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Great Sunday morning out and about. The day started with a couple of hot coffees and then out to Calliope Market.
Its a small craft type market selling the usual wood turning stuff, cloths, toys and various food staffs from fish and chips, through hamburgers, ice cream etc. You get the picture. Throw in a few old building and some more stalls selling ‘Tat’ and I think you get the general picture. It’s located in few fields outside of Calliope which in itself is a small place 35 kilometres inland from Gladstone with little special on offer. The market is built up around and in an historical village. That’s an imported collection of building including homesteads, old settlers homes, a lodge and even a jail. Add in an old railway station, trains and carriages and it does take on a sort of old world charm all of its own. It certainly attracts some interesting looking characters.
Liwa is a small cluster of villages set in the oasis in the southern quarter of the United Arab Emirates. We were told there is not much there. Wrong!
Getting there is easy. Early start about 7.00am. (I know you ask why early, when you know it is my one day off in the week….). It needs to be a worthwhile trip. Khamal my driver picked me up, so for me I know, an easy day ahead. I had high hopes it was going to be a good day.
Liwa's got history and some things to see. The history side is simple enough. (Formal details below). It has water and therefore was a place for human habitat to develop and thrive over the years. Thousands of years in fact. It is also the historical ancestral home of the ruling Abu Dhabi family. So as would be expected, there are now good roads and infrastructure. Not so many people around but enough to make the rich soils work. There are a couple of good hotels catering for tourists. The locals coming up for the camel racing and the visitors more for buggy riding over the dunes and sight seeing. We missed a major camel racing event. Happened a few weeks back. Isn't it always the way...? So for sure Liwa has plenty enough going for it to have a fun weekend. Just pick the right weekend.
So after I left my NCC camp, first stop was to pick up my colleague Mr Kim. We proceeded straight inland. Dual carriage roads the whole way. First town we reached was Ghaythai. It’s a small ‘one horse’ town type place. Actually, to be fair to it, there is a school, decent houses, shops etc. No idea how many people live here but I would guess at over 5-10,000. It as a brand new petrol stations complete with a shop and small restaurant. Bit like UK with Little Chefs etc. So we stopped there for our morning coffee and biscuits. All staff are from India or Pakistan. No Emiraties to be seen, unless you include those pulling in to fill up their cars with fuel!
After coffee it was back in the car and we headed south. All this was made much easier by having our driver Khamal with us. He had been before and also spoke the local language. I say local, but most of the people we come across are imported labour from Indian or Pakistan, so language is either Urdu or Hindi. Mr Kim has English and Korean, and with me backing up with English and err…. well enough said.
Continuing south the landscape changes. It was like leaving everything behind. Fantastic to see the rolling sand dunes. They seems to open up to us and at the same time give us a sense of vastness and of being never ending. What made it so special was the timing. Early morning with the sun rising, made for stunning shadows appearing on the dunes. As we travelled along and the sun rose the shadows changed. Seemed to bring the dunes alive. Interestingly the dunes stay off the road. I think the winds take the sand completely across the road and do not allow for any built up. The fencing which goes all along the road side, we assumed is to stop camels and antelope crossing the roads. We did see 3 antelope, but they had gone by the time I got the camera out. So just believe me when I tell you we did see some!
Liwa, well we think we got to Liwa but there were signs for Mezairria. We followed this. In fact having carried on and on southwards we came to a roundabout. Three point roundabout. The road we were on and two more exits. Simple choice: left or right? Right looked to be going nowhere and was a smaller road. So turn left it was. I mentioned earlier that Khamal spoke the language. He did at this time call a friend to check we were on the right road, I mean left road.....
Within 2-3 kilometers of turning left, the area transformed in an all lush green with date palms everywhere. Unfortunately they were not in season. Still well worth driving along and seeing all the agriculture.
We continued along the road and came across a camel racing track. Loads of camels being trained and exercised. Seemed strange, a fully fledged track in the middle of an area surrounded only by sand. Good photo opportunity.
We had by now travelled about 350 kilometers. Time for lunch. Only place we could find open was the Liwa Hotel. Imagine you travel all this was in the sand to come across a 5 star hotel complete with swimming pool. I mentioned earlier about dune buggys. Well it seems this was one of the places people stayed while enjoying driving up and down sand dunes.
Lunch as you can imagine for a 5 star hotel, was excellent, with an amazing array of mouthwatering Arabic and European dishes.
Then, back to the NCC camp, but another route via Madinet Zayed. Its another small town with a slightly better range of shops and more quality housing. Again we tried for fresh date. Again told out of season!
Then home, but not before buying some packaged dates from the local supermarket… Home ‘James’. I mean home Khamal ! Great day.
All in all, we covered about 700 kilometers. All on first class dual carriageway roads. Probably take weeks on a camel, and give you sore feet. Food for thought.
One thing for sure Seoul is a cold place. I see UK is cold but I had forgotten what it 
was like. Here is a 
very clear reminder!! 
Saturday and Sunday we went out having decided we would have a good look round. Well we did. We walked about 10 -15 kilometres over the weekend. Top loop on the map was BunChon Village which is a collection of old style houses. Some are old but a lot seem to have been restored and are now a major tourist attraction. Great fun just walking round it all. 
This was followed by again looking at street vendors and sampling numerous kebabs and sea foods all cooked on gas or charcoal. 
Spotted a Harley which Wanna took a shine to. Must say makes the thought of working for a few months in Abu Dhabi easier knowing I might buy one afterwards!!!! There is a big Harley shop in Seoul which I am going to track down next weekend. 
One thing we did see was vagrants who seem allowed to sleep in the subways. It seems as long as they do not annoy anyone they are left alone. Very civilized solution. I was taken aback however when I gave one old chap a few coins and he answered me in English saying thank you. The coins are quite attractive. No idea who the guy on the face is!!!! Bit old for sure.
Another thing that surprises me in the flower arrangements scattered about the town. Beautiful colours. Look closely and you will see they are cabbages. Yes cabbage seems to be the staple diet here. All a bit strange. 
Add in hearing Carol singing in Korea this early before Christmas all seemed surreal…We also had a look in a music store. It has guitars, pianos, wind instruments and every type of amp and speakers you could imaging. Amazing place.
We spend Sunday going round Namsam Mountain, well a hill really, which has the N Seoul tower on the top. Good walk followed by a very good lunch. The walk had a lot to do with making the meal seem so good. 
Peter from work has acted as guide and a good guide he was too. We had a chance to see some beautiful views and learn All followed by a subway trip home and an early night. I’ve added in a load of photos and short video which give a lot better idea than me writing much more…