also, thanks for the croissant and coffee! 

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I have not been driving regularly this year and since I know Liwa is challenging, I am glad that I joined this drive under the great leadership of @Srikumarand @Anish S . I have driven quite a few times with these 2 gentlemen before and I enjoyed their clear communication, style of convoy and driving. I knew that I am in safe hands and I will get to enjoy the beautiful Liwa. After the clear and precise briefing from Sri, particularly, on how to descend from the tall dunes, we got started and it was indeed exciting.

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Most of us had to check our tyre pressure and deflate a couple of times as the pressure gradually increased with the temperature.  

I enjoyed being in SL and get to see for myself the perfect lines and throttle applied by Sri on the soft Liwa sand dunes. We had a few enjoyable shoveling sessions, also an opportunity to rest, rehydrate and enjoy the scenery. The first long break came when Sri and Anish had to troubleshoot the overheating issues on the LR3. It was a good call to take a break to the Yellow Truck and come back later after the car has cooled down. Great help from @Asif Hussain to get the LR3's clutch fan to work again and @Derius Oliviermanaged to drive the second half session without any problems. 

@Ali Shah Thanks for the great conversations and you are doing really well as this is just your second drive. I hope there will be many more drives for you.

 

@Adnan Halepota@Karthik Raptor @Derius Olivier  Everyone drove really well! I really enjoyed this convoy and glad that we navigated Liwa safely and came out in one piece.
Thanks again for all the hard work and dedication from @Srikumar @Anish S and not forgetting the great help from @Asif Hussain Dr @Chaitanya D 

We got out shortly before sunset and made it back to Dubai in good time.

I hope to see you all again soon. 

 

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Good day to All,

I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone for a great drive but more so for the patience and support in fixing the LR3. @Srikumar thank you the help and awesome route, @Anish S good job with all the tugs and support.

@Asif Hussain and @Chaitanya D thank you for finding the problem and making it possible to drive my car out that day. 

For those who didn't not see here is a picture with some the brushes stuck in the fan that stoped it from turning. 

 

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The LR3 gave me no problems for the rest of the day and got me home safely, however she is in the shop now getting some attention. Worn engine mounts contributed to what happened and some lessons learned. 

I have uploaded more photos in the gallery to browse through.

Stressful at some stages but all and all it was great drive with everyone, hope to see you all again. @Ali Shah, @Adnan Halepota, @Karthik Raptor.

Cheers.

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