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| Before |
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| After Pink Paint.... |
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| Tom Yum |
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| Chili/lemon sauce |
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| Steamed Mussels in lemon grass |
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| Happy Cook |
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| Our front roof top area |
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| Ready for the Bar B Q |
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| Bright Stairs |
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| One landing |
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| Bed Rooms.. That's a king sized bed even thought it looks small ! |
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| Bathroom |
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| Happy Steps |
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| Safety Bars on Balcony |
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| Rear Balcony |
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| Test panel of colours..... |
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| Front Ground Floor Wanna sorting a few things out !!! |
On our travels I saw a custom make chopper motor bike. That's next years project, after the house, after the aquaponics and after the garden being tidied up and after changing our car etc etc. So maybe I'll make do with the photos of the bike and that project will get put back to 2014...
Yesterday we added the lights to the Jetty. One either end. Difficult to see in the photo but they are there. One on left is 6 meters high the one on the right about 12 meters. The 12 meter one is for the UV, which can be seen from afar by insects. Yes I know weird, but the fish love it....
Wanna’s was to get rid of it. Back in Thailand we could easily ring someone up to come and get rid of it but here we were not sure just who to call. I do remember in Thailand Owen telling me he had a snake crawl up the underside of his car... ugh!!!!Between Christmas and New Year I had time to take several walks round our garden/farm. The place looked really good. Lots growing and it just felt good to be back and relaxing etc. Suffice to say it did not take me long to realise that I would soon be having to quite my farm walks and sitting around as in a few more days I’d return back to work!!! Before the dreaded day I know I have some good times ahead. New Years Eve, then Chang Mai, Pattaya to catch up with Owen and On, followed by a trip to Sydney and only then the flight into Gladstone (Happy Rock) as it is known locally. This followed by returning to the office, which I might add does not in any way resemble its TV’s namesake.
To give you some idea of our garden it is best to just upload a few photos. I’ve shown the main gate, the access road and some views across the rice fields.
Now I’ve done this upload I’m back to some more resting.
(Note:- Can't seem to upload my movie so sending through muy email account.)
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.
We, that's David, Ronald and Roderick, and me of course. We had a walk down to the shore this morning. Hardly to clear out any cobwebs as everyone had an early night !!! That's a side bennifit of being in Ruwais to celebrate New Years Eve.
The Bay. Its a lovely little bay with a few fishing boats tied up above the water line. A working ferry that goes back and forth to a neighbouring island called Sir Bani Yas. Not sure whats on the island. Looking at google earth it seems oil tank farms anf also some nature reserves. Will get over there on day.
Here this little harbour/jetty area sort of place seems very quiet, just a few people doing some fishing from the shore. Have not seen anything being caught.
But the quietness, I put it down to being a public holiday. I somehow suspect however that it is quiet most days, except for some activilty when the fishermen are putting out to sea in the mornings and bringing in their catch at night. I did visit the Ruwais Housing Complex last week, where there were plenty of shops, one selling fresh fish so maybe, just maybe, they come from here.
We walked from our camp up a small road and along the length of the jetty then up the adjacent hill. Looking down at the sea, it was very calm, beautiful clear blue water. The bay had obviously sometime ago been dredged and small landing stages erected. I would guess the dredging was carried out several years ago, maybe 5 -10 years past. The small landing platforms are all rusted and in rapid decline. Sad to see but you will know as well as me that the salt water will corrode anything. Add in the effects of warm sunshine and things just rot away almost before your eyes.
Some improvements are underway. It does however bring back memories and remind me of my first times in Qatar when things were not so developed. That was 1978! Back then in similar places there were lots of small jetties and shore structures dotted along the shorelines. They disappeared during my time there to be replaced by 'bigger and better' and more modern structures. Sure the same thing will happen here and it will change here, possibly even in the period of my short stay.
Anyway enough writing about the decline and gloom of an old jetty area. It's Jan 1st 2011 and a new year. Sun shining etc etc. Happy times ahead for sure.