Day 20 – Tuesday 2 January 2018

An earlier start after our usual morning wake up kiss from Austin, we were out the door around 9am & we drive to the border city of El Ain today, around 150km away.  The divided highway is mostly 3 lanes, some 4 & some 5 lanes, in very good condition, it puts most Australian roads to shame.  As we drive out of Abu Dhabi we leave behind the jungle of high rise buildings of glass & cement for low lying desert suburbs either side of the road, not far behind them stretches desert dunes.  There are rows of irrigated trees either side of the highway & irrigated date palms down the middle, we come across men now & then cleaning the rubbish up or checking the irrigation systems.  As we get even further away from Abu Dhabi the desert sands come down to the highway on both sides & there are more sand dunes, there are fewer & fewer buildings.  The road signs keep referring to this area as farms.

Closer to El Ain the sand dunes start to get large & there are a few townships scattered along the highway & in the distance a large mountain range looms on the horizon.  Things start to get a bit greener as we get close to El Ain, there are beautiful flowers & green grass around the city, there are natural springs that provide water to the city & irrigate the food crops.  El Ain doesn’t seem to have big high rise buildings but the buildings all have sand colouring so they all seem to blend into the desert.  We drive through the outskirts of El Ain & head toward the large mountain range behind the city, it is called Jebel Hafeet & the road winds for a steep 11.7km up to the summit at 1,300 metres high.  Jebel Hafeet is almost devoid of vegetation & archaeologists have discovered 317 tombs dating back to 3,000B.C. so far in the limestone on the north & east faces of the mountain.  Amazingly there are some very large palatial houses on top of the mountain as well as a new looking Mercure Hotel, all with spell-binding views over the desert below or the city of El Ain which is quite a big city.  From the summit viewing area a lot of the land that we are looking at is the country of Oman.  On the way down we are hoping that the brakes on the car work well as there is lots of evidence of vehicles losing control & hitting the concrete barriers that skirt the road, there is even the remains of a truck part way down the mountainside.  Thankfully we make it down OK.  Once again it’s good that Charles drives.

We drive into the centre of El Ain & our hotel, the Rotana.  We check in & have lunch at one of the hotel restaurants.  Al Jahili Fort is about 500 metres from our hotel where we next stop to look, it was built in 1898 originally as a summer residence for the royal family of Sheik Zayed bin Khalifa.  It is one of the oldest historical buildings in the UAE & is made completely from mudbrick construction.  It was fascinating to walk completely around & explore the old fort, very thick mud walls & low doorways.  The well had water in the bottom of it, a long way down.  Even the steps up to the towers are mud brick & very crumbly in places, I can’t imagine how it holds up when it rains.  Apparently that is not too often out here.  The Al Jahili Fort’s other claim to fame is that appears on one of the UAE banknotes.  There was a very interesting photographic exhibition inside the fort of photographs of desert tribal life taken by a British explorer & photographer who befriended Sheikh Zayed, it was called the “London Exhibition”.  The fort also had a life as a military outpost for many years (I wonder how the mud steps withstood all the soldier’s boots going up & down on them) & was the main trading link between Oman & UAE.

Our next stop is the El Ain Zoo, a very large & modern zoo out in the desert.  We had a 4pm Safari Tour booked & we were taken around the open air exhibitions in a Toyota Landcruiser with a very large open roof & canopy so that we could stand up inside to see & take photos.  The Safari Park is 7 years old, man-made & has 18 different species of African animals, including zebra, giraffe, rhinoceros, wildebeest, lion plus a multitude of different types of antelope, some rare & endangered, one species even extinct in the wild.  They have a breeding program to try & save the species.  We fed some of the animals from the car with carrots, some of the giraffes & antelopes poked their heads inside the windows to get a feed, talk about getting up close & personal.  After around an hour of driving around we exited the safari park & started walking around the rest of the zoo before it got too dark, the zoo is open until 8pm.  The enclosures are mostly lit up after dark & adds another dimension to seeing the animals.  Our final tour was of the Sheikh Zayed Education Centre, a truly magnificent architectural masterpiece full of beautiful marble floors, textured walls & ceilings.  The static exhibitions were laid out over 6 levels & very well done with nice transitions between the levels.  We finished with a nature movie in a very luxurious theatre, some of the most comfortable theatre seats I have ever sat on, again it was very well done.

It is by now dark & time to get back to our hotel, we are all very tired.  Thanks to Google & Charles they found the motel with no problem.  Our rooms are magnificent, very luxurious, however, we went straight down poolside for dinner & Jackson with Charles went for a swim with drinks at the pool bar whilst the rest of us had a delicious Arabic meal.  Another fantastic day.