happy pilgrim
Registered user
Well, after months of planning we are at last ready for the off.
When I actually say months of planning, what I really mean is coffee twice at Andy's (devon) house. As nice as it was, little planning ever got done.
To quote Barry G. "its not a holiday its an adventure"
Many a true word spoken in jest comes to mind.
Below is a picture of Andy's pristine 1200gs. After this trip, I fancy it will require a few hours of work!!
We set off with some degree of trepidation from Plymouth as the wind was blowing like fcuk and the forecast for the crossing was none to good. We were right to be concerned as the crossing was pretty rough, to the point where one of our party couldn't even finish their one and only pint of lager or a glass of red with the meal. "devon" knows what would have happened if we had been on the Bilbao crossing for two days
We had planned to meet Tim at Someseira on the way down through Spain as he had crossed via the Bilbao route(fool)
On the way down we saw these feeding at a nature reserve.
We stopped the night just off the motorway ready for an early start. This failed as when we got up early to leave the hotel doors were locked!! But all was well as we heard a snoring sound from the little office. As soon as we dragged his lazy sorry ass out of bed we were off!
Algiceras here we come.
The normal faffing around various ticket sellers trying to strike a bargain. Nice in 30 dgerees wearing my twat suit!!
Eventually we set off on the one hour late leaving ferry to Tanger
We were pretty quickly through Tanger, courtesy of Tim's knowledge and we sorted our green cards and headed off to local supermarket. Andy bought a kettle. ffs Brits on tour
. I bought a can of Red Bull 
From here we set off for our first night iin Morocco and headed for Asilah.
Stopped in quite a nice hotel and strolled down into the town for dinner.
Pile of shite. Known as a Tajine. Basically seemed like a bad piece of chicken with some veg and chips. It can only get better.
Anyway after a reasonably early start(for me) we are off again heading for Midelt via Meknes and Azrou. (Tim will be along later to correct me)
At this point we stupidly decided to go and look for the "stairway to heaven ", but turned into three hours of highway to hell mainly because we met a local who knew the way across the river crossing, so he showed us the way. Did he know the way? Did he fcuk as the pictures below of me prove.
Later on in the afternoon we also had the guide and another local fighting mid-river over as who could sell us the most useless tat, known to man. The fight ended with the younger guy holding the older guy by the throat. This pretty much subdued the older chap
finally to cap the day Nina's bike would not start so we had to tow her out of the river and with Barry on the bike we managed to bump start the bloody thing down the gravel piste.
I had also learnt at this point to eat as many of these as is humanly possible, as its the only thing that doesn't give you the shits.
We stayed in various hotels en route. This was one of the better ones
We then set off to head down into the desert. Words ringing in my ears from previous meetings at Andys. Be careful of heat stroke. Heat stroke my ass. We pulled off the road into a cafe for a break, and had to move to a table under shelter. Not so much to get away from the sun, but the hail stones hurt. That's right, you did read it correctly... HAIL STONES. At this point I made a mental note to myself, ignore all advice from Andy
We were taken to an quite new hotel by Tim for the night. I was not at all happy with his choice and made my feelings known.
Apparently this hotel had been built about ten years ago against local advice of flooding dangers. As you can see it is fcuked. So much so it only got a two star rating from the local Maroc hotel inspector. We only stayed one night
From here we headed off across the desert and saw some of these
I think they are used for transport mainly, and a few of the Tajines I ate.
At this point in the holiday we all agreed that we needed to do some real piste riding. A nice long day in the saddle was what we required. Again be careful of what you wish for! So with this in mind we planned to do the Todra gorge and the Dades.
We set off at 9.30am and returned peacefully to our beds and 2.45am. Yes, that's right 17 hours off road in conditions that can only be described as challenging.
There is a list of broken parts in the for sale and wanted section for those interested. Mirrors, sump guards, cylinder head guards, batteries, dainese jacket, you name it, we bent it,broke it, scratched it.
Here is the start of the Todra
Testing for depth with a two foot length of steel bar. Fingers in the water and still not touching.
All through safely although Tim did decide to take the challenging right hand route up to his knees in water. We all would have helped had it not been for laughter and the need to keep filming.
We then set off up over the pass and joined the connecting piste between the two gorges took a while as we had to fight our way through kids trying to stop us who said the road had been washed away. Kids of today, who do they think they are .... telling fully fledged adventurers that they should not continue? So we set off at pace up the piste.
We later found out that the little ones should not be ignored.
After hours in the river bed we found a section of piste beside the road and decided to head back. We then had another mothers meeting and decided that if the road was this good we should continue for 10 minutes and see how it goes. Tim was right we should have gone back, I will shoulder full responsibilty at this point for wanting to continue
You know you all enjoyed really!
We then had a discussion mid river, when Tim suggested it was OK for novices.
Tim changed his mind soon after
It got progressively worse as the day continued.
Andy stopping for regular breaks and checking the bottom of his bike.
All in all I guess we would all agree that it was the toughest days riding any of us have ever done or would like to do.
The day just got harder and harder and we soon realised that there would be no way of getting out in daylight, so we just continued and did the best we could. All was going OK until after one of our many rest stops, Andy's bike had a flat battery (must have been due to be upside downso often. acid all gone) so we ended up stripping off things that could be nicked and parked it up for the night.
Amusingly in hindsight andy debated whether to put a lock on it. We decided for him
we then continued down through the river bed with Andy walking ahead to find a route and also assisting those who were "resting their bikes".
We eventually got out after another seven hours.
We rode back to the hotel. SHATTERED!!!!!
The next day Barry amazingly got up early and dragged andy out of bed to walk the six miles back up the river bed carrying Nina's battery to get Andys bike. As it was quite a nice hot day they carried spare water/tools/food and the battery. So off they set with Barry wearing his new hiking shoes.
ffs. What did he look like? Stretched kevlar jeans/body armour and fcuking pimps pumps! Should have been arrested. They must have looked like a
couple going for a picnic, walking up the pass.
En route as it was so hot Andy decided to take his jacket off and hide it under some stones to collect on way back with his bike. Unbelievably someone saw him and now there is a Berber kid riding up and down the pass on his donkey wearing a Dainese armoured jacket. Got to be worth seeing.
And if anyone is brave enough to try the pass, could you please have a look for Barrys tax disk as it fell off.
Worth the effort collecting the bike by day as they got to ride here.
Eventually we left the hotel after a couple of days R & R and set off again and saw this from the Gladiator set.
A few extras left behind after filming.
We then set off for the real touristy bit and headed for Marrakech and then onto Fez. We stopped at a local cafe/butchers en route
There are many other places we stopped at and the story is almost endless as we saw and did so many things, Andy buying his Fez hat in Fez, Barry buying his extra long leather belt, Nina buying her silk scarves in Fez, me, riding off with my disc lock on was also quite memorable
The trip has proved incredibly memorable for a number of reasons, great thanks must go to Tim for being our un-official guide and without his help and knowledge we would not have been to or seen half of what we did. Star rider of the trip goes to Nina for the Todra pass, must improved off road goes to Andy, to Barry for his unstinting efforts to get us out of the river bed at night when we were all dead on our feet and to Morocco as a whole.
I am not sure that I would rush back as its a sodding long way down through Spain. But for sure I will head down that way again.
Brett. Happy Pilgrim (aka. scarface)
When I actually say months of planning, what I really mean is coffee twice at Andy's (devon) house. As nice as it was, little planning ever got done.
To quote Barry G. "its not a holiday its an adventure"
Many a true word spoken in jest comes to mind.
Below is a picture of Andy's pristine 1200gs. After this trip, I fancy it will require a few hours of work!!
We set off with some degree of trepidation from Plymouth as the wind was blowing like fcuk and the forecast for the crossing was none to good. We were right to be concerned as the crossing was pretty rough, to the point where one of our party couldn't even finish their one and only pint of lager or a glass of red with the meal. "devon" knows what would have happened if we had been on the Bilbao crossing for two days
We had planned to meet Tim at Someseira on the way down through Spain as he had crossed via the Bilbao route(fool)
On the way down we saw these feeding at a nature reserve.
We stopped the night just off the motorway ready for an early start. This failed as when we got up early to leave the hotel doors were locked!! But all was well as we heard a snoring sound from the little office. As soon as we dragged his lazy sorry ass out of bed we were off!
Algiceras here we come.
The normal faffing around various ticket sellers trying to strike a bargain. Nice in 30 dgerees wearing my twat suit!!
Eventually we set off on the one hour late leaving ferry to Tanger
We were pretty quickly through Tanger, courtesy of Tim's knowledge and we sorted our green cards and headed off to local supermarket. Andy bought a kettle. ffs Brits on tour
. I bought a can of Red Bull From here we set off for our first night iin Morocco and headed for Asilah.
Stopped in quite a nice hotel and strolled down into the town for dinner.
Pile of shite. Known as a Tajine. Basically seemed like a bad piece of chicken with some veg and chips. It can only get better.
Anyway after a reasonably early start(for me) we are off again heading for Midelt via Meknes and Azrou. (Tim will be along later to correct me
)At this point we stupidly decided to go and look for the "stairway to heaven ", but turned into three hours of highway to hell mainly because we met a local who knew the way across the river crossing, so he showed us the way. Did he know the way? Did he fcuk as the pictures below of me prove.
Later on in the afternoon we also had the guide and another local fighting mid-river over as who could sell us the most useless tat, known to man. The fight ended with the younger guy holding the older guy by the throat. This pretty much subdued the older chap
finally to cap the day Nina's bike would not start so we had to tow her out of the river and with Barry on the bike we managed to bump start the bloody thing down the gravel piste.
I had also learnt at this point to eat as many of these as is humanly possible, as its the only thing that doesn't give you the shits.
We stayed in various hotels en route. This was one of the better ones
We then set off to head down into the desert. Words ringing in my ears from previous meetings at Andys. Be careful of heat stroke. Heat stroke my ass. We pulled off the road into a cafe for a break, and had to move to a table under shelter. Not so much to get away from the sun, but the hail stones hurt. That's right, you did read it correctly... HAIL STONES. At this point I made a mental note to myself, ignore all advice from Andy
We were taken to an quite new hotel by Tim for the night. I was not at all happy with his choice and made my feelings known.
Apparently this hotel had been built about ten years ago against local advice of flooding dangers. As you can see it is fcuked. So much so it only got a two star rating from the local Maroc hotel inspector. We only stayed one night
From here we headed off across the desert and saw some of these
I think they are used for transport mainly, and a few of the Tajines I ate.
At this point in the holiday we all agreed that we needed to do some real piste riding. A nice long day in the saddle was what we required. Again be careful of what you wish for! So with this in mind we planned to do the Todra gorge and the Dades.
We set off at 9.30am and returned peacefully to our beds and 2.45am. Yes, that's right 17 hours off road in conditions that can only be described as challenging.
There is a list of broken parts in the for sale and wanted section for those interested. Mirrors, sump guards, cylinder head guards, batteries, dainese jacket, you name it, we bent it,broke it, scratched it.
Here is the start of the Todra
Testing for depth with a two foot length of steel bar. Fingers in the water and still not touching.
All through safely although Tim did decide to take the challenging right hand route
up to his knees in water. We all would have helped had it not been for laughter and the need to keep filming.We then set off up over the pass and joined the connecting piste between the two gorges took a while as we had to fight our way through kids trying to stop us who said the road had been washed away. Kids of today, who do they think they are .... telling fully fledged adventurers that they should not continue? So we set off at pace up the piste.
We later found out that the little ones should not be ignored.
After hours in the river bed we found a section of piste beside the road and decided to head back. We then had another mothers meeting and decided that if the road was this good we should continue for 10 minutes and see how it goes. Tim was right we should have gone back, I will shoulder full responsibilty at this point for wanting to continue
You know you all enjoyed really!
We then had a discussion mid river, when Tim suggested it was OK for novices.
Tim changed his mind soon after
It got progressively worse as the day continued.
Andy stopping for regular breaks and checking the bottom of his bike.
All in all I guess we would all agree that it was the toughest days riding any of us have ever done or would like to do.
The day just got harder and harder and we soon realised that there would be no way of getting out in daylight, so we just continued and did the best we could. All was going OK until after one of our many rest stops, Andy's bike had a flat battery (must have been due to be upside downso often. acid all gone
) so we ended up stripping off things that could be nicked and parked it up for the night.
Amusingly in hindsight andy debated whether to put a lock on it. We decided for him
we then continued down through the river bed with Andy walking ahead to find a route and also assisting those who were "resting their bikes".
We eventually got out after another seven hours.
We rode back to the hotel. SHATTERED!!!!!
The next day Barry amazingly got up early and dragged andy out of bed to walk the six miles back up the river bed carrying Nina's battery to get Andys bike. As it was quite a nice hot day they carried spare water/tools/food and the battery. So off they set with Barry wearing his new hiking shoes.
ffs. What did he look like? Stretched kevlar jeans/body armour and fcuking pimps pumps! Should have been arrested. They must have looked like a
couple going for a picnic, walking up the pass.En route as it was so hot Andy decided to take his jacket off and hide it under some stones to collect on way back with his bike. Unbelievably someone saw him and now there is a Berber kid riding up and down the pass on his donkey wearing a Dainese armoured jacket. Got to be worth seeing.
And if anyone is brave enough to try the pass, could you please have a look for Barrys tax disk
as it fell off.Worth the effort collecting the bike by day as they got to ride here.
Eventually we left the hotel after a couple of days R & R and set off again and saw this from the Gladiator set.
A few extras left behind after filming.
We then set off for the real touristy bit and headed for Marrakech and then onto Fez. We stopped at a local cafe/butchers en route
There are many other places we stopped at and the story is almost endless as we saw and did so many things, Andy buying his Fez hat in Fez, Barry buying his extra long leather belt
, Nina buying her silk scarves in Fez, me, riding off with my disc lock on was also quite memorableThe trip has proved incredibly memorable for a number of reasons, great thanks must go to Tim for being our un-official guide and without his help and knowledge we would not have been to or seen half of what we did. Star rider of the trip goes to Nina for the Todra pass, must improved off road goes to Andy, to Barry for his unstinting efforts to get us out of the river bed at night when we were all dead on our feet and to Morocco as a whole.
I am not sure that I would rush back as its a sodding long way down through Spain. But for sure I will head down that way again.
Brett. Happy Pilgrim (aka. scarface)
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