3rd November - Coast and desert.

1pm by text: Woke up to find everything wet from a heavy dew overnight. Packed away the damp tent and laundry and hit the road by about 8:15 for a blast down the coast to Western Sahara.

Dramatic coast road along a clif top. Proper desert as well, with sand dunes migrating accross the road. Improvising lunch in the port town of Taryfa.

2nd November - Atlas mountains to the coastal plain.

Today has been a very long one - on the road soon after eight, and 272 miles, punctuated with police checkpoints - very friendly, but could become boring. This brought us down out of the Atlas mountains, and onto the coastal plain. We had strong winds all day, which alternated between crosswind and tailwind.













Mark and the Delarge: Mark and Sue's blog: http://delage2africa.blogspot.com

The roads, although tarmac, weren't very relaxing. There was a thin strip of tarmac laid on gravel, which forced a game of chicken with oncoming traffic, as at least one vehicle would have to put two wheels onto the gravel. Jonny had a particularly hard time, as a Frenchman overtook him, then hit the brakes and turned sharp right - forcing Jonny off the road, onto the gravel. Afterwards he worried that he may have bent the front axle - or at least knocked the tracking badly, as the car's handling deteriorated.

We arrived at Tan-Tan Plage at about 5pm. Matt assured us that this is the best campsite available - for which read only. It's a desolate patch of gravel, littered with disused containers and abandoned vehicles. Some bailed out and took rooms, but I decided to stick with camping. A hot shower and washing machine were bliss.

Must go as this computer is about to die














Setting up camp

1st November - To Tata, (South Morocco.)

By text:

6:50am: The man on the motorbike arrived at


6:50am with a pot of tea, warm bread, and repaired Jeep parts. Engineering followed, including reattaching my exhaust as 3 bolts were missing following a clout to the silencer.

9am: We set off by 9am, but soon I hit a rough patch and one spotlight went bouncing down the road. I collected the bits and removed the other as I could see the bracket was very close to failing. We rejoined the others in Foum-Zguid.

Today has been a fab day of desert driving - 40 miles in 1st gear that took 3.5 hours followed by Tarmac where I did the next 86 miles in 1.5 hours and then had a blast to Tata in south Morocco to look for fuel and somewhere to camp.

18:12: Tents pitched, food being served, all is well.

31st October - My Birthday



I woke up after a bad night, not feeling festive.

We left town via David's garage, where they wanted a photo. As we pulled away the Delage lost drive . Bad luck, but only 5 yards from a pit! A clutch rebuild by Mark and Ian followed, including hand riveting. Finally we left town at 3pm, onto gravel roads.

Jonny and Mark decided they preferred tarmac and went another way while the rest of us drove for 2.5 hours - 40 miles.

The back axle of the Jeep fell off, so we stopped in empty desert to camp. Within minutes we were surrounded by small barefoot children, and a helpful man with a motorbike.
High winds threatened to carry away out tents while we drank beer and wine and ate spag bol and stargazed.
A very memorable birthday.

30th October - Ouarzazate to Zagora.

By text. The support vehicle - morphed from Landrover to huge Merc truck - arrived in time for breakfast, with Rosie and Aussie guide Matt. We shed all excess baggage and set off on more steep mountain roads.

Convoying with Jeep we came across a broken down car - could we give a lift? Ian rode with me. Moroccan with Oliver. At Agdz he insisted we come for tea - who would have guessed he lived above a carpet shop!

Lush river valleys took us on to Zagora, where David put diesel in the Chrysler from an ambiguously labelled pump. He found a garage to sort it out and do a full service.

Very civilised campsite.

29th October Ouarzazate
By text:

Our visit coincided with the King's, so the roads were lined with police, who waved or saluted. We've decide that the Moroccan police are an arm of the ministry of tourism.
The city provided carpet shopping and a lovely campsite in a walled garden and my pop up tent got its first use. A Berber carpet salesman told me and Jacky that Berbers prefer older women -you make better soup in an old pot - with young carrots! No word from the support vehicle
5:am

28th October - Marrakesh to Ouarzazate

By text: 2:06pm: A Glorious morning of driving mountain passes - now lunch of pizza on a restaurant terrace at 6,900 feet - snow above us. Could be in switzerland.

By text - update: Problematic finding our way out of town by compass directions. Eventually on the right road and wound up into mountains - snow capped peaks in the distance. After lunch we left tarmac for a 50 mile detour -great driving and a good thing I had space to carry bits falling from Jonny's car.

Stayed in a lovely traditional kasbah in a small village. the support vehicle is rumoured to be in Marrakesh