Desert driving

Currently driving is how most people experience the desert. When the cars get stuck, as they do from time to time, you will learn how to extract them by digging away the sand and laying sand plates – metal tracks you can drive over- to affect an escape. Lots of pushing is always required- the more that push the quicker you get back on your journey. There tracks you can drive over- to affect an escape. Lots of pushing is always required- the more that push the quicker you get back on your journey.There is no experience quite the
same as driving at speed over whale back dunes. The sand and
sky seem to merge and distance is distorted. The driver has to be careful not to go over the knife edge of a dune- and these can pop up any time. The ground is utterly smooth and all you hear is the swishing of sand under the tyres. It is as close to flying as you can get without leaving the ground.Ascending steep dunes seems to
go against what is possible- but with a big enough run-up any dune, if, of hard sand, can be conquered. Descending a slip face also looks
impossible at first. Though a face of loose sand is never more than 35 degrees or so it will look from the top like a 60 degree slope. The car will simply slide down the slope as long as it descends perpendicular and not at an angle- the movement is slow and rather pleasant.Cars go far and fast and for a trip to the Gilf Kebir you will have to go by car unless you fancy a month long camel journey. Cars do mess up the desert. This is not a problem in sand since the wind will wipe away any tracks. Drivers in the Great Sand Sea, the Siwan dune desperados and the raiders of the world’s longest
dune, Abu Moharik, are no threat to the desert. However, driving over pebbly desert leaves tracks that never go. I have found the tracks made by Laszlo Almasy’s Baby Ford expedition in 1930- seventy years on and still clear. Eventually one hopes that car drivers will stick to existing slops when they cross the vulnerable
parts of the desert and only fan out when they hit pure sand.