Given this is supposed to be a Sporting Odyssey and there hasn’t yet been any sport, Mamfa took off for a run at 6am to beat the heat and saw the first wildlife in Dubai at the Ras Al Khor Wildlife Sanctuary where there were surprisingly dozens of flamingoes.

After seeing the pristine new buildings, landscaping and pavements around Burj Khalifa yesterday (not even scrap of rubbish or pigeon crap anywhere), this morning we went in search of the old Dubai. First stopping off to see waterfall inside the Dubai Mall and the crazy Museum of the Future building.

The old town of Dubai still looks fairly new with recent renovations. After a short ferry ride across the river (good to feel the wind in my scales), we checked out the various souks (selling everything from gold, spices, mattresses, herbs etc). In the window of one shop was the world’s heaviest gold ring weighing in at 64kg! I studiously avoided eye contact while Mamfa got sucked in to many demonstrations and sales pitches for spices, headdresses, t-shirts, trinkets and “genuine” Rolex watches for very good price – just for him.

The afternoon and evening was back to my natural habitat out in the sand dunes of Sharjah doing some 4WD dune bashing, Mamfa doing sandboarding backwards (because someone said it would be a good idea), camel ride (not sure the camel liked me sitting on his head though) and having a feast and show at a Bedouin camp (complete with traditional Bedouin wi-fi – 1G only).

On this day in history (29 May)

2022 Jai Hindley becomes only the second Australian cyclist to win a Grand Tour with a 1′ 18″ victory over 2019 champion Richard Carapaz in the Giro d’Italia