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The United Arab Emirates is a small country and without too much effort, you can take in most of the sights in a couple of days. Public holidays are plentiful, and as they are usually determined according to sightings of the moon, they are not always marked on calendars, so you may find yourself with a spare day and no plans. It’s a great time to hit the road…

The UAE is made up of seven emirates: Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras Al Khaimah, Sharjah and Umm Al Qaiwain, and you could make a round trip briefly passing through all of them in one day — at a push.

Abu Dhabi

Where is Abu Dhabi?

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Abu Dhabi is by far the largest emirate and apart from having Abu Dhabi, the capital city, it also has Al Ain; known as the "Oasis City". Situated in the agricultural centre of the emirates with large dairy and crop farms, it's about a two hour drive from Abu Dhabi, with quiet roads and huge sand dunes for scenery that change colour from a pale, creamy brown to a rich orange-red.

As you approach Al Ain, there is a black rocky hill to the one side that increasingly dominates the scenery the closer you get. This is Jebel Hafeet, the tallest mountain in the UAE which soars to about 4000ft at the top. It is a huge mound of craggy, black rock, jutting out of the earth. At the foot of the mountain there are mineral springs, around which families come to picnic over the weekends. With their cookers fired up to roast lamb kebabs, the mouthwatering smell of braaivleis wafts through the air.

Up on high
The road to the top of Jebel Hafeet is not for the faint-hearted, with twisting corners and plenty of view points. From up high the sand dunes look like calligraphy squiggles and the huge, wide road is just a thin stripe stretching off into the distance. At the top, the road comes to an end in a huge paved and fenced off area where you can park your car and walk around to take in the 360 degree view. The air is usually fresh and bracing, and with a cold wind cutting through your clothing it gives you a true feeling of being on top of the world.

The Abu Dhabi emirate is also home to Liwa, an area with some of the highest sand dunes in the Emirates. There are two routes to Liwa from Abu Dhabi; the direct route, or the scenic route via the oilfields. As we found out, you only find the route through the oilfields if you miss the turning for the direct route…

After miles, the flat plains of the oilfields eventually start rising and you see the beginnings of the real sand dunes. And, very quickly, the flat countryside is left behind and you are surrounded by towering dunes, looking like mountains that have melted in the sun, with their round curves and creamy ripples.

Apart from encountering some even more awe-inspiring dunes on the way back to Abud Dhabi, the monotonous scenery can be quite boring. Luckily, we came across some camels which were all duly photographed to relieve the boredom. A short way down the road we passed municipal workers who were planting and laying irrigation to the plants alongside the road, as nothing grows unless it has an irrigation pipe leading to it.

The greening of the desert may take some time though, as not much further on we passed some more camels that were eating the plants the workers had just planted…

Border country
The town of Fujariah lies along the coast of the Gulf of Oman and to get there, you go pass through the mountains (craggy black mounds of rock) that form most of the border between the UAE and Oman.

Fujariah is a rather flat town and has only one skyscraper. As with all coastal towns here, there is a 'Corniche Road', which is the road and walkway along the beach front. The sea is very different to Abu Dhabi — it is cooler and rougher with some waves and foam, while the beach sand is coarser and darker.

In our search for a hotel where we could stop for lunch — for some strange reason they have huge billboards up 20km out of the town, but once you are in the town, all signs disappear — we headed up the coast to an even smaller place call 'Kohr Fakkan', which is actually part of the Sharjah emirate. It’s a small town that straggles up the coast, overlooking stunning sea views and apparently offering some excellent dive sites.

More often than not, it’s not the towns and cities make the trip worthwhile, but rather the experience and the scenery. Seeing deep orange dunes quietly creeping up the black outcrops of rock and the hardy tufts of Karoo-like scrub peeping out of the sand. My other favourite road trip pastime is pulling over to watch camels resting in the scrub — the only problem is that they are really well camouflaged! Even when you looking for them, it's quite a surprise when a tree stands up and moves away!

Lost & found
Getting lost along the road is a fact of life, as going through one of the small towns you can easily take a wrong turn. There is so little change in the scenery and everything looks familiar. Landmarks are also few and far between; it's not like you can say, "there was a mosque on our left when we came in" because guaranteed, there is another mosque on the other side, and the other side, and the other side. All the shops have that wind ravaged look, and invariably sell bright pink inflatable balls or plastic buckets.

So, it isn't usually until we start saying things like "...look how those dunes have crept up the mountains... I can't believe we didn't notice..." and "ooohh, look...a camel! Lots of camels! We must have missed them..." that we realise that the new landscape is now very new. No panic. So long as you have fuel, AAA membership and a cellphone signal, you can just keep driving. You will eventually get onto the right road or land up at a border post. And after much eye-rubbing and yawning, we usually get home, tired and exhausted from our 600-odd km ‘drive’.