Badayer to Gate 12

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Octopus
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Badayer to Gate 12

Post by Octopus »

Drivers:
Zak - Fortuner (lead)
Kunal - FJ (2nd lead)
Tim - JKU (2nd lead)
Shaju - FJ (sweep)

Reji - FJ (hop on hop off)
Dimitry - Raptor (hop on hop off)
Sunil - TJ (hop on hop off)
Mike - Xterra (hop on hop off)

What a trip ! this was one of the most eventful and challenging trips I have ever done and also one of the most fun. Great team and fantastic places we visited.

We started off at the ADNOC with a briefing going through the overall trip and focusing on pacing ourselves for the long journey ahead. We covered 125km over the 2 days with most of it being on the tracks but some of the dune driving being very tough and tiring to navigate through.

After our briefing we drove on the track to the ghost village and had a look around. We then set off to cross the Madam dune field all the way to the conservation fence "wobble" but it was slow going as one of the cars had a drivetrain issue and kept getting stuck even taking a newbie track did not help and we had some challenging and time consuming recoveries. We took a well needed break close to the fence and then drove all the way down to Shweib along the fence.

After dropping off our limping car we crossed to Al Hiyar area and searched for our campsite. We luckily found it on time before the sunset, and could setup camp with good daylight and start to relax enjoying the stunning view of trees in the front and mountains at our backs. The camping spot was really idlyllic and would have been perfect except for our neighbors deciding to visit our camp at 2 am and make alot of noise.

In the morning we had a slow start and enjoyed relaxing some more and gathering our energy for the long day ahead. We met with some more drivers at the Al Hiyar ADNOC and conducted another briefing for our new joiners. We started our crossing of the Bil Asmad area towards the Marmum Dairy Farm in Sweihan. We were blessed with seeing so many gazels in this area, easily more than 30. The track though was very challenging we had many straight crests with surprises on the other side and lots of obstacles in the sand that hampered our flow and made it very difficult to cross to our destination.

We finally met up with our last joiner at the underpass and dropped off one of the team. After the morning drive the energy was starting to flag and we took it easy as we crossed into sweihan desert. This section of Sweihan is beautiful, no tracks and nice open dunes. There were numerous trees as well. We had a really nice drive of many side slopes and high speed flow which culminated in finding a big bowl for some high rev climbs and rounds. After that we dropped down to the sabkha and drove our way to the underpass on E16 and finished the trip.

For me some stand out points on this trip was the number of trees and wildlife and the big variances in the sand.
The team was one of the best and everyone did really really well.
Kunal you did really well for your first intermediate and will be soon getting your 3rd star.
Tim your calm support and company is always so much appreciated and your presence make the trip a success.
Lastly Shaju ! the rock solid sweeper with one of the best sense of safety and patience in the club, I hope we can do many more trips supporting each other.
For Reji Dimitry Sunil and Mike. it was great to be with you all and you have all done well and turned the challenges into a joy

Hope you all had a good experience as I did.

Zak.

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Dirtdiver
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Re: Badayer to Gate 12

Post by Dirtdiver »

Zak,
Thanks for organizing this wonderful trip. You awaze pick a wonderful track suited perfectly for the experience of the convoy. I am looking forward to future exploration trips. It was a wonderful group of people on the trip and everyone contributed to the enjoyment of this trip. Hope to see everyone back in the sand soon.

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Ayfas
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Re: Badayer to Gate 12

Post by Ayfas »

Thanks Zak for arranging this trip. It was a dream trip for me as well. Have no words to express my feelings. Enjoyed every bit of the trip from starting to end with camping, driving breaks etc.

Best group with unforgettable camping experience.

Thank you Zak for your kind words. I have driven with many groups and I never felt this kind of safety policy with any other group.
It’s always a pleasure to drive or support you Zak.

Special thanks to Sunil for a lovely breakfast which boosted our energy.

Thank you all for making this two days an unforgettable one.

See you all soon again.
Regards

Shajumon.
Ayfas - Offroader. A proud AD4x4 Member.

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dmitry575
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Re: Badayer to Gate 12

Post by dmitry575 »

Zak as usual, your trips are high quality and high class in learning, driving, emotional support but this one topped it all. Next time I am joining a full trip definitely. Thank you for a great team that was invited along.

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kunal
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Re: Badayer to Gate 12

Post by kunal »

Zak - thank you for organising this amazing trip and for the invaluable experience. I thoroughly enjoyed all aspects of this trip. As my first intermediate trip, this was challenging for me but it was a lot of fun.

Shaju and Tim - thanks to both of you too for your support and encouragement. Much appreciated.

Camping was great fun. The scenery and wildlife on our route was unforgettable. It certainly makes me yearn for more such trips. But I believe it was the good company which ultimately made it an amazing experience. Thanks again everyone. See you on next trip.

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snaware
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Re: Badayer to Gate 12

Post by snaware »

Thanks, Zak, for organizing the trip.
Thanks, Shaju, for great support and guidance to entire team.
It was a wonderful trip with lot of technical drive, nice group of people.
Looking forward to the next exploration trip.

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