2 Days All Level Overlanding Drive - 7 Emirates - 2 and 3 Dec 2023

[Ahmed Farouk]

Thanx Fredric for the great adventure, it was really epic! Thank you all for the great company and support, looking forward to meet you all again with the same adrenaline 😀👏🏼💪🏻

[Frederic]

Weekend Report

What better weekend to pay homage to all 7 Emirates than the National Day weekend ? 

The plan was to cover all these emirates overlanding style, so a minimum time spent on tarmac and as much as possible through farm tracks, trails, wadis, and dunes. And there were many of them.

Day 1

We met up in Ajman, as this was the first emirate to cover but unfortunately has hardly to no desert. A short drive through the farms and E611 underpass and before we knew it, we were out of that place We made our way to Kabir, a town known for its camel racetrack, located in Umm Al Quwain. The sand was quite compact so we started off at 20-22psi and kept this pressure all the way to the last hour of day 2.

The part through the dunes of day one took us through Ras Al Khaimah and we took our lunch near the Masafi Friday Market in Fujairah. That one part "between sand and mountains", close to Al Ghail village (Adhen) looked absolutely magical and the donkey's were greeting us.

As we made our way towards Wadi Shawkah in the afternoon, some clouds started to appear and a few drops of rain, but once we were halfway inside the wadi, it turned pretty bad. As there were lots of sedans in the wadi, and it was a busy weekend, it was difficult to keep moving and at one point a lady came running up to me insisting us to reverse because a flood was coming our way. While we were making our U-turn, some friendly locals told us to keep moving ahead as it was the easier way out, and they moved into full action mode by guiding all the vehicles through the wadi. That wadi, and especially the entry looked as busy as the Dubai mall that day, so evacuating it was not easy.

Recovering from that adventure, we were running a bit late and had to skip the second wadi so we made our way directly to the camping point, a savanna East of Maliha. An evening spent by the fire with great company and laughs. What else could we wish for?

Day 2

After a good night's rest, we decided to drive towards Maliha town and use the ADNOC Al Tayba to stock up our coolers and fuel tanks. The fact there were restrooms was also welcome of course. @Soufiane his Jeep was making some weird noises and on the parking lot we decided to inspect it before heading out. We found the sway bar to be sitting in the wrong direction, and had to disconnect the link rods, so we basically turned his Jeep into a sway-bar disconnectec Rubicon 7 Emirates edition !  

We started moving and had to make up some time, so we drove on the farm track parallel to Jebel Faya and enjoyed the magical scenery. The second part, next to Jebel Buhais, was equally rewarding. Once we reached Pink Rock, @Christian Andras had to exit as one of his sons was getting some fever. I hope he feels better soon Christian and thank you so much again for joining us on this adventure!

We moved further and passed Big Red, an iconic dune and came across a lot of dune buggies and cross tracks. Things didn't get better once we headed into Badayer. We kept good momentum as we were still on 22-23psi 😁

As we were behind on schedule i decided to keep moving along the DDCR (Dubai Desert Conservation Reserve) fence track, which allowed us to pick up some speed but it was a long boring stretch. We found ourselves entering Faqa town (Dubai) around 1pm, and this meant we only had 3-4hrs left to make it into Ajban or Nahel (Abu-Dhabi). 

We had a couple of refusals in the technical bushy areas of Faqa, but nothing could stop us. We crossed the border into Abu Dhabi and found pristine clean dunes north of Nahel where we had a great time but had to deflate our tyres to keep it manageable.

We finally exited at the ADNOC in Nahel around 4.30PM. 

Day one we did 167km over 6hr 57 mins.

Day two we did 170 km over 5hrs 27mins.

This convoy was an absolute blessing to drive with. @Ahmed Farouk it's the first time i see you driving with us and you showcased superb self recovery skills twice. Super impressed with your driving ! 

@Damian also for you it was the first time with the club, and with a freshly new LC300. You drove amazingly well and i hope your family enjoyed this weekend as well !

@Soufiane always carrying a big smile, you drove great and it was great to see this is your first camp ever ! I am sure many more will follow !

@Dan S another fellow that's maybe small in size but makes up for it with the big truck and super positive attitude ! Always a pleasure to drive with you !

@Alphin Aloor I loved your insta stories that you kept throughout the day, and you drove superbly. See you soon on the next drive with that beautiful Patrol  

@AlexM you had joined me before on full weekend adventures and so you knew what to expect and didn't break a sweat navigating through dunes or wadis. See you soon again buddy! I will bring a sticker for you.

@Srikumarlast but not least, you blessed us with your can-do attitude and big smile, and Kabir shared us his stories and many fantasies. It was so great having you on the drive, you kept the morale up and we knew whenever there was recoveries or shoveling to be done, you'd be jumping out of the car first  

You can post your photos in the gallery here:

Overlanding - 7 Emirates - 2 and 3 Dec 2023 - Carnity.com

See you all soon in the sands or wadis again !

Check out 7 Emirates Overlanding Day 1 on Relive! https://www.relive.cc/view/vAOZwMGX2y6

Check out 7 Emirates Overlanding Day 2 on Relive! https://www.relive.cc/view/vdvmJxEgYNO

 

 

[AlexM]

Thank @Frederic for such an epic drive, and everyone else who attended it! Sorry we had to take off after we exited, had to be home as soon as possible. Looking forward to my sticker!

[Damian]

Thanks @Frederic and @Srikumar for an amazing 2 days of epic terrain. It had everything and my family can’t wait to do it all again! And thank you to the rest of the convoy for your support and friendship and hopefully see you on future drives. 

[Srikumar]

Thank you @Frederic for one of the best drives I have been a part of. The terrain, the weather, and the drive participants were simply amazing. While driving  through so many different types of terrain including certain portion of tarmac, I was continuously appreciating your suggestion to drive at 20 psi. It would have been a real pain to inflate and then deflate after every terrain.  Ofcourse, driving in Abu Dhabi sands at 20 psi, would have been a gross insult to that terrain, so mother nature did a very good job of getting us all stuck. But once we were deflated a bit lower it was smooth sailing for the entire convoy.

Both me and Kabir really enjoyed the entire drive and we hope there is another version of this drive in the near future. 

[Dan S]

Hi Dears, a small video unrefined of what frames I have managed to take with 1 hand while driving with the other

https://youtu.be/a3XzZrLUur8?si=bzBlu11WCZB2Gjne

Edited December 7, 2023 by Dan S

[Frederic]

11 minutes ago, Dan S said:

Hi Dears, a small video unrefined of what frames I have managed to take with 1 hand while driving with the other

https://youtu.be/a3XzZrLUur8?si=bzBlu11WCZB2Gjne

Nice one !! 

[Frederic]