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Last weekend brought a welcome break out of Dubai. On Thursday I made the necessary but tiring business day trip to Doha – I raced home grabbed my weekend bag and headed out to Fujairah, which was a great opportunity to let the Audi really stretch its legs.

This time a group of us rented a comfortable 3/4 Bedroom Villa at the Royal Beach Resort which worked out as a very economical way to spend the weekend in a nice resort on the coast.

We did the usual things – hanging out in the pool, BBQ’ing on the patio as well as endless games of Whist and Rummy, it was really relaxing. On the Friday we went on a little group outing to the UAE’s only natural waterfall at a place called Wadi Wurrayah. The drive is about 30 minutes from where the main hotel areas are. The last five kilometers of the trip are along a rock strewn river bed and a 4×4 vehicle is highly recommended and not for the first time I wished I had brought the Hummer along for this trip. The ride was rather bone jarring – but the end result was worth it. We were greeted by a natural rock pool with the promising rushing sounds of a waterfall.

We were soon all in the water swimming around and enjoying the cool water making a pleasant escape from the arid desert sun. Here are the lads enjoying the refreshing waterfall (shame about the graffiti):

With care, it is possible to scramble up some rocks and for the daring you can leap into the water. In parts the rock pool is more than 4 meters deep – however I was too scared to jump. Below you can see Duncan doing his bit and escorting two of the girls over the edge!

Rupert’s marvellous underwater casing for his camera allowed us to get a couple of memorable photos. Here we are in the crystal clear rock pool:

And later on just off the shore from the Royal Beach there were plenty of sea turtles enjoying themselves:

It was another excellent weekend in the UAE and now with the weather cooling down and Ramadan over I am sure this will mark the start of the outdoor activities after a long hot summer.