1 post tagged “camping”
Show us how you rang in the new year!
I spent New Years camping for the first (and last) time in 2006 - typically I would've gone on at least 4 camps a year but in 2006, most of my camping friends had left to university and our trip to Mauritius was canceled.
None-the-less, this camp was a load of fun. Starting out fairly early in the morning on the 30th, we had a long 4/5 hour drive as we were camping in the mountainous region of Oman - in particular a mountain called Jabel Al Shams which I believe is one of the tallest in the region. Unfortunately what should've been a 4/5 hour drive stretched to 7 hours as wegot lost had to make a few detours and it was pretty dark when we reached the area. Another half hour or so was spent searching for a good camping site (we luckily found an extremely nice flat sandy area which I felt was better than the original rubbly area we would've taken had we not been beaten to the location). As we started to unpack, tensions were high as the adults didn't like pitching tents in the dark, the task was made harder by the ridiculously powerful wind and the chill.
Since I had the most camping experience within our group, I took charge of setting up the tents and positioning our camp site and along with a friend set up a tent with broken poles (which was condemmed bythe powers that be adults). After everything was setup, we proceeded to build our fire and start up the barbecues. The former caught pretty fast and we had an extremely nice warm fire within minutes. The barbecues, however, was annoyingly stubbourn and although the charcoal did catch in parts, none of them were warm enough to cook on. After what felt like hours of trial, we decided to move all the meat onto the bonfire (but wrapping it in aluminium foil to stop them burning).
This proved to be successful and we enjoyed chicken, ribs, lamb chops and kebabs. Just as everyone became full, disaster struck, my friend's mother who was cooking the lamb chops on the fire tripped and fell face first onto the fire. At that moment, I was stoking the fire and it was a surreal experience - it was like time suddenly slowed down as I watched her fall into the fire. Thankfully we were able to instantly roll her out. Her right had was pretty badly burned (what looked like a 2nd degree burn) but her face was absolutely fine. It was such a relief that she was ok, truly divine intervention. This incident shocked/scared pretty much everyone and killed the mood for the night and we all went to bed at around midnight.
Waking up the next day, it seemed I was the only one (or one of the few) that slept well. I always sleep extremely comfortably during camps and that's probably thanks to my incredibly comfortable sleeping bag. The night was extremely cold and windy but I was nice and warm within my layered sleeping bag. The next morning, we began to cook some breakfast (scrambled eggs and crispy bacon) which was extremely delicious (but took a surprising amount of time to cook, I still haven't figured out why everything took so much longer to cook here, perhaps the wind or the cold?). Whilst things were cooking, a few of us walked around and explored the place and marveled at the steep cliffs a few steps from where we were.
Another long drive later, we were back in Dubai and after a nice long hot shower, we met back up for some New Year. At the stroke of midnight, there were some extremely impressive fireworks by the Burj Al Arab which we were able to witness.
Definitely one of the more fun New Years I've had, it's so much more fun when you're celebrating with a big group of friends rather than at a club or disco!
None-the-less, this camp was a load of fun. Starting out fairly early in the morning on the 30th, we had a long 4/5 hour drive as we were camping in the mountainous region of Oman - in particular a mountain called Jabel Al Shams which I believe is one of the tallest in the region. Unfortunately what should've been a 4/5 hour drive stretched to 7 hours as we
Since I had the most camping experience within our group, I took charge of setting up the tents and positioning our camp site and along with a friend set up a tent with broken poles (which was condemmed by
This proved to be successful and we enjoyed chicken, ribs, lamb chops and kebabs. Just as everyone became full, disaster struck, my friend's mother who was cooking the lamb chops on the fire tripped and fell face first onto the fire. At that moment, I was stoking the fire and it was a surreal experience - it was like time suddenly slowed down as I watched her fall into the fire. Thankfully we were able to instantly roll her out. Her right had was pretty badly burned (what looked like a 2nd degree burn) but her face was absolutely fine. It was such a relief that she was ok, truly divine intervention. This incident shocked/scared pretty much everyone and killed the mood for the night and we all went to bed at around midnight.
Waking up the next day, it seemed I was the only one (or one of the few) that slept well. I always sleep extremely comfortably during camps and that's probably thanks to my incredibly comfortable sleeping bag. The night was extremely cold and windy but I was nice and warm within my layered sleeping bag. The next morning, we began to cook some breakfast (scrambled eggs and crispy bacon) which was extremely delicious (but took a surprising amount of time to cook, I still haven't figured out why everything took so much longer to cook here, perhaps the wind or the cold?). Whilst things were cooking, a few of us walked around and explored the place and marveled at the steep cliffs a few steps from where we were.
Another long drive later, we were back in Dubai and after a nice long hot shower, we met back up for some New Year. At the stroke of midnight, there were some extremely impressive fireworks by the Burj Al Arab which we were able to witness.
