Thought I'd do a Lawrence of Arabia recently and so went for an hour-long camel ride along the beach. It's a few years since I rode a camel, and the last time was only for about 10 minutes, but I must be a romantic at heart because I thought it'd be pretty cool padding along the surf, with the dunes on one side, the Southern Ocean on the other and a high, blue sky above. Ho hum.
Within 5 seconds of clambering into the saddle, I realised I'm not designed to sit on a camel - not without pain. Fortunately there weren't any troops to attack and so it didn't involve galloping, otherwise I'd probably be walking bow-legged to this day. All the same, despite the beautiful dunes, ocean and sky, it felt like a very long hour and I would've been glad to climb off the thing again if I'd had any feeling left in my legs. I have no idea how T.E.Lawrence & co. spent hour after hour in the saddle, so I take my hat off to him (or would if I was wearing one at this very moment).
Like T.E.Lawrence in this film clip, however, I too went without water for the whole trip... although I might have taken a few comforting slugs of whiskey if I'd thought to take a flask with me!
