Ships of the desert

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Krug Expedition, who built my cabin, arranged recently for photographer Harald Steiner from Austria, who was working in the UAE on an assignment, to spend some time with TTT so we could capture some images in the desert and at Al Qudra lakes to the south of Dubai.

TTT in the desert Al Qudra
TTT in the desert at Al Qudra

One of the things they specifically wanted was ‘some shots of TTT on a dune with some camels’ !! I explained that whilst I don’t actually have a herd of performing tame camels available for photo shoots, I did know of a place where I’d seen a large herd several times before and where I thought we MIGHT have a chance of seeing some during a couple of hours photo shoot.

TTT and friends, Al Qudra
TTT and friends

And as luck would have it, we’d barely arrived at the location when what do you know, the camels turned up, as if on cue, so I drove quickly up into the dunes and Harald was able to capture some great shots. Shortly after that though, because I’d rushed into the sand without fully deflating my tyres, to grab the camel photo opportunity, I manged to get TTT ‘beached’ on the crest of a small dune, and despite the best efforts of our friend Martin Thurnn from TI Systems in his VW Touareg, we were unable to tow TTT from the crest.

TTT with a camel
Handsome looking thing. And a camel

Not stuck, merely delayed…

Thankfully my colleague Rick Carless has a Ford F150 well equipped for the desert and after his boss (that’s me) gave him permission to leave work, he came out to assist me and with one very brief pull on the Marlow kinetic energy recovery rope I bought for precisely these circumstances, TTT was free.

TTT on a crest, Al Qudra
Not stuck on this one. That was later

After re-inflating my tyres using my TI Systems equipment, next stop was the Al Qudra lakes, where we discovered that, due to the recent addition of wooden railings around almost every stretch of water, there were very few locations where we could shoot TTT without those railings spoiling every picture. Fortunately though we did manage to find a few, and having captured those images, headed back to Dubai.

Lakes at Al Qudra, TTT
Dubai isn’t all sand you know

Thanks to Harald I now have these great photos of TTT, which I hope Krug might use in their PR and marketing materials in future.

TTT at Al Qudra lakes
The lakes at Al Qudra – man made to attract migrating birds