Made it

Matt: Amanda's Back!! yep Miss Darby has returned to sunny Dubai for a holiday. It's great to see her and no doubt, with the twosome reunited (Naomi and Amanda) they'll be causing trouble around town.

Well I finally managed to get a crew together to attempt the Jungle Book Hike again, We left Dubai at 8:30 on Friday morning and drove to Ras Al Khaimah, met a few other in RAK and then headed for the intrepid Wadi Bih. After rallying the cars around so that we didn't have to walk back down the Wadi - we set off.
It was a tough walk, again clambering over huge boulders or up scree. But it was good - there were a few walls on the route, but nothing too tricky. They most difficult part was a 3 metre face of very smooth rock. A knotted rope was left here, but due to the smoothness of the rock even with this is was very difficult. So we set about making a harness form my rope and taking some of the climber weight with that. Everyone got up without event.

The last 45 minutes was exhausting, climbing a 45-60 degree scree slope top the summit. Everyone did brilliantly though and are keen for the next adventure. A few of us camped at a spot Cris and I discovered a few weeks back. Though not much sleep was had, the wind was ferocious. But it was a great trip.
Thanks to all who come along and made it worthwhile.

Cris conquers the wall... the drop behind her is about 20 feet, I'm on a ledge below.

Melissa's turn..

The Crew - Well done all.
From left to right: John, Emily, Justin, Matt, Melissa, Julia, Fiona, Cris
Mike, Rene and Ahmed are the wrong side of the camera...

Can't wait to arrange the next one, maybe this weekend.

Rocked out!

Matt: Yesterday saw the start of the Dubai Desert Rock Festival, obviously having an aural preference on the heavier side of music, I went along to pay tribute! I had a great time rocking to Mastodon, In Flames, Stone Sour, Prodigy and Iron Maiden - I was only really going to see Prodigy, who were excellent. I've been waiting for an opportunity to see them for a long time. My companion for the day was Sarah, thanks Sarah - glad ya came along.

Not sure where all those goth rockers came from, you never see them around Dubai - the must have been let out for the weekend, a sea of black clad young delinquents bouncing off each other in a sweaty throng. It was actually nice to see such a mix of people, nothing brings such a variety of races, ages and backgrounds together like music. You had Indians, Palestinians, Iraqis, Iranians, British, American, Canadian, Europeans, UAE nationals, South African - the list goes on... all enjoying the music and forgetting the racial boundaries that society generally forces upon us..
and in the current climate that is heart warming. If only we could all get along and appreciate each others differences normally. Think on..


Also just wanted to say a quick hello to Lorna, Linda, Bethany and Rhianna - Naomi's sister, mum and nieces who have just been to stay with us. It was great to meet them and a lot of fun having them around. You're so welcome anytime. I hope you enjoyed yourselves. Lots of love from Naomi and Me.

There it was....gone!!

Matt: Well we've beaten back the trials of another week already, it seems like life is on fast forward at the moment!! You turn around and another week has gone.

My week started on a strong, healthy note - took a crew hiking up Jebel Sumayni. We made it to the summit in a little over 3 hours, rested for 40 minutes, basked in the sun and then returned. The whole hike was about 6 and a half hours. A great hike and really hard work at times.

Other news, I've been working in a publishing company this week - putting together a news paper style publication, takes me back to my days working at the Mercury and Admag is Weston. Arhhh like wearing an old comfortable pair of shoes again for the first time in years!!

Actually made it to the gym this week too, once!! But I did achieve an 8k run with a full backpack aside from the gym, ran over to visit James on mixed terrain of, road, grass and sand - was a really good run!

This weekend: Celebrating Morwenna's birthday and Hitting Desert Rock