Just a couple hundred miles from Rub’ al-Khali, the largest sand desert on Earth, one of the world’s longest and most unusual manmade rivers flows under the scorching desert sun.
The Wadi Adventure whitewater park was conceived as part of a tourism vision for Al Ain, the fourth largest city in the United Arab Emirates, just 90 miles from the glitzy metropolis of Dubai on the Persian Gulf coast. In 2012, when Wadi opened its doors to the public, 50,000 visitors enjoyed the plush white pillows and shaded lounge chairs of the VIP zone next to the artificial rivers. But mixed in with the tourists was a core group of canoeists and kayakers with a mind to train in the off-season while avoiding an expensive flight to Australia, the usual winter training ground for European paddlers. Welcoming the international crowd
of slalom athletes is Fergus Coffey, the whitewater manager at Wadi Adventure. A lifelong paddler, Coffey guided rivers in North and South America and ran the kayak program at the U.S. National Whitewater Center (USNWC) in Charlotte, North Carolina, before getting offered the gig at Wadi. “I had the opportunity to
come to the UAE and set up a completely new facility,” he says. “It was too odd to pass up.” Inspired in part by the USNWC,
Wadi was originally built as a slalom site, but given the UAE’s tourist traffic, a surf pool was added to increase wider demographic appeal. Now, as word in the paddling
community spreads, Wadi Adventure is becoming a winter wonderland for whitewater paddlers from all over the world, each with a different take on its unlikely desert waterways.
34 | RAPID
The UNEXPECTED OASIS
It was 6 a.m. on January 25 when French paddler Nouria Newman and her Caimen Storm kayak arrived at Dubai’s international airport. Along with her coach and four teammates she had driven to the airport in Lyon, France, and taken a six-and-a-half hour flight that landed her in a different world. The Fédération Française de Canoë-
Kayak had coaxed her into signing onto a two-week training intensive in the middle of the desert at Wadi Adventure, Al Ain’s newest city planning success and the Middle East’s first whitewater facility. It was much warmer than the zero degree winter training conditions in Toulouse and cheaper than flying to Australia. Last year she had managed to talk her
way out of the training venture but this year she didn’t get off the hook so easily. Exhausted from the flight, she nodded off as they drove the E66 towards Al Ain, a route cutting straight south through an otherwise blank desert landscape. When she awoke it was still dark but perfectly spaced streetlamps lit the way, and in the distance the rising sun started to shine on Jebel Hafeet, one of the UAE’s highest mountain peaks. “When you actually enter the place it feels like Disneyland,”
says Newman, recalling her first impression of Wadi Adventure as the drive from Dubai finally ended. Paddlers from Italy, Germany, Russia, England, America, Switzerland, Slovenia, Japan, Slovakia and Czech Republic joined Newman and her team. From June to September, Newman’s used to seeing competitors at races around the world, but to be all in one place during the off-season was something new. “It’s like a summer camp,
coming here,” she says. “We have barbecues and hang out and turn into slalom geeks for two weeks.” Paddlers all stay in fully furnished
chalets just off site and share meals when they can. They go on day trips to Abu Dhabi. They take camel rides. On off days, some paddlers visit the massive indoor theme park of Ferrari World or the indoor ski slopes in Dubai. Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Maseratis with tinted windows roll past the park. “Even a Russian oligarch
will be able to find something expensive here,” says Coffey. But at the park itself, cell phones
turn off and crystal clear waves flowing from a mysterious water source become Newman’s primary fixation.
“It’s like a summer camp, coming here. We have barbecues and hang out and turn
into slalom geeks for two weeks.” — Nouria Newman
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