Sam Watson

Apologies – its been a busy couple of months. Having flown back to the UK I then got my head round various Defender conversions…. As a recap – my much-loved Defender 110 “Elsa” has just rolled over 400,000 miles, and I feel I owe her a rebuild. For years I’ve been toying with stretching her…

I’m about an hour or so away from some of the biggest dunes in the world, south of Dubai and Abu Dhabi. I’ve pretty much avoided them since I arrived however, with one or two exceptions, because I was spoiled by the deserts of Egypt – for me the open desert is a quiet place,…

So my rebuild and refit of various Land Rovers is moving along. Ben Stowe of Black Paw 4×4 in York is masterminding the whole thing with his usual expert and perfectionist eye. (www.blackpaw4x4.co.uk) The plan now regarding the Defenders I have in the UK is to have one as a potter about/daily drive/weekend camper on…

Lebanon is a country of surprises. I first visited four years ago, and was wowed by the people, the landscape and the diversity of the place. I loved it, and vowed to return as soon as I could. Life got in the way a bit, but I was able to zip back there last week…

Living in Middle Eastern countries is, for me, all about getting out into open spaces. Desert, for preference. In the Egyptian desert I had three or four favoured boltholes out in the Sahara that I used to go to most weekends, with names like Dew Camp, First Drop Camp and Three Rocks Camp. The view…

As a kid, like many of us, I often had my imagination fired by the Greek myths – in particular the adventures of Jason and his ship the Argo. One myth in particular stuck in my head – the tale of the Golden Fleece. Jason and his Argonauts sailed to Colchis, a land of dragons,…

I’d always heard wonderful things about Sri Lanka – since childhood. Tales of beautiful hill country wrapped in mists, long beaches overhung by palm trees, fantastic markets full of the scent of spices and unusual fruits – and it is all of these things, and more besides. I visited for a few weeks in August,…

Morocco is beautiful. It’s split between four distinct landscapes – the Mediterranean north – undulating growing land punctuated by crops of various types, ancient towns  and small farming villages, the mountainous centre – predominantly Berber rather than Arab with a sprawling mass of mountain ranges, the eastern coast – scattered with fortified Portuguese settlements, and…

One of the most humbling and memorable experiences of my life was in the summer of 2015 when I was last in Kenya. I was lucky enough to spend time with the Born Free Foundation, a charity that I’ve supported for a long time, and take part in their Lion Census in Meru National Park,…

Apologies, once again, for the lack of entries! Life and lack of connectivity gets in the way. As ever, its been busy here. A week in Cairo, catching up with old friends and visiting old haunts was refreshing and reviving. It’s just over two years since I moved from Egypt to the UAE but I…

Spring can be a wet time in the UAE, with March being statistically the wettest month here in Fujairah. The country has a varied geography with some remarkably pretty and majestic landscapes. I was prepared for the open deserts but not for the rugged mountains which ring the Emirate where I live, and it’s those…

Apologies for the absence (again). Its been a busy few weeks and often without decent Internet, or time. After the Oman trip I was caught up in the helter skelter of Christmas and the flight home to the UK. Time, on arrival, to get Tusker, my Discovery 2, though the UK’s annual MoT roadworthiness test,…

I am developing quite a soft spot for Oman. It’s hugely varied in terms of landscape, climate and culture, and it’s easy to access if you have a decent 4×4. Having recently sorted Bumblebee to the extent that all the ropey bits of her maintained structure (for example UJs, bearings, hoses) have been replaced with…

Apologies for the long gap. Life gets in the way sometimes! It’s been a busy couple of months (sorry!) since my last entry. Having spent a while fettling Bumblebee the Camel v8 Discovery, and undoing various bodges perpetrated on her by previous owners, she is now reaching a stage where I am starting to trust…

Things potter along here in Fujairah. It’s Islamic New Year this weekend and I was wondering about hopping over to Cairo to catch up with that part of my life – it still feels like a second home. May do. Undecided yet. Car jobs have included ordering a set of UJs and wheelbearings for the…

So this weekend a friend came over from Dubai, Alan Sheach, in his Discovery 3, and the two of us set out for an explore. Alan’s from Fife in Scotland, and intends to drive home to the UK in the next year or so, but is undecided whether to take his 88″ Series III, Disco…

The time has come to think about a refit for Elsa, my 1991 Defender 110. She is nigh on 400,000 reliable miles old, many of which have been solo in the Sahara, and she has been a real trooper since I bought her 17 years ago. However her bulkhead and chassis needed patching for her…

For a couple of years I’ve been intrigued by the US-designed Rotopax plastic fuel cells that can be stored on vertical or horizontal surfaces in a vehicle or on a quad or bike. They are quite small (1, 2 or 4 US gallon) and very pricey but their design is innovative and lends itself to…

Gosh. Many apologies for silence til now! Two months without a post….. fairly hectic. So initially after flying home to the UK I drove to Albania. Like you do. When I left Cairo eighteen months ago a friend, Darrell, was also leaving and kindly shipped some of my household bits and bobs to his new…

A friend, David Clinton Marcus, is selling his left-hand-drive 1998 Defender Tdi CSW. He’s just completed a journey from Kazakhstan to South Africa in this Landy. However he’s now in Jamaica where a Land Rover is rather wasted so the old beast is sadly up for sale. Fully kitted for her next trip and with…

“It is a curious fact, and one to which no-one knows quite how much importance to attach, that something like 85 percent of all known worlds in the Galaxy, be they primitive or highly advanced, have invented a drink called jynnan tonyx, or gee-N’N-T’N-ix, or jinond-o-nicks, or any one of a thousand variations on this…