ِCleveland Way - National Trail

الدروب البرية في بريطانيا (ناشنال تريلز)هي طرق طويلة للمشاة وتتميز بجمالها الطبيعي كما أنها تحظى بالدعم والعناية من قبل مؤسسة حكومية تسمى بريطانيا الطبيعية. هناك العديد من هذه الدروب ومنها كليفلاند وي الذي قمت بالمشي في جزء صغير منه مع أبنائي حمد وريما. فكرة تحديد دروب طبيعية وتخصيص ميزانية وموظفين للعناية بها هي فكرة جميلة وتستحق أن نطبقها في بلدنا بالسعوية ولكن يحتاج ذلك بالطبع الى وعي بيئي بقيمة الطبيعة والمحافظة عليها وإيجاد المردود الإقتصادي العائد من ربط تلك الدروب بالخدمات والفنادق الريفية الصغيرة التي تمر عبرها كما هو الحال هنا في بريطانيا.

إخترت كليفلاند وي لقربه من مكان إقامتنا على ساحل يوركشاير وقد بدأنا الرحلة من رافينزكار وهي قرية صغيرة منسية تطل على شاطئ جميل يسمى بشاطئ روبن هوود، على إسم الشخصية المشهورة. قمت بإنزال تفاصيل الخط الذي سنمشي عليه من الموقع الخاص بذلك على جوالي ثم بدأنا من على قمة الجبل الموازي لبحر الشمال متجهين جنوبا بمحاذاة الشاطئ .. بعد نصف ساعة من المشي تقريبا توقفنا عند بقايا محطة رادار قديمة إستعملها الجيش لكشف الطائرات والسفن الألمانية أثناء الحرب العالمية الثانية. تناولنا غدائنا وأكملنا المشوار جنوبا ثم إنعطفنا يمينا باتجاه الغرب وسط الحقول الخضراء على طريق مخصص للخيول. بدأ الطرق في الإنحدار والغوص وسط غابة كثيفة واجهنا خلالها بعض الصعوبة في النزول كونه طينيا خاصة بعد الأمطار الغزيرة التي شهدناها في الأيام الماضية

كنت أحمل معي حقيبة صغيرة أضع بها جهاز الجي بي إس، كاميرا وجوال مع علبة ماء بينما تحمل ريما صندوق الغداء. بدأنا في الإنعطاف شمالا عائدين على درب سهل المشي عليه وقابلنا بعض المشاة الآخرين. بعد ساعتين وربع تقريبا وصلنا الى نقطة البداية، قطعنا خلالها 7كم توقفنا فيها من أجل إلتقاط الصور. إتجهنا بعدها الى كنز مخبئ بالقرب من موقف السيارة حيث نزلنا له بصعوبة وسط أشجار المور البنفسجية وبالرغم من إتساخ ملابسنا بالطين إلا أن المنظر كان جائزة قيمة لم نتوقعها.

طول الطريق هو 177كم فقط وقطعه بالكامل يحتاج الى عدة أيام.

UK geocaching mega event

Geocaching events are part of the world of geocaching .. you could actually log a find or rather attend by going to one of those. The first event in the gulf was held in the UAE last year in October and one or two followed since then. A more recent one is scheduled end of this month in Doha, Qatar.

Being in the UK, I could not afford to miss the opportunity to attend the first UK mega event held on Aug.2^nd at Harrogate, not so far from Scarborough - the small town I was staying in-. I’ve talked to Flydad earlier to see if we could team up and go to the event. That talk turned to reality as he, his son CJ and I drove together to the site. When we arrived at the hotel and headed to sign the log we were pleasantly surprised to find out that the lady keeping the log recognized flydad as the owner of one of the caches she found in Iceland. We spent the rest of the afternoon bagging nearby caches which were easy to find and probably didn’t need a GPS as you simply follow the crowds. I think I was the only cacher from the Gulf, if not from the middle-east.

We have cached together a day earlier at Robin Hood’s bay and visited my children at their boarding school in Ampleforth. We then went on to the Yorkshire gliding club at Sutton Bank where flydad took off in one of the glider planes while we watched him soar like a bird.

First cache in the Moors

The North Yorkshire Moors is a vast expanse of moorland characterized by low growing vegetation and uncultivated hills. I have seen pictures of the Moors but to actually walk through it on a beautiful sunny afternoon like I did today with my daughter was very special.

Two caches brought us from Whitby down south on our way to Pickering. We took a short detour from A169 to Goathland and walked from there for about 3km. The smell in the air was fresh and the scenery was very different from the dusty and hot weather that I left back in Dammam.

First cache in the UK

I’ve been in the UK for few days now and finding my first geocache is long overdue. In fact I turned on my Colorado 300 the minute I checked in our hotel next to Hydepark but unfortunately it was not showing any direction. Later I realized I had to calibrate the compass after the many lat./long. it traveled.

The cache was close to the Diana Memorial fountain so that was a good detour to take. My three sons get the credit for finding our first cache in the UK and it was fun feeding the squirrels and pigeons afterwards.

Paperless geocaching

Yesterday I bought the Colorado 300 and paid SR1650 for it. The salesman at DarMoja knows little about the device and tells me it’s not known here except possibly among expat community. I already own some GPSr but the idea of paperless geocaching is very tempting. So far I managed to do without the –less in paperless by printing cache pages and carry them with me. I suppose you could still print pages –or notes- especially if you’re in the gulf area where the number of caches is still not that large. However, there were situations where I wished I had the cache page on my GPS screen .. now I do.

I read few months ago about some software issues in the Colorado that are yet to be resolved. It seems those are not fixed yet .. unless my version is old. For instance, I found that when I try to connect the unit to my notebook, it will not operate as a GPS, instead it will stay in connection mode with no possibility of the GPS running. The same happened with the 12-v adapter cable trying to charge the unit in my car. I’m not sure if this is also a software-related fault.

Update -

There is a utility in Garmin that checks for the operating software on your unit to make sure it’s current –thanks to flydad for alerting me to this-. I found an interesting post that helped power my Colorado 300 from the car while driving (without relying on the batteries). To do it, go to System – Interface and use Garmin Spanner .. Now if you connect the unit, it will ask if you like to go to mass storage. Say no .. that way, the unit will not go in connect mode when a USB cable is hooked to it.

Dhubb in Bahrain

While on a maintenance visit to check on one of my caches in Bahrain (GC17PJG) which was reported missing, I came face to face with a large Dhubb guarding the site. I was amazed with the shear size and speed of this giant lizard as it moved. There was a time when these lizards were kept as pets for some while considered gourmet food for others. These creatures are strong and it’s thought that when a dhubb clamps its jaw on something, it’s hard to make it let go.

الفضلات في الصحراء تقتل ..

بينما كنت أتصفح النت وجدت هذا الموقع لطفل في الحادية عشر من عمره من جنوب أفريقيا بدأ حملة في الإمارات العربية من أجل وقف رمي الفضلات في البر خاصة وأنها قد تقتل الجمال التي تأكل منها. لا يبدوا الحال مختلفا كثيرا عن الوضع عندنا في السعودية

بعض المقتطفات من الموقع

لا تترك أي فضلات بعد مغادرتك للبر، إجمع ما تبقى وخذه معك. مد يد العون بأخذ ما قد تجده من فضلات. فكر قبل أن تشتري حاجياتك بنوع المخلفات الممكنة. لا تتوقع أن يقوم عمال البلدية بمهمة التنظيف في البر وأخيرا كن مثالا جيدا للآخرين

Maintenance check

Today I went with the kids to replace the container for the Pipeline cache .. the last logger mentioned about the lid being broken. Sand was filling the old container so I replaced it with a new one. The area is nice and clean and makes for a good picnic spot not far from Dammam. I highly recommend the place for an easy afternoon out of the city.

The weather was cool though we were having the air-conditioning on when we left Dammam. In fact, it was a bit chilly by the time it got dark. I dropped a Unite for Diabetes TB that came originally from NY .. long way from home.

Martini .. anyone ?

On my last trip to Riyadh, my cousin AbuTalal showed me an antique rifle that his late father owned. He asked me to dig some info about it. All he knew is that it had a rich history passed from the original owner to my late uncle.

It measures a little less than a meter in length and comes with a very old strap made of cloth. I could read the words “Imperial Gun Royal Martini” in capital letters engraved on top. On the side of the metal, I could read the numbers 577/450 with some markings. I believe the numbers refer to the caliber. I did a quick search to learn that this rifle known as the Martini-Henry was used by the British and its colonial armies. It first entered service in 1871 and served throughout the British empire for 30 years. This puts its later usage at the beginning of World War I.

How it got into the hands of my uncle in the middle of Arabia is another story that is yet to be told. Arab irregulars who were with Lawrence of Arabia were known to have used them during the Arab Revolt of 1916-1918. I have seen some references to the same rifle in some poems and writings. e.g., it was mentioned in a letter by Chalres Hubert who discovered the famous Tayma stele –now at the Louvre-. Hubert wrote of some Englishmen who visited Mohammaed Bin Rasheed, Emir of Hayel in 1884 and brought with them nine boxes of Martini rifles as a gift.

Tech Break: Ten things you didn't know about Google - Features

Tech Break: Ten things you didn't know about Google - Features

Sand or Ice ?

Last night we had a sandstorm that dumped sand in our city. Dammam airport was closed for 5 hours and the sand got into our houses and noses. The daily newspaper reports hundreds of cases being admitted to emergency rooms for treatment of respiratory complaints. On the other side of our planet, my friend flydad writes about a sleet/ice storm that hit Chicago .. what a difference this planet makes.

UAE versus Saudi geocachers

Have you ever wondered about the hiding behavior of geocachers in this part of the world. If you run into a cache placed in either UAE or Saudi then there is a high probability that it will have 2 stars for difficulty. You can read more about it here.

Musandam Trip

Land of Frankincense –leban- and fortresses; … that’s Oman. I’ve always wanted to go there and visit some of the off beaten paths. I have been to Dubai many times but this trip was out of the ordinary for me. The highlight was visiting Ras Musandam and view of the famous Strait of Hormouz.



It has been 7 months since flydad last visit to Saudi. He contacted me to tell me about his upcoming trip to Dubai/Oman and asked for some suggestions. We decided mid January would be good time for both of us and so we met one night in Dubai airport. I was accompanied by my newphew Mohammad, a new determined geocacher who is younger and more versatile.. just the qualities one needs for a hard to get cache.

Our first day spent was on the road to Hatta where we found 6 caches. The weather was warmer than in Dammam –not to nephew’s taste- but still cool. We logged Pin Head, memories of Dubai, Pay it forward, Six T, Creatures of D-night and valley view .. all in one afternoon. We had a nice lunch at the Hatta Fort Hotel and on our way back I managed to resurrect the old Road to Hatta cache. This is the same cache that got flydad and I in touch, a year ago.

The following morning we headed early to the east coast of the UAE. We first made an early stop by Camel Master farm where we had a nice breakfast prepared by his wife Camel Mistress. Camel milk in a variety of flavors was on the menu and the setting on a small dune top in front of a tent was absolutely wonderful. We wanted to stay longer but we had a long day ahead of us so we had to excuse ourselves and thanked our hosts. We continued east to Aldhaid and then headed north to Dibba passing Masafi after finding two caches, one of the them was tricky but Mohammad growing skills proved useful. We then headed south to Khor Fakkan and watched from a distance oil tankers lined up to enter the Gulf. A short turn west took us to the Omani exclave of Madha. We claimed a virtual cache there called surrounded and then continued further west to Nahwa to find the wadi bashing cache belonging to UAE. Some discrepancy between what Google maps say and what we saw on ground was noted by flydad regarding this unique exclave of UAE inside Omani inside UAE land.

We spent the night in Fujairah down south and left early morning to Ras AlKhaima. We reached the Omani boarder around noon time. Crossing the boarder was simple and took few minutes. After that we were rewarded with a scenic route that took us in a north easterly direction to the tip of Ras Musandam peninsula. The route was spectacular as we passed by beautiful sandy beaches nestled between the mountains. We made a stop at Bukha; a small village famous for its castle and claimed a cache there. Continuing further north to Ras Shaykh Masoud, we claimed another cache named Smugglers watch, right at the tip of the peninsula overlooking the famous Strait of Hormouz. Almost 25% of the world’s oil passed through this waterway in the last decades. I managed to hide my own cache on a stone wall facing east towards the Iranian Qeshm Island. Our hotel was only few kilometers down to the south east of the Ras Masoud at the entrance of Khasab town. We checked in at the Golden Tulip hotel and spent the night there. That afternoon was a little subdued after Mohammad lost his mobile at Ras Masoud but he wouldn’t let this upset the remaining day.

So the following morning we went to explore the sleepy town of Khasab and went further south on an off road trip that took us to an overlook of Khor Najd. The view down of the beach and fisherman’s dhows was absolutely stunning. We claimed another cache there and to our pleasant surprise we ran into a German couple who were also geocaching in the area. We left Khasab in the afternoon heading back to Dubai and claiming another cache on the way named Sheeba’s palace and hidden by Camel Master. Frankincense was part of the goodies found in this cache and what a better conclusion to a trip that started with memories of Leban and ended with one.

Bahrain caches

I visited Bahrain three weeks ago with family and found 4 caches in one day and managed to hide one of my own .. it was a real treat. We started our search early morning by bagging one in the ancient graveyard of Sitra. I thought the vicinity was a nice easy and accessible place to hide the first GeoPost cache in the Gulf. I first learned about this special cache from geocaching online and so I decided to make one myself. Next we moved south to find two caches not far apart. A great place for Barby was on a small mound .. I spotted the cache from below and pointed it to my son. After logging it we moved to mammalian protuberance. This was a long overdue cache for me and found by my wife.

The fourth was a special one and neatly stashed in Bahrain Fort. My wife and I arrived at sunset. It was a cool November evening with the Fort lit from the ground up .. great photo opportunities. Google Earth placed the cache on the northern perimeter of the castle which fooled me since it was further inside. We searched in the wrong place for about 15 minutes before I realized from the difficulty rating and the style of the setter and his previous hides that this should not be too complicated.

It then occurred to me that we may be searching in the wrong place and indeed we were. The place inward was even more fascinating at night time and we found the cache inside a window just like it was described. I dropped a Saudi coin and left with a great sense of satisfaction.

Geocaching and walking

As a geocacher, walking is part of the game. I’m overweight and I don’t exercise but I try to walk specially with my younger brother who is more athletic and fit than I am. We started to walk on a regular basis .. not much, may be 1.5 to 2.5 km around my house in Dammam. One day he said let’s go for a longer walk – longer to me was like 3 to 4 km - so I said Ok. We walked for 5km to the Sheraton Hotel in Dammam. It felt good and I said why stop here and we continued for another 5km to the corniche. That was a total of 10km .. it was a great accomplishment for me; but not to my brother. Next time he said let’s go for a longer walk and on Ramadan eve, we set out to walk to Al-Khobar. We made the 19km walk in about 3.5hours without break. Now he wants to go further .. Bahrian is on his agenda but I doubt it.

أول إجتماع لهواة الجيوكاشنج في الإمارات

تم اليوم تجمع لمزاولي رياضة الجيوكاشنج في جبل حفيت قرب العين .. هذا هو أول تجمع لمحبي هذه اللعبة في المنطقة. هنا الصفحة الخاصة بهذا الحدث. كنت أنوي الحضور لكن بسبب التوقيت والذي يوافق عشية أول أيام الدراسة لم أستطع الحضور.

Two Kingdoms Connected

Yesterday I went to Bahrain to collect my Aramex shipment containing some travel bugs, nanos and other geocaching accessories that I ordered earlier from Groundspeak. On the way, I decided it was about time to hide a cross-boarder cache on the causeway itself. It would be a special multicache with one part on the Saudi soil and the other part on the Bahrain side.

Being in Ramdan and around noon time, there was little traffic as I drove past the Bahraini customs. After paying the insurance I made a stop on the south eastern side of the artificial island. I stashed the tiny magnetic nano and marked its coordinates. This will be the final stage of this multi cache.

On the way back and after clearing Saudi customs, I turned to the tower building on the south western side of the island. I found a nice green area off the parking lot and decided to look for a hiding place. There it was; a line of trees with some picnic tables beneath. I wrote down the coordinates for the nano on a small piece of paper and rolled it into a tiny silver capsule. Fortunately this cylinder comes with a ring so I tied a string to it and tied the other end to a tree trunk. I made sure the string is not too long so it will not fall and expose the capsule and is not too short so that it can be handled with ease. This is the first part of this multi cache.

Although the two stages are only one kilometer apart, they’re in two separate countries. This tiny cache signifies the small world we live in spite of the apparent distances that keep us apart.

Geocaching in Tirhal magazine

In an interview with Tirhal magazine, I talked about geocaching as it relates to tourism, specially here in Saudi.. I believe it’s the first in Arabic. The magazine is a publication of the Supreme Commission for Tourism and I hope to see more media coverage of the sport and get new geocachers introduced to the game. Here is the article.

يوم حار

إنطلقنا في يوم حار من شهر يوليو بعد الظهر الى الدحول القريبة من طريق القصيم السريع حيث توقفنا أولا قرب دحل بالقرب من طريق صلبوخ القديم ولكن للأسف كان سلمنا قصيرا فلم نستطع أن ننزل بواسطته فغادرنا المكان على أمل العودة مرة أخرى .. ثم اتجهنا الى دحل ضيق المدخل لايبعد كثيرا عن الدحل الأول باتجاه الشرق منه و فوجئنا بوجود ثعبان داخل فوهته فتركناه وقضينا أمسيتنا في مدخل الوادي والذي خبأت كنزي في أحد تلاله الصخرية. دهشنا من فارق درجة الحرارة الكبير بين النهار والليل في ذاك المكان.

في الغد إتجهنا إلى الدحل القريب من الخاتلة ولم نحضر السلم هذه المرة لكنها كانت فرصة لإخفاء كنز بمدخل الدحل الذي اتخذه الحمام ملجأ له من حرارة الصحراء. أكملنا مسيرنا تجاه الحسي وقرى الصفرات والبير ثم قضينا ليلتنا في أحد الشعاب بوادي عبيثران بعد أن صادفنا أحد الرعاة. في الصباح تحركنا تجاه الرغبة مرورا بخشم الحصان ثم القصب التي إنعطفنا شمالا بعدها تجاه الداهنة، أحد الهجر القديمة، وقضينا القيلولة تحت بعض أشجار النخيل المهملة وأخفيت كنزا هناك . بعد العصرعدنا جنوبا وتوقفنا عند الصوح تحت جبال طويق لنشاهد بعض التشكيلات الغريبة للصخور وإخفاء كنز بها .. لم يكن الجو الحار يسمح لنا بإعداد غداء بالرغم من التجهيزات الكثيرة التي قام بإعدادها أبوطلال والتي جعلتنا نبدوا كالحجاج في سفرهم لكننا قررنا أخيرا أن نتوقف في شقراء لنأكل في بيتزا هت.

في طريق العودة توقفنا قبل المغرب في جبل الفهدة وسط النفود بين القصب وثرمداء لإعداد الشاي ثم قفلنا راجعين للرياض التي وصلناها بعد منتصف الليل

Sadous - Underground

I read about this dahl in Mekshat site .. cousin AbuTalal has mentioned it to me earlier so we decided to visit. It’s close to Edge of the World but can’t get to it from there so we had two routes to choose from, either from Huraymla or Sadous .. we chose the latter. It turned out to be a good choice.

I checked the route on google earth and I could see a dirt track that leaves Sadous and goes west all the way to the Dahl. We left Riyadh in the afternoon heat and upon arriving at Sadous we took the wrong turn that lead us north west to the dam. We came down south to look for the track that I saw on Google. Fortunately I had some points along the track jotted down so we connected with the first point and off we went. The road was smoother than I expected. It was about 20km from the village to the dahl.

The opening was just like I saw in the pictures on the northern side of the dahl. I grabbed my cache and took some spare batteries for our flashlights before entering. Cousin Hamad was already inside.
A short ladder resting on a pile of rocks was placed at the entrance which opens to a large chamber –more than 12 meters in diameter- where large piles of fallen rocks gather at one end. We walked around the boulders and found ourselves in front of a long tunnel with well defined semicircular section. The air was very humid and at this point we were sweating like a leaky faucet.

We continued our walk slowly but steadily into the tunnel. The floor was very soft and moist and at some places the soil was black. Other than for the bats, this was a friendly dahl. After 90m or so, we came to a stop at the end of the tunnel where the only way to continue was to go crawling. I spotted a hiding place before the end of the tunnel and stashed my cache there. I later realized that it might not have been the best place considering the soft floor and the possibility it could wash away with any flooding. We left just in time before sunset and made a stop on our way back to eat the watermelon that AbuTalal brought.