We hired a car for 2 days to look round and do a bit of birding on some of the sites suggested on the 'uea birding' site.
The Nissan Sunny must have been the only one in Dubai, but it did fit in well with the Ferrari's, Lamborgini's, Hummers, and Maserati's !!
It cost about £50 a day including delivery and fuel was half price to that in the UK.
Driving in Dubai is, as you might expect, chaotic !!! Seven lane highways, you can pick your lane, overtake, undertake, over the top if you want, just try to avoid hitting anything too hard !!
Finding your way ok, with the signposts clear and usually early enough to get from lane 7 to lane 1 in time.
Most roads are at least dual carriageways, so if you're going the wrong way, tough, for a few miles until you can find a turn off which allows you to turn round. This occurred more than once !!!
Anyway, first stop, Pivot Fields, take the A44 towards Hatta.
First problem, major roadworks, so we ended up with a tour of the Al Quos Industrial Estate, very nice !! Finding our way back to the A44 we could only go south back to Dubai for about 10 miles to do a 'u'ee !!! Try again, this time we found the 'Textile City' sign to turn off. We didn't know there were 2, and we took the first one, a tour of the Fruit and Vegetable market followed on an estate with no apparent exit, very nice.
We found the second sign and what I thought was Pivot Fields but it was a Nursery with a gate and a guard so I didn't think it was right, it was, and we returned the next day to enjoy the birding, but today we were too scared to enter and headed south for Ras-Al-Khor.
Ras-Al-Khor is a wetland and area of mangroves which lies at the end of the Dubai creek, it has a small (very) visitor centre with binoculars, telescope and a guard. Signature birds are Flamingo and Great Spotted Eagle, which we had as we approached the hide. Reef Heron in indigo blue form, Great White and White Reef Heron, Spoonbill and Little Egret, were the larger water birds to be seen. Waders included Kentish Plover, Ringed Plover and what I thought were funny looking Dunlin, turned out to be Broad Billed Sandpiper. Graceful Pirina showed itself well on a reed stem infront of the hide.
The Nissan Sunny must have been the only one in Dubai, but it did fit in well with the Ferrari's, Lamborgini's, Hummers, and Maserati's !!
It cost about £50 a day including delivery and fuel was half price to that in the UK.
Driving in Dubai is, as you might expect, chaotic !!! Seven lane highways, you can pick your lane, overtake, undertake, over the top if you want, just try to avoid hitting anything too hard !!
Finding your way ok, with the signposts clear and usually early enough to get from lane 7 to lane 1 in time.
Most roads are at least dual carriageways, so if you're going the wrong way, tough, for a few miles until you can find a turn off which allows you to turn round. This occurred more than once !!!
Anyway, first stop, Pivot Fields, take the A44 towards Hatta.
First problem, major roadworks, so we ended up with a tour of the Al Quos Industrial Estate, very nice !! Finding our way back to the A44 we could only go south back to Dubai for about 10 miles to do a 'u'ee !!! Try again, this time we found the 'Textile City' sign to turn off. We didn't know there were 2, and we took the first one, a tour of the Fruit and Vegetable market followed on an estate with no apparent exit, very nice.
We found the second sign and what I thought was Pivot Fields but it was a Nursery with a gate and a guard so I didn't think it was right, it was, and we returned the next day to enjoy the birding, but today we were too scared to enter and headed south for Ras-Al-Khor.
Red Wattle Lapwing
Black Francolin
We did get Red Wattled Lapwing, Crested Lark, Green Bee Eater and plenty of White Eared Bulbul and Black Francolin in the hotel garden on the next turnoff.
Ras-Al-Khor
Ras-Al-Khor is a wetland and area of mangroves which lies at the end of the Dubai creek, it has a small (very) visitor centre with binoculars, telescope and a guard. Signature birds are Flamingo and Great Spotted Eagle, which we had as we approached the hide. Reef Heron in indigo blue form, Great White and White Reef Heron, Spoonbill and Little Egret, were the larger water birds to be seen. Waders included Kentish Plover, Ringed Plover and what I thought were funny looking Dunlin, turned out to be Broad Billed Sandpiper. Graceful Pirina showed itself well on a reed stem infront of the hide.
Just time for a trip to Ghantoot Polo Club.
A half hour drive down the E11 towards Adu Dhabi found us at the gates of the Royal Polo Club, no way were we getting in there to view the lawns. So our watching had to be done through the gate or over the wall.
We did manage Cream Coloured Courser on the lawns with one Golden Plover, plenty of Crested Lark, White and Yellow Wagtails, and a Great Grey Shrike on the surrounding bushes. There were some tracks of fox, I think, it was too far from habitation for any dogs.
Enough birding for one day, we had to go shopping !!
Next stop Mall of the Emirates !!
But more birding tomorrow, back to Pivot Fields and Ras-Al-Khor.
Commercial Dubai is very much driven by the textile industry. Once a sleeping domain, the scene is completely changed now. textile shops in Dubai are a perfect place to bask into the glory of Dubai textile shopping.
ReplyDeleteI like it, what you shared and what you talked about in this post, i just want to say dubai is not dubai without car :)
ReplyDeleteI love dubai and it's transport