Camping - my favourite thing!

Some friends invited us to go camping in Liwa for the weekend. Naturally, I investigated EXACTLY what was involved in the camping, and when it transpired that the first night would be tents in the sand and the second night would be spent in comparative luxury in a hotel, I accepted.

Liwa, for those of you who haven't been there (OK, that's everyone who reads this blog, I think) is a little oasis in the middle of huge sand dunes. It is known as The Empty Quarter. The only thing that really grows there are the salt pans which appear between the huge dunes.

So, on Thursday, the men left work early, we picked the kids up from school and headed down the very long, very straight motorway (like the Freestate, except the Freestate has more interesting scenery).

We eventually passed the oasis, enjoyed the greenery, then hit the salt pans and dunes. Our first priority was to find a suitable campsite - quite tricky as it is a popular dune bashing area for quad bikes and we wanted to make sure we didn't pitch our tents in the middle of a race track! Darrell found us a good spot, and we set up our homes for the night. The kids played in the sand, the Dads built fires and cooked supper and the women did what women have to do in these circumstances - chat and drink our wine before the ice melted and the wine warmed up.

A late night was had by all, the last of the kids collapsed about 9.30 and then we sat around the dying fires until about 1, enjoying the stars, the solitude and taking potshots at the occasional quadbiker that came past our camp. Ok, we didn't really - fortunately there were only a couple at about 11pm, and they didn't come back.

Then we went to bed. During the night, the wind started to pick up. Now, we have two tents for camping. One is an all-weather tent that we got in Scotland to withstand the British weather. Putting it up is like establishing a small town, but once in, you are safe and snug. The other tent is a light-weight tent that Darrell bought here especially for desert camping, since usually not much protection from the elements is required. Well, we took the light tent and as the wind picked up during the night, the tent started flapping and wind started whipping into our tent through the fly screens - along with a healthy amount of fine sand. So between spitting sand out of my mouth, listening for sounds from David's little tent pitched next to the big family tent (although his little tent seemed to fare better than ours) and continually covering Stephie up again, I didn't get much sleep. Oh, yes, and trying to go to the loo in the middle of the night, petrified of stepping on a snake or scorpion.

Eventually morning came, and the view from my tent as I sat up in the bed, waiting for my tea, was lovely. I watched the sun rise from bed, how awesome is that?

As people got up and started getting brekka, the wind started picking up. The plan for the morning had been to eat, then the boys would all go off for some dune bashing while those who didn't want to dune bash would stay behind and start packing up. We'd have lunch and then mosy over to the hotel. Well, our frying pan had more sand than bacon in it, the tents started blowing away, small kids started crying and the big kids had fun flying kites ... In a bit of a rush we packed up our campsite - if anyone has ever tried folding a tent in a gale force wind with their eyes closed to keep sand out, then they'll know what we went through. The mattresses took forever to deflate, there was sand in absolutely everything - including my toiletry bag which some kind soul had left open for me. I was not a happy camper!

Eventually we were in the car, the kids perched on top of luggage as we hadn't had the luxury of folding and packing it properly, and we set off for the hotel. Well, the moms thought we were going to the hotel - we were covered in sand, we had sand everywhere one could (and shouldn't!) Have sand, the kids looked like little sand yetis ... but the Dads decided that since were were out there and now all safely in the cars, we may as well go dune bashing.

They started off quite sane and careful but thanks to the encouragement of the kids ( "faster, Daddy, faster!") Soon speeded up and took some interesting dunes. Shortly after I had asked Darrell to tone it down and he had replied with the now famous words: "I never get stuck!", Darrell took us over a big sand dune and landed wedged into a steep valley on the other side. Tail of car in the side of one dune, nose buried in the side of the next. I have never seen Darrell so concerned about being stuck - I think that it crossed his mind we may have to abandon the Landy there in the sand. Fortunately, we had 11 children to glory in digging the car out - but with not very much success as the sand kept sliding back under the Landy again - and back up cars to tow us out. Also fortunately, the wind declared a brief truce, so all the women and kids went and perched at the top of the sand dune trapping the Landy, and enjoyed the show - it took 3 efforts and 2 cars pulling together to get it out, but get it out they did. Darrell was mightily relieved - and I was mighty happy - watching Darrell getting stuck and sweating to get out cheered me up no end after the less-than-perfect morning!

Once we were free the men seemed to feel they had had their fill of dune bashing and we headed off to the hotel. It is only a 3 star - which is disgraceful for this part of the world - but boy were we glad to be in it! I took the kids to the pool for a swim and de-sand, while leaving Darrell to check in and sort the car (aren't I mean?). He did a good job too, repacked everything and emptied out quite a bit of the sand. I don't think we'll ever get it all out. And then the civilised camping began ... lounging around the pool before dressing for dinner; two tables (11 kids and 9 adults); wine coolers; buffet breakfast; flushable loos and running hot water; and air conditioning that didn't blow gusts of sand all over us. My sorta camping!

We left at about lunch time, went and visited the expensive Liwa hotel that Darrell's company had recently built (would have stayed there but Darrell very meanly refused to pay the AED3000 per night charges), then took a look in at the Rainbow Sheikh's car museum before heading for home.