First Desert Adventure and some 25.12 songs.

The hospital compound recreation centre organises daily trips to various places; souks, shopping centres and the diplomatic quarter for example. They also coordinate tourist adventures to the desert on a regular basis, and occasional long-weekend trips to other parts of the country.

We (a group of the new arrivals) joined the trip to Red Sands, a group of sand dunes approximately an hour from the compound, and then to the Hidden Valley, a desert park not far from the first stop. To be honest, I was a bit surprised by the awe I was expected to offer for…….sand. Yes there was lots of it, and it was shaped nicely, but it does look fairly similar to the sand we have in the southern hemisphere, and there’s something a little awkward about climbing them in a ankle-length flowing black dress. The scenery actually reminded me a great deal of our trip to Arizona in 1997. There were a few families hooning over the dunes on 4-wheel bikes, which looked like a lot of fun, and a large group of people attempting to scale the bigger steeper dunes in their 4WDs. I discovered that walking up the dunes is a little tougher on the calves and quads than an incline on the treadmill.



The Hidden Valley was a little more impressive than the first stop as it was a large gorge between two very tall cliff faces. The keener members of our group (I wasn’t one) climbed one of the faces and reported fabulous views. I was happy to spend my time trying to find them through the viewfinder of my camera from the ground. We also amused ourselves by trying to find a bush big enough to squat behind that didn’t stab our behinds with spiky needles.



The rec centre prepared a sumptuous feast for us on a custom-built BBQ. The night cooled quickly and they made a massive bonfire for us to huddle around. A car full of foreigners seemed to think that we would enjoy their music if they parked their car near the bonfire, turned it up loud and opened all the doors to make sure everyone in a 2km radius could hear. It was bearable for a while – Britney Spears, Neil Sedaka, Backstreet Boys and cheesy love-songs, but to my surprise, the music suddenly turned to carols. Not carols in disguise and not carols with different words. Loud cheery carols of both the Mariah Carey and King’s College Choir varieties. They seemed a little out of place in woop-woop Coodoo gorge in early November around a bonfire.