Hanging's Tough!

Matt: Took another adventure trip this past weekend, I coerced Fiona into joining me as I knew she'd be the only one I could persuade!! and sure enough, she came, not really knowing what she was in for!

We took the long drive down to Muscat and then on to Bandar Khayran, ok that makes it sound straight forward and simple, there was the border to contend with which was hellishly busy and then there was the fun and games when we realised we'd left the maps behind..which in turn lead to us driving around Ruwi, Muscat for about 2 hours trying to find a turn off next to nonexistent 'Live Chickens' sign! But eventually we made it to our destination.

We setup camp on the Beach at Bandar Khayran with Anita, a fellow explorer. After a sleepless night due to noisy neighbours the sun rose over the impressive fjords of our bay, we woke ourselves up with a dip in the, millpond like, India Ocean before our guides arrived!! Whereupon we set about sorting the equipment and loading the Kayaks ready for our journey to the island an hours paddle across the bay.

We beached the Kayaks and the kitted up, donning our harnesses, gloves and helmets before trekking up to the plateau and across the island to the start of today's adventure.. Via Feratta!! Which roughly translate from Italian to 'Iron Path'..

The idea here is to traverse along the towering cliff faces, clinging to the rock face 40 metres above the ocean and rocks below! Whilst being safely clipped to a cable, just-in-case..

It was exhilarating, tiring and thrilling all at once! In some place the rock face was so steep and sheer we were virtually hanging from the cable with our hands with our feet braced against the drop! It took us about 2 hours to traverse the route to the point where the cable had snapped and we could go no further. To be honest by this point we were pretty knackered and still had to kayak back to the mainland and then face the 5 hour drive home to Dubai.

It was a great weekend which I throughly enjoyed, I think Fiona is realising that saying yes to my suggestion will always lead to a bit of an adventure!! Considering the difficulty of some of this adventure and the fact she was just coming through a cold, she did amazingly well and conquered some fears along the way!! :)

Full Selection of Photos Here


Here's Wising you all a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS - Love to all!

Congratulations

Matt: Andreas and Ruta have become, Mr. and Mrs. Vocale. Congratulations guys. It was a really small wedding here in Dubai as the main wedding will be held in Italy next year. They both looked really great and really happy! It was a real honour to be there.

In other news, I've been managing to make the most of the weekends, took a trip to Musandam last weekend, it was a 6 nations trip (Croatia, Germany, Switzerland, US, Canada and Britain)..We camped out on the beach amongst the fjords and the following day took a Dhow trip, which was very chilled. The scenery up there is really impressive, high jagged cliffs, still blue seas - amazing!! I was invited on this trip by Angelica (The Croatian of the 6) who I met the week before through a mutual friend. We had a really good time, saw Dolphins, Shooting Stars and got repeatedly stung by Jellyfish and sang songs round the camp fire, all ideal :)


Also that weekend, we did a little dune bashing and had a couple of BBQs. Overall it was a very social weekend, with a little stress and work thrown into the mix too. This past weekend involved, the 2007 Ultimate Frisbee Charity Tournament, which nearly killed my shins. We had a good team and ended up getting 3rd place - close guys, next year!!! and if that wasn't enough leg exercise for one weekend I then went on a 6 hour, tough hike on the Saturday. This was another, 6 nations trip (Croatia, US, France, South Africa, Lebanon, Britain), with only myself and the lovely Angelica having been on the previous trip. I really enjoy spending time with different nationalities - it's too easy to gravitate towards your own people whilst away from home. It's amazing how different peoples lives have been to your own and you can learn so much from them. It goes to show what a cosmopolitan city Dubai really is, it's a mixing pot and that's a good thing.