Wadi Bashing

My friend gave me some feedback about my blog; he suggested I tried to keep it in chorological order to make it easier to follow. I admit that I’ve just been telling stories as they’ve popped into my head, or when I’ve found a photo that has jogged my memory. Not one to poo-poo, others opinions, I’ll take his feedback onboard and try to post entries in order from now on.

This story dates back to December 2004, I’ve just bought my brand new Jeep, Alain and I are not yet engaged and I’m still living in the Springs. A day out had been planned by his nibs office wadi bashing. In case you don’t know; a wadi is a dry riverbed that contains water only during times of heavy rain. They can be quite dangerous places to be, as even though it may be dry where you are, rains in the mountains can cause flash floods. The power of the water rushing down the wadi washes away everything in its path, including not so wise humans who decide to camp in one. Wadi Bashing is driving through the wadi for fun. Like dune bashing this is NOT something you should attempt alone, we had a convoy of 5 4X4s for our day trip. Some of the terrain can be very steep, it’s all very rocky and none of it is flat and even! The water pulls enormous boulders from the mountain and deposits them further down stream; meaning that the ‘road’ constantly changes, and what may have been passable previously is not necessarily so now.

It makes for an exciting, eventful and fun day out. What I didn’t realise is how much teamwork is required. You can drive very slowly for a few hundred meters then have to stop to move the mountain, so to speak. Rocks that are just too large to be driven over must be moved, and we spent more time out of the cars than we did in them! If the rock was too big to move a ramp needed to be built on either side so we could drive over. Needless to say, I was a bit nervous about this bashin, having never done it before, so his nibs drove my brand new motor. After the first half hour and my wincing every time a rock scraped the undercarriage of my shiny new car, he’d had enough, and I was forced to take over the wheel. Being the only female driving I was very conscious of letting the side down (the female side that is), so was determined not to make a fool of myself (or womankind) and be just as good as the blokes. And would you know it; I was! With the first tricky obstacles I needed a lot of help, and all the blokes were keen to give direction. That done, my confidence grew and I began to stop shaking like a leaf and enjoy myself. Though I was congratulated and given hefty slaps on the back from the man-folk for my driving skills, my lovely shiny new Jeep was not! Though it’s “Trail-rated” and marketed as a real off-roader, the ground clearance was very low, as a consequence where others could go I could not. Most of the mountain moving was to enable my car to get through, rather than all of them. Very shameful!

Once out of the wadi we headed to a local beach; driving very slowly is what’s required through the wadi, but once on the soft sand its revs that count. “Stick it in first and floor it” were my instructions, so I did. Driving with your foot to the floor and almost no steering control is a bit unnerving. Your instinct is to ease off the gas, do that and your beached; so with his nibs hollering “give it more gas, give it more” I ignored my gut and kept the pedal to the metal as they say! Once we’d stopped we had a BBQ lunch and a few braver souls drove up and over the enormous sand dune, me included; I couldn’t let the side down now could I?