Daily vlogger and Full-time Hobo cyclist Hels on Wheels, recently shared the experience of her 276th day of cycling for 109km to Al Ruwais in Abu Dhabi.
While sharing her cycling experience on Facebook, She wrote:-
One of the fantastic things about camping at a servo is coffee and a cooked brekkie, which today was fresh warm paratha and egg curry.
Using the restaurant’s wifi, I delayed my departure, which may not have been very smart. Still, the road ahead seemed very unpopulated, except for Al Ruwais Industrial City.
In some positive visa news, I’ve heard from the very kind and helpful people at Saudi Tourism that, as a Brit, I may apply for a visa on arrival at the Saudi border! This is a very hopeful plan B if my misnamed visa in my Australian passport is rejected.
So with YouTube uploads and life admin is taken care of, there was nothing else to do but ride 100+ km. Again a light crosswind much of the day made the going easy. Petrol stations are frequent enough to fill my water bottles in the mild December weather, and the motorway is flat, smooth, with a wide shoulder.
At the turning for Al Ruwais, a sign noted industrial traffic only. It’s a curious place on the map; all roads and housing are numbered, not named, there’s a central mosque, a Starbucks and several supermarkets, but the layout gives the impression of a planned city such as Milton Keynes.
Furthermore, the approach road was fenced on both sides, not offering any obvious camp spot. I stuck to the motorway without wishing to find myself at another industrial dead end. The sun was close to setting, but a truck lay-by provided a big patch of sand to camp so long as I stayed away from all the tyre tracks.
3 Pakistani men who appeared to live there offered me their carpeted sleeping space, but unwilling to deprive them, I took myself off to the edge of the sandy lot. Here, through the electrical fence, I spied the distant industrial city’s shimmering lights and burning oil and gas chimneys.