Drag Your Loved One To Morocco

[Garry H]

The next 50 or so miles from Bousmou to Ait Hani turned out to be a proper adventure and a real test..
It involved some of the most extreme/silly offroading i have ever done on a big bike

I was not sure what the road would be like from Bousmou to Ait Hani....But knew it was tarmac from Ait Hani to Tinerhir.... So off we set
Within no time it turned from this

To this

Not too bad at first

Kay checking out the bike and remind me that we are not in Wales with the AA on hand

There were some fair old puddles on the track and as with all water you can't see whats underneath or how deep it is

You can't go round it so fingers crossed we rode through

We rode through quite a lot of water

Until we started to climb

No more water just the damage it had caused

Lots of loose shale and a right ba$tard to ride in
There's no pics of the worst bits because i was more interested in staying upright

We keept on going until we reached the top of the pass...
To my surprise it was over 8500 feet

What a stunning view

Now i had to make a choice
Turn round and ride back through all that loose gravel
Or carry on down the other side into the unknown

Trouble was we only had about 2 hours of daylight left and Ait Hani was a lot closer than Bousmou so i opted to carry on
The track was not too bad at first

But i could see it was going to get steep and hoped it would be rideable

The next 2 miles took me over 1 hour and 1/2 to ride
It was a very badly washed out wadi that was strewn with big rocks and looked like it had one or two 4X4's down it..
I tried to follow there tracks through the boulder field as best i could....
Thinking to myself I SHOULD HAVE TURNED BACK
Kay said " stop i will get off and walk " as she hung on with me stood on the pegs trying to pick the best line..
I said " you can't walk it will take you ages to walk down this just HANG ON "
Turning round at this point was not a option we didn't have enough time plus i was struggling enough going down hill..
Getting back to tarmac or even a decent dirt track was my main concern so there are no pics
Apart from this one where the track started again and i breathed a sigh of relief that we had made it

I had just ridden 1 1/2 miles like this

The tarmac started a couple of miles further on so we were well on our way to Tinerhir for some fuel and a supplies.....
Or so i thought

 

[Big Nick]

Great report, keep it coming....

 

[Gaz]

Drama queen

 

[tinatrim]

This is definately a real adventure........keep it coming Garry

 

[overlander]

Fantastic report and great pictures but i have a question.Why do you have 2 GPS's they are both Garmin so must have the same base map?

 

[Tricky]

Camera is a Nikon D80 with a 18-200 vr lense

Great RR thanks for sharing.

How do you rate the 18-200 VR lens Garry? Its alot more expensive than a similar non Nikon 18-200.

 

[Tim Cullis]

Great trip report, thanks for posting. And well done for not telling the wife in advance that you were going offroad.

Tim

 

[Guriek-GSA]

Great report and fabulous adventure

 

[Pumpy]

Or so i thought...

C'mon, Garry, what's taking you so long - we're all on the edge of our seats.

Great write-up and fantastic pictures!

Looking forward to the next instalment...

 

[Garry H]

Great RR thanks for sharing.

How do you rate the 18-200 VR lens Garry? Its alot more expensive than a similar non Nikon 18-200.

For it's size...It's not much bigger than the standard lense
I recon the 18-200 is a cracking lense
I used to take a couple of lenses away with me..But now i only take the 18-200...
There not cheap but worth the money in my opinion

 

[Garry H]

Fantastic report and great pictures but i have a question.Why do you have 2 GPS's they are both Garmin so must have the same base map?

The reason for 2 gps's is.....
I got the 60csx just before i went to Morocco last year and wanted to try it out....
I use the 276c mainly and was comparing the 60's routing ( because the damm thing recalculates the route when you activate it ) The 276c does not do this so what you transfer from mapsource is exactly what you get...
Then i found that it was better with the 2 units...
I had the 276 zoomed out to get the big picture
and the 60 zoomed in for resolution...Saves keep zooming in and out

You could also run 2 different base maps
like Moroc topo on the one and world map on the other

 

[muppix]

I used to take a couple of lenses away with me..But now i only take the 18-200... There not cheap but worth the money in my opinion

Seconded - really good bit of kit with minimal distortion throughout the range and the generation 2 VR is also very good. I do miss my Tamron 10-24 now and then when travelling with the 18-200 alone, but just tell myself I'd only end up getting loads of crap in the camera when changing all the time. The Nikon lens is substantially better built than the Sigma equivalent, with far better dust and water resilience. I don't think the Tamron and Sigmas have even got a rubber skirt around the base.

Costs more, but you get what you pay for in this case.

Mup.

 

[Garry H]

We finaly made it to tarmac
And carried on towards Tinerhir just as it was getting dark
We rode about 10 miles and i was looking forward to getting to a nice hotel i have stayed in before just outside Tinerhir...
When people started shouting at us
I pulled up to see what was going on...
Several men came up to us and the one said
" the road ahead is no more "
He then informed me i could stay the night at his hotel...
I took one look at it and thought only if i am desperate

We then carried on to try and find somewhere decent to stay...
10 mins later result
We found what turned out to be a cracking hotel and we were the only ones staying there
We unpacked went to the room and 10 mins later there was a knock on the door
Without us asking for anything there was the owner with a table and food for us
He brought the table into the room and we tucked in

We went down and spent a few hours with the guy after eating and he gave us some local info on the floods
I got my map out so he could show me some more detail...
He took it under the light and started squinting at it...
Moving the map around and trying to focus...
I went back to the room got my reading glasses and gave them to him to try....He put them on and could see
He then showed us what was what and gave the glasses back to me....I handed them back to him and told him he could keep them...
He was over the moon with them and could not believe i had given them to him...
He then keept us up half the night showing us all around the hotel, feeding us, and making us cups of tea

In the morning i went to check the bike over..a bit dirty but ok

We said goodbye to our host and set off to see the flood damage

So if you are around Tamtattouchte and want a good hotel try this one

We rode down to see what the road looked like towards Tinerhir but did not get very far

I rode over a few landslides on the road but it was soon apparent we were not going to get far...I set off on foot to check it out

The end of the road for us

So we turn round to try to find another way out of the valley

 

[Garry H]

There was 4 choices out of there
1 the road to Tinerhir...Gone
2 the wadi i hade come down the nigh before...Last resort
3 piste to Msemrir...From waht the guy said at the hotel probably impassable
4 the road to Amellago...Thats the one

So off we set for Amellago...Fingers crossed this road would be intact..

Take it steady on the bends

And the straights

We came across what looked at first like a muddy end to the road

Then a local came running over and showed us the way round

The next crisis was fuel...The light had been on for 70 miles
and the only place i knew thre was fuel for sure was Rich..
That was at least another 60 miles and there was no way i was going to make that

We came into a small village

I stopped at a small shop to get some water...
A group gathered round the bike and i asked a man where the nearest petrol was....
He said " 10 or 15 "....I said " 10 kilometes " he shook his head...
I said to kay i think he is saying there is fuel in 10 kilometers..But god knows what direction....There was a crossroads ahead just to make matters worse
So i went into the shop to get some water and have a think about what to do next

When i came out the man had returned with a can with 10 litres of fuel and a big funnel ....
I smelt it checked it for dirt and it looked good
Cost me a 200% pump price but the bike ran fine on it and at that moment in time i would have payed 500%

The smiles says it all ..Mine because i didn't want to walk...and the salesman for a healthy profit

So gassed up we set off to see what lay ahead

 

[Aidan1150]

A bloody good read this Garry and an adventure no doubt. Thanks for posting.

 

[Guriek-GSA]

Loving it!

more more more

 

[Deleted account W]

Thanks for taking the time to write your trip up and share with us Garry, it's a classic

 

[Timolgra]

This is one of the great Moroccan ride reports mate

 

[Gaz]

And well done for not telling the wife in advance that you were going offroad.

She doesn't even know she's his wife


Great report though G
Even though I've heard it on the phone the pics bring it to life brilliantly and I can see now why it was quite dicey in parts.

 

[Readz]

Thanks for this great report, I have been having a similar conversation with the other half around heading to Morocco. She is the same seems to be edging toward Portugal and enjoying the place with work commitments we are limited to travelling in July so I have tended to agree with her and looks like were sticking to Spain / Portugal this trip, having said that there could be some changes when I show her your pictures.

Thanks a lot