We were 2.75 cars. Jaro’s Pajero, Laurent’s Pathfinder, Jiri’s Tiguan and Kaupo’s Yaris. 1+1+0.5+0.25=2.75. Pajero and Pathfinder are the real 4x4 with low speed 4WD, 4.0 liter engines and a lot of taste for offroading. Tiguan is only common AWD with no low speed gears, no lockable differential, only 2.0 liter engine and a lot of worries and respect of unknown. And Yaris? Waste of words J
So that nice Friday morning we met under the wheels of the biggest Land Rover in the world in Emirates National Auto Museum and continued on the road to the edge of the Great Arabian Desert. After refueling at the last petrol station and after looking to the yellow shifty hell all around we realized, that Yaris will serve the best dumped here on the sun…so we continued with only 2.5 cars.
After another five kilometers we turned from the paved highway to sandy road leading in the heart of the desert. Last looks at green palms, asphalt safety and we were in!!
We started driving rather slowly and enjoying the scenery around. But with passing kilometers of wide, hard and safe road we started to be like on needles and was funny to observe the others how they were cautiously touching the terrain next to the road, like if it was a thin ice J First two wheels, than for wheels not further that two meters from the road and at the end we were driving far on small dunes, making turns and spinning the wheels fast. But after some more kilometers and growing confidence and skill we started to want more.
So we turned to a salt flat next to the road and drove to the other end. There we stopped and thought for a second: “If we go further, there not even a sign of a road…just dunes. This is a last point when we can turn back”. Then with a smile we looked at each other and pushed the throttle forward J
At the first higher dune from where it wasn’t obvious where to go next we stopped and deflated tires to half the pressure to increase the tire surface. And then? Yyaahhaaaaa…..We drove across a set of smaller dunes to another salt flat and decided to break the camp in elevated panoramic saddle between two big dunes, unload the cars and do some dune driving.
I got from my Tiguan the safe maximum. Driving on relatively long and flat dunes without any sharp and changing elevations. The car for my surprise was performing better than I thought it could be. But again after some time of safe driving everybody started to push limits further. So we picked a high dune with a good access and tried drive up. It was probably the steepest drive I ever did. Wheels spinning in place, engine in high revolutions, we pushed into the seats, but still moving forward up to the very edge where I turned back and stopped facing downhill (first rule of desert driving). We stepped out of the car and almost fell forward ho steep it was. Nice feeling of accomplishment J
When we got back to the base camp we almost had to make a rescue mission when we saw Jaro stuck on the top of a sharp dune like sausage on the stick. But fortunately it was nothing serious, so they dug themselves out. It was in the scary territory of sharp and short dunes so we couldn’t have done much anyway J
Just before the sunset we reunited in the camp and evening/night/morning chill out could start. Beer, talk and barbecue in desert silence far away from everybody. What you want more J
Next morning we just cleared the site and headed back to the road the same way we came. It was a bit trickier, because we were driving up the few small sharp dunes and I, scared of getting stuck kept driving quite fast to every problematic place (second rule of desert driving) so in one moment I dug Tiguan’s nose to the dune that it threw a huge spray of sand onto the windshield. This is because my car is a basically highway car with quite low front bumper J
1 comment:
"Only 2.0 liter.." you are forgetting the latest evolotuion turborcharger under the hood ;)
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