Back In The Saddle 2 comprised of a group of Fellas who were off the sand for a while – some for a few weeks and others for months. 

So it was going to be interesting to see how this group would fare in one of the most technical driving areas in the Emirate.

It’s not uncommon to discover half buried fences in this neck of the desert, or new fences where there were none on the previous drive.  Today however, we were greeted by a brand new obstacle – a maze of deep grader tracks which extended about a kilometer into the desert.  They could not be avoided, so we crossed over these deep tracks where we could, and on other occasions we just used it as a passage to find the next point of departure.

Just as we left the last of the grader tracks behind us, and started to move more fluidly, we had a pop out. Considering that we’d already been driving for a while, we used this opportunity to take a break and get hydrated before continuing on our way.

It wasn’t long before the convoy entered the dreaded “egg box” area and our progress went from tortoise to snail pace. There was a second try or stuck every few minutes. Considering that we spent almost 90 minutes in the egg box, that added up to a lot of sweeper action. Despite the lack of experience with such an intensely technical stretch of desert, the convoy fared amazingly well. Towards the end of this leg of the drive the convoy was scaling near  vertical walls of sand on the first attempt. Even the mammoth Super Safaris were eventually prancing around like graceful gazelles.

Upon successfully exiting the egg box area we were behind schedule and it was certain that the posted trip end time would be exceeded. However, this group was set on completing this drive. So with the worst behind us, we decided to take a break, grab a bite and finish the drive in style.

The glare of the mid morning sun made the Qudra dunes hard to read. So rather than risking any further delays due to stucks and second tries we took the fastest and safest route through the northern section of Qudra desert and onwards to our planned exit to finish Back In The Saddle 2 in high spirits.