Birthday girl - May 22, 2010

I don't know who was more excited - Sam because it was her birthday or Patrick trying to give her her present.  He wanted them to be set out for when she woke up.  :)  Patrick had found her this cute shirt - it describes Samantha to a "T"!!

Today's adventure was another wadi drive and a fort at the end of it to explore.  We went up Wadi Hayl to Fort Hayl.  They are fixing it up - so we only got to go into the tower.  Patrick and I went to the top of it to take a peak at the view.

This was a short drive so we went back to Fujairah to visit the museum and a drive around the Fujairah Fort (still being restored - so we couldn't go in).

The afternoon was spent relaxing once again on the beach.  The kids helped Wayne dig a huge hole and then buried Patrick in it!  They did some more snorkling and saw some zebra fish and hermit crabs crawling on the ocean floor.  We did more sea shell collecting and have brought home loads more shells to add to the ever-growing collection! :)

We found many different types of crabs on this trip.

Since it was Samantha's birthday we let her pick the restaurant.  It turned out to be a nice place to have supper.  The food was awesome and the kids had a good time.  The waiter had put the candle we had brought on her desert, so she had a mini birthday cake.  They had slow chocolate milks - of course I had to have a taste to make sure that they were alright.  :)

We had a wonderful weekend. 

Wadi Madhah - May 21, 2010

Today was a day of geocaching and wadi exploring.  After an awesome breakfast of homemade waffles (made just for you) and fresh fruit we packed up our truck and headed out.  We found some pretty neat caches -  fairly well vegetated because it was along a falaj - "You mean it is in there?".

The wadi was a neat drive.  It was very windy and twisty - I guess that is why it's nickname is "windy wadi" :)  The drive through was different from the other wadi's we have driven through.  This one had steeper banks and narrow paths (left picture) where as the others have been much wider.  There was one off trail that we were going to go on for a cache but part way through it we seemed to have lost the road (middle picture).  I guess with the rains this past winter, it was washed out.  We also saw some caves and old towers on our drive (right picture).

We found a cave to stop and have our picnic lunch (yes we are sitting on a hunter orange blanket - Patrick picked it out :) ).  There were some goats and birds who joined us.  :)  The kids are trying to hold up the cave for us.

 

We finished our little wadi exploring trip shortly after lunch and decided to head back to the hotel for a relaxing afternoon on the beach and at the pool.  The water in the Indian Ocean is amazing!!  Sooo warm - my kinda water! :)  I don't know how I'm going to come home and swim in the cold lake...  The beach sand was a dark sand and very soft but very hot on your feet.  The kids (even the big kids) had fun playing in the sand, searching for sea shells, snorkling, learning how to body surf, and playing in the waves.

After our fun afternoon in the sun we went for supper in Fujairah.  We picked up a shawarma and walked around the market.  After exploring Fujairah we went back to the hotel for a late night dip before bed.

Fujairah - May 20,2010

We left Abu Dhabi on the Thursday after school to go to Fujairah.  It is on the east coast (Indian Ocean) of the UAE.  We just powered through the drive and arrived at the hotel at around 6:30pm.  We took a tour of the beach and of course the kids got wet.  That was ok because we had supper at the beach restraurant of the hotel.  Afterwards we went for a swim in the pool.  The kids had fun using Wayne as a taxi and a diving board.  :)

Kayaking the Mangroves - May 15, 2010

We were all psyched to go on our kayak trip.  It was an awesome trip.  We all met up and got outfitted with life jackets and paddles.  Samantha picked out our kayak (any guesses??)  Yes red and yellow - they didn't have pink but the red was close enough for Samantha. :)

We saw lots of small crabs - both a light colour and then different ones that had a redish/purplish colour.  Samantha and I found a crab hotel - this dead mangrove tree in the water was full of crabs.  We also saw two reef herons - darker in colour and smaller.  We stopped and got out to see if we could find some foxes.  We found their dens but sadly no fox.  We learnt that the mangroves get their oxygen in two ways - high tide through their roots that are in the sand and low tide from their roots that are then exposed to the air.  We thought the little spiky things were new shoots but are actually their roots.  The tips of the roots are as high as the water gets at high tide. 

Patrick got out with our tour guide at one point to find some bigger crabs.  He came back to the boats with a blue crab.  Very cool!!

We found out that they do camp out tours as well.  They take the kayaks and your gear out to some of the islands and then set up camp - we were told that then you can swim with the turtles and dolphins.  I think we will be looking into that for next year. :)

Animal day at GAA - April 21, 2010

This week was environment week at school.  We did all sorts of activities for Earth Week.  We collected our garbage and carried it around for the day to see how much we generated, we planted flowers, did without using lights, AC and water for an hour, had an animal day where you had to dress up as an animal and paid 5 dirhams (money raised went to the animal shelter) and our grand finale was classroom without walls day.  This day the whole school was out on various field trips (cleaning the beach, zoo, kayaking the mangroves, and visiting a dump) for the day.  It was a good week.  Here are some pics of my animals...

By the way - notice the missing tooth?  Happened this morning at breakfast before we headed into school! :)

Trip to Fossil Rock - April 22, 2010

We did a day trip to Fossil Rock to show Jeff a little bit of the UAE and not just the city.  We also had some of my co-workers come along for the ride.  It was a good day out but we had several mishaps.  First Ewan blew a tire and we tried changing it but the bolts were stuck.  They bent a tire iron tring to get them off! :(  So we changed our plans and had our picnic along the road waiting for the dude to come help us out.  It turns out that Ewan had to go back to the shop and get new tires.  So the rest of us continued on our way and made plans to meet up with Ewan farther on. 

we have seen camel crossings signs throughout our travels but never any camels actually crossing the roads.  Well, today we did.  It is like any deer crossing but they move much slower!  I would hate to hit one because I imagine it would be like hitting a moose!

We finally got to fossil rock for a little explore.  To bad it was so windy and I think we were in a sandstorm.  You couldn't see very far but the group thought that we drove out here we should at least climb and see some fossils.  Being in the sand storm is not nice- you think it is bad at the beach and sand gets everywhere- it is no where near as messy and hurtful as the sand is in a sandstorm.  It gets in your eyes, mouth, ears, hair, and everywhere else.  We thought we would do a bit more dune bashing since getting out to explore seemed a bust.  That became a bust as well, since we ended up blowing a tire by hitting it on a rock.  Changing a tire in the sand is not pleasant!

Once the tire was changed we decided to be on our way home.  It sounded like everyone had fun because they mentioned doing it again sometime.

Sayq Plateau - April 6, 2010

Today was another easy day since Samantha still wasn't 100 percent.  We decided to go up to Sayq Plateau.  There were a few geo caches that we did along the way.  Before we started the drive up we had to go past a police check point - to make sure we had 4 wheel drive and that we had engaged it.  We drove the whole way up wondering WHY?  The drive was way easier than the drive yesterday and it was paved the whole way.  It was very hazy so there aren't many scenery pictures.

Once we got to the top we stopped at at a place called Diana's viewpoint - Princess Diana had visited here in 1990 and somehow the name stuck.  As you can see from the pictures there is a village (Ash Shirayjah) hanging on to the side of the cliff with their farming terraces below that.

We then continued on the plateau to the old town of Bani Habib.  We had a picnic lunch before we started our hike.  We hiked to the abandoned village and were able to explore it.  A very interesting place to explore.  It must have been beautiful before everyone left because you could tell that it was a very nicely laid out town, with large trees all around.  Wayne and I figured it couldn't have been abandoned too long ago because there was wallpaper in some of the houses and pvc pipes (I think for roof drainage).  Across the wadi and higher up there was another abandoned village.  It was a picturesque wadi with the plantations neatly laid out.  I imagine when the trees are in full bloom it is quite something.  Below find pictures from the village...

Before we hiked back to the truck we had a little rest beneath a huge tree.
Once back at the hotel we had fun in the pool for our last night.  We head back home tomorrow for a relaxing weekend before school starts again.