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.
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!
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.
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.