Middle East's best-kept driving secret
Jebel Jais [ Ras Al Khaimah ] – the UAE’s latest and greatest driving road
Make a list of the world’s greatest driving roads and you might nominate epic routes such as the Stelvio Pass or our own great Ocean Road, but also worthy of a place in any top-10 countdown are a couple of sinuous mountain roads in the United Arab Emirates. Many readers will already be familiar with Jebel Hafeet as there’s been plenty of hype about it, but there’s another snaking ascent carved through a rocky mountain face in the UAE that matches it for visual drama and adrenaline potential. Although only recently opened, the Jebel Jais Mountain Road has already become a magnet for enthusiastic drivers, sightseers and extreme athletes (such as longboarders and triathletes). A bit of background about Jebel Jais: It’s the highest peak in the UAE and forms part of the Hajar Mountains that begin in the Musandam Peninsula and stretch to Sur in Oman. Still a work in progress, the road leading to the summit is costing the emirate of Ras Al Khaimah (located in the northern tip of the UAE) around $100 million, but it’s an investment that could eventually pay off as there are plans to build a hotel, cable car, paragliding launch ramp, golf course and even a ski slope at the summit (yes, it does get hot around here, but this is the UAE, where impossible is nothing). You can’t quite get to the 1,934-metre summit of Jebel Jais by road just yet, as the last 4.8km to the top is still rubble, but there’s more than 20km of smooth, winding blacktop from the base to the end of the road. Should you happen to find yourself in Dubai for a couple of days and fancy a fang up and down Jebel Jais, the first thing you’ll need is to nab a car with a decent dollop of power and grip. The last time I carved up Jebel Jais, I was piloting a 206kW all-wheel-drive Audi S3, which proved reasonably well suited to the task. You’ll wear an even wider grin in a Lamborghini Aventador or McLaren 650S Spider, but there’s fun to be had in (or on) almost anything with wheels thanks to an assortment of corners ranging from tight hairpins to fast sweepers. The easiest way to get there from Dubai is to take Emirates Road (E611) to Ras Al Khaimah, then ask the locals for directions, because there are no signposts to the mountain. There are two lanes up and one coming down, the road surface is excellent and there are good sight lines, so the ascent is an absolute hoot. Be aware, though, that there’s a horde of shutterbugs, picnickers and dawdling drivers scattered all over the mountain on weekends, and they tend to park their cars willy-nilly and wander across the road randomly. There are a handful of viewing points along the way, and it’s worth pausing at these, because the vistas are breathtaking. In case you want to make a proper excursion of it, there’s plenty else to do in and around the area, and among these is the Ras Al Khaimah National Museum, which is packed with exhibits that showcase RAK’s cultural heritage and archaeological heritage. There’s also the Khatt Springs, which provide you with the opportunity to immerse yourself in hot mineral water with a high sulphur content, which is said to have healing qualities. Other attractions include the Tower Links Golf Course, with a floodlit driving range and putting green, and there’s also Al Hamra Golf Club, but you’d better take plenty of balls because the course snakes around four interconnected open water lagoons that are connected to the Arabian Gulf.[ Source motoring-com.au ]
