Trip report: Khazna Newbie Drive with Yellow Fever

[tompa-bjorka]

15 drivers met up at Khazna deflation point at 07:30 AM 6 December, myself, petro (Explorer), irfan (Expert) Miro (Advance), abdulrazeem (Intermediate), Newbies: Shameem, noeljose, tomcio08, Ali Akbar, Redbeard, bisharbn, tufty, scoozy and Anit driver Zak001.

Great to see such interest for an early Friday morning drive. As Flaghunter had announced a drive also at the same time and spot, we had a joint safety briefing (including the ANIT brief), then decided to split the group into two equally sized groups, one led by me, support by petro (second lead) and Miro as sweeper and the second group was led by Flaghunter, supported by irfan.

Weather was cool this morning, only 15 degrees when we took off, with the waypoint set for the tree oasis about 11 km away from deflation. Sand was also quite packed, with a wet layer a bit deeper down. Traction was very good. Convoy started out easily and tried out some smaller straight crests, which caused a few “stucks” that needed recoveries managed by Miro. We also practiced controlled descent down some bigger slopes, which all managed well. After few small breaks we reached the oasis where we made a longer stop and met up with Flaghunters group. The drive back was smooth with no issues and at 11:30 AM we were back at the inflation/deflation point. All drivers did great. Special thanks to Kevin (petro) for second lead and supporting with directions at decents and to Amir (Miro) for sweeping and taking care of recoveries.

See you soon again in the sand.

/Thomas (tompa-bjorka)

[irfpk]

Thanks Thomas for organizing early morning trip. Although i was in different group but managed to get some photographs which will be posted on club facebook page.

[abdulrazeem]

Awesome Awesome trip.. Had great fun ...!Learned many things as well, being my first trip after getting my 2nd star....! Thanks Michal , Thanks Thomas for arranging this trip..! Hope to see you soon in the desert...!

[noeljose]

awesome experience on early morning drive. Thanks to the team

[shameem]

The trip was amazing , had fun. Thank you, Thomas, for scheduling the trip.Looking forward to more trips.

[shameem]

The trip was amazing: hoya: had fun. Thank you Thomas for scheduling the trip.Looking forward to more trips

[Redbeard]

Thanks Marshals and assistants for making the trip possible, was good fun! Now I need to remove more unnecessary parts from my Pajero, and start looking for an FJ or a Jeep.

A few of us new guys were wondering about the distance of the trip, for the logbook. In case anybody is interested, I did record GPS trace of the route (with tompa-bjorka's group) and it came out to ~32 km.