So what are the exact plans for Berrylands Hotel and surrounding area?
As I might have mentioned already, the entire piece of land stretching from the site of Berrylands hotel in the north, down to the mysterious Centre for Human Research in the south
As I might have mentioned already, the entire piece of land stretching from the site of Berrylands hotel in the north, down to the mysterious Centre for Human Research in the south
has had its status changed from military land (and therefore off limits) to land available for development. As a result, and somewhat surprisingly to me at least, it’s all been bought by various development companies. (see map here:)
Now this doesn’t mean various companies have bought it in the vague hope of developing at some unspecified time in the future. As we understand it, these companies now have a year to begin construction on this land, or they lose the rights to do so at all. This is quite common in Egypt, and it means when things start to happen, they happen quickly.
So what are we going to see arrive in El Tur? We only have vague details, but it sounds as though there will be 2 or 3 hotels aside from the Berrylands Hotel (which you can see by the pictures on here is well on the way), restaurants, a shopping mall and a seafront promenade similar to that at Dahab. For anyone that’s been to Habibi beach this is all a bit hard to imagine, since it’s currently just a large expanse of scrubby desert!
I recently walked along this whole stretch of beach trying to imagine it as a bustling tourist centre, and to be honest I can see the appeal. Once cleaned up it’s a nice beach, the wind keeps you cool and there’s a coral reef running most of the length, which means the water inshore is very calm, even though there are large breaking waves 30-40 metres offshore.
From a windsurfing point of view, the only really sailable spot is Habibi itself. You ‘could’ sail where the reef is. Get it right and you might be able to hit the first wave with good speed and do a massive jump over the shallow part but you’d need a small fin a lot of luck to avoid impaling yourself on coral heads. Any takers?
From a tourist point of view there’s not much there, it’s just a beach. But add landscaped gardens, swimming pools, bars and everything else and it could be quite nice. It’s not that different to Dahab really, but you don’t have the diving. We’re still slightly dubious as to whether people will come in the numbers required to make it all work. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
The good news is that whatever work is undertaken here won’t adversely affect the wind. Since the wind blows cross on at Habibi and sideshore further round the coast there’s no danger of big wind shadows. We’re also quite comfortable that there won’t be a big issue of noise and nuisance when the building work going on. The area is quite large and well enough away from both the Moses Bay Hotel and sailing in Moses Bay, and from the new Berrylands Hotel and Habibi beach so that people staying at either site won’t be affected.
So how about Berrylands Hotel itself? You can see the building work is already well underway, what exactly is being built. Well take a look at this image taken from Google earth and allow me to talk you through it:
So what are we going to see arrive in El Tur? We only have vague details, but it sounds as though there will be 2 or 3 hotels aside from the Berrylands Hotel (which you can see by the pictures on here is well on the way), restaurants, a shopping mall and a seafront promenade similar to that at Dahab. For anyone that’s been to Habibi beach this is all a bit hard to imagine, since it’s currently just a large expanse of scrubby desert!
I recently walked along this whole stretch of beach trying to imagine it as a bustling tourist centre, and to be honest I can see the appeal. Once cleaned up it’s a nice beach, the wind keeps you cool and there’s a coral reef running most of the length, which means the water inshore is very calm, even though there are large breaking waves 30-40 metres offshore.
From a windsurfing point of view, the only really sailable spot is Habibi itself. You ‘could’ sail where the reef is. Get it right and you might be able to hit the first wave with good speed and do a massive jump over the shallow part but you’d need a small fin a lot of luck to avoid impaling yourself on coral heads. Any takers?
From a tourist point of view there’s not much there, it’s just a beach. But add landscaped gardens, swimming pools, bars and everything else and it could be quite nice. It’s not that different to Dahab really, but you don’t have the diving. We’re still slightly dubious as to whether people will come in the numbers required to make it all work. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
The good news is that whatever work is undertaken here won’t adversely affect the wind. Since the wind blows cross on at Habibi and sideshore further round the coast there’s no danger of big wind shadows. We’re also quite comfortable that there won’t be a big issue of noise and nuisance when the building work going on. The area is quite large and well enough away from both the Moses Bay Hotel and sailing in Moses Bay, and from the new Berrylands Hotel and Habibi beach so that people staying at either site won’t be affected.
So how about Berrylands Hotel itself? You can see the building work is already well underway, what exactly is being built. Well take a look at this image taken from Google earth and allow me to talk you through it:
Yellow Blocks – these are the twin lines of hotel rooms that you can see are already more or less built. Each will have a small balcony and there will be a small pool area between them, and landscaped gardens.
Purple Block – this is the reception and lobby of the Berrylands Hotel, and the photos below show the new foundations for this.
Green Blocks – these are new rooms scheduled to be built immediately after the main construction of the hotel is finished. These will add about 60 rooms to the hotel. There will be a very large pool area in the middle of these rooms.
Red pentagon – This is where we think the hotel dining room will end up. Hopefully it should have good views of the action. There will also be a beach bar opposite the Oceansource Habibi Centre.
Red rectangle – This is the location of the new Oceansource Habibi Centre. We’ve set it about 20 metres away from the edge of the water so there’s plenty of room on the beach. We’ll have a centre very similar to the current one at Moses Bay, wooden built with running water, electricity, wireless internet and all the latest toys! The beach bar will be right next door and the area will all be landscaped so you’re walking through beautiful gardens on your way to the centre. We’ll also have a wall just upwind, so you won’t get sandblasted on the beach, but obviously the wind on the water won’t be affected.
The limits of the Berrylands hotel are shown by the red perimeter line. Inside this all the land will be landscaped.
We can’t wait!
And talking about this, the date we have for completion of phase 1 of this project (that’s the yellow rooms, hotel lobby/reception, pool, beach bar, Oceansource Habibi Centre and hotel dining room) is end of November 2008. We’ll keep you informed!
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