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by: Marijcke Jongbloed



  Now that the days are cool and lengthening, many people living in cities feel drawn to the out-of-doors. To find a place away from the pollution and noise where the wind touches your face and your eyes can see far and your ears hear nothing but the silence of the desert carried by the warbling song of a bird.

  Even though the cities are growing forever larger and certain areas of the UAE desert seem full of 4WD’s with tourists, there are still some places that few people know about where one can be quite alone to commune with nature.

  Some people are intimidated by the desert and do not dare to go out and explore by themselves. There are companies that will take you to places and you will spend an enjoyable day with a group of friends or strangers, but in my opinion the desert is best enjoyed in very small groups of like-minded people. Some people want to hike across hill and vale as fast as their nikes can carry them. Others like to explore slowly, their nose to the ground to look for rocks, fossils, plants or tiny insects. Still others like to find a nice rock overhang at the edge of a pond in a wadi and settle down with a book and a beverage. It is no good to put hikers and readers together; neither will be happy. So the first step for a great day outdoor is finding the right companions. Then you can continue with finding the right place to begin with your adventure.

  The direction to go is east towards the Hajar mountain range. With many roads now cutting through what was once a barrier between the East Coast and the rest of the country, one can reach almost anywhere by car – and often it dos not even have to be a 4WD vehicle.

  One thing that must be remembered when making a trip into the desert by car is to stick to the existing tracks. In the first place, you are less likely to get into difficulties, and secondly, it protects the environment. The desert nowadays is being hit hard and frequently by the rather destructive behavior of people who do not realize how fragile is the ecosystem they are visiting. The dunes and mountains may seem empty, but they are not. There is a great biodiversity in each of the different habitats. In the small surface that the Emirates cover, records have been made of some 700 plant species, 65 species of reptiles, 31 species of mammals, 360 species of birds and hundreds of species of insects and new discoveries are still occurring even now.

  I mentioned above that you can reach almost anywhere by car. But leaving the car and continuing on foot will show you an entirely different desert than the one observed from the confining space of a vehicle.

  Where to go? From Dubai the best places to drive to and then either explore, relax or hike are:

  Wadi Diftah, wadi Ashwani, wadi Hail in Fujeirah and any of the smaller wadis that you come across when you drive the “Hatta loop”. Al Ain is much better placed and has a choice of dozens of beautiful and interesting place nearby. From Abu Dhabi the nearby hiking and exploring sites are all sandy habitats; to reach mountains and wadis it is a long ride.

  I’ll give brief descriptions of some of the destinations. Precise directions and further information can be found in either the “Offroad Explorer” or “The Green guide to the Emirates”.

  Wadi Diftah lies just left of the Masafi-Fujeirah road. A dirt west of the village leads to the wadi and the oasis of Diftah. When visiting this site you must always remember that plantations are the commercial gardens of the farmers and should be treated with respect. The people generally are very kind and hospitable, but that could change if visitors become a nuisance. Wadi Diftah has water almost always, though it may take a hike to get to a nice pool. There is plenty of wild flora and fauna to see for those who have an eye to spot it. The fallow fields are good places to find flowering wild plants like the little carnation Dianthus cyri and the dark red Geranium mascatense. Along the irrigation channels in the plantations there are ferns, the yellow stars of Oxalis corniculata and Physalis major with its strange five-cornered flowers and lampion shaped fruits. On the wadi bank one can find orchids (Epipactus veratrifolia) and even poppies (Papaver dubium)– not flowers one would expect in a desert! Many different species of dragonflies and damselflies dart across the irrigation channels and pools. The large Oman lizard can be spotted among the rocks of the canyons, while some very rare skinks have also been found here. Many species of birds enjoy the greenery and can be watched by the patient twitcher. Hume’s Wheatear prances on the rocks in its elegant black-and-white suit, Little Green Bee-eaters may be spotted on the shrubbery and Palm doves are ubiquitous.

  Another great place for a day’s outing is Hail, the site of the erstwhile summer palace of the Fujeirah sheikhs, located in a wadi to the right of the Masafi-Fujeirah road. The crumbling buildings of the old palace are still impressive and worth a close look. If the rains have not stayed away too long the wadi at the foot of the hill usually has some good “dipping” pools. The rocky plains on the left bank used to have some wonderful pictograms on the rocks. With recent rock quarrying in the area, these may now be hard to find. Anyway half the fun is in looking for things, because that is when you come across unexpected treasures, such as a pretty flowering wild hibiscus (Hibiscus micranthus) – the tiny white flowers are only open till mid-morning. On the sides of the wadibed you can find spectacular bushes of pink-flowering peas (Taverniera glabra), or white-flowering bindweed (Convolvulus sp.). I once spent a happy hour photographing a spectacular crimson wasp. The wadi holds toads, wadi racers and interesting insects such as the Giant waterbug and the Waterscorpion. The latter is often found floating upside down in a pool with its “sting” just piercing the surface of the water, but what seems like a sting is actually a double air pipe, like a snorkel.

  Wadi Ashwani is reached by driving to Siji, to the right of the Dhaid-Masafi road. After good rains the wadi and lake near Siji are favourite picnic spots for dozens of groups of people who don’t dare to venture far. But for hikers and explorers there are more interesting places further upstream. The oasis at the end of the track has nice copper ore dry walls, some fallow fields with large stands of flowering aloe, and after rains a dense ground cover of small wildflowers such as the mallow Malva parviflora, pale-purple Erucaria hispanica and the bright blue pimpernel Anagallis arvensis. Gordon’s wildcats and Brandt’s hedgehogs make their home here, but you have to camp overnight if you want to have a chance to see them. In the daytime feral donkeys are the only larger wildlife you’ll meet. A hike along the wadi is wonderful, especially after rains when the pools are full and the fields filled with wildflowers, grasses and butterflies. In good years the ground among the rocks is covered with small violets (Viola cinerea). Near one large pool is one of the few places where the parasitic plant Orobanche cernua can be found. It lives on the roots of nightshade species, such as the Desert thorn (Lycium shawii)

  An entirely different kind of outing is one to the sandy habitats of the country. Unfortunately it is becoming difficult to find areas that are not destroyed by indiscriminate offroad driving. This practice is so destructive because it compacts the sand so that the seeds lying in it cannot germinate, and it collapses the burrows of snakes, small rodents and lizards, often killing the animals in the process. The drivers have no idea what they are doing, for the plants are as yet invisible and the burrows are well hidden among the roots of small bushes.

  The area east of the Madam-Shwaib road is worth exploring, as are the sandy plains west of the Siji-Ras al Khaymah road.

  If you get out there in the early morning, you can look for the tracks of the animals that have been active in the night. The “tripod” tracks of gerbils can be seen everywhere, sometimes crossing the parallel stripes that form the track of the poisonous sand viper. The narrow footprints of foxes are smaller than those of dogs and usually belong to the Red fox. Small “caterpillar” tracks that wind their way around bushes are from beetles, while large four-toed prints with a stripe in between are made by the feet of a lizard trailing its tail. On the sandy plains the latter tracks can lead to a flat moon-shaped entrance to a burrow – the home of the large Spiny-tailed agame. These plant-eating little dinosaurs have been living in this area for some 20 million years! They come out of their burrows to browse and warm up during some hours in the morning and towards dusk. They can often be approached quite closely and are wonderful to see, but one should not be tempted to catch one for a pet, as they do not do well in captivity!

  The desert is there for all of us to enjoy, but we should take care of it, since what is destroyed may never come back.

   

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