To Abu Dhabi for Eid

For Eid Al-Fitr this year we were all given off the same week of holidays which was a nice change. We had a hectic week in the lead-up, including a birthday dinner for Peter and a group of friends on the Monday night. We finished packing on the last day of work and school (Wed), and so on Thursday 17th September we loaded up the Patrol and were on the road by 9am.

After only half an hour we had our biggest delay of the day, as a Riyadh freeway was snarled up by a bad accident. Eventually we got underway again, and cruised south to Al Kharj and then east to Haradh.

After Haradh there is a straight stretch of road due east for 250km through low sand dunes, and then we finally reached the main coastal road just near the UAE border. With it still being Ramadan we couldn't eat at any of the petrol stops, however we were able to keep the crew sane - and the driving safe - with a few discrete food and drink stops away from the road.

We reached the border at 3pm and worked our way through all of the queues in less than an hour. There were some groans from the boys to hear that there was 370km to go - but with 550km done that wasn't so bad, and so the boys settled down again with some more reading and workbooks. The last stretch was a comfortable 3 hours drive until we finally pulled in at our hotel in Abu Dhabi.