In the UAE Defenders are crazy money and decent Discoverys (or is the plural DIscoveries?) are hard to find, so in the quest for a reliable 4×4 I’ve sourced a place in nearby Umm Al Qain where a guy has a stockpile of ex-military Series Land Rovers and I’m hoping I can find a halfway decent Series III 109 pickup. In the mean time I’ve got hold of a 2005 Ford Escape, which has a V6 and four wheel drive, but no low range or diff lock. It should at least get me out in the hills a bit until a Landy comes along.

As that’s going on I’m trying to get my head round this summer’s trips – across the northern USA from Washington DC to Portland, Oregon, and then down to San Francisco and over to Moab and Denver – and then through Europe to Albania via the Ukraine. In touch with various US Land Rover clubs about the former, hoping to say hello, and need to get my finger out about the latter.

Also doing the final edits on my piece for Overland Journal about the Kenya trip last summer, which is due out this autumn. So all good. Apart from the Hilton beach bar here in Fujairah charged me ten quid for a thimbleful of Glenmorangie last night and then asked me if I wanted Coke with it.