Morocco adventure

[mt bandit]

I'm back,
got back in to London at midnight 29/30 june,
with many tales to tell , many 1000's of miles covered
2men started 1 man succeeded,
the rotax did well, very impressed , one sprag issue , fixed in the field , the electrical fault turned out to be an air box mod situation ,
full report to come,
gona spend a day with my other half first ,

[twmtomos1]

well done Mick ,looking forward to your tales

[bth2bth2]

cant wait

[mt bandit]

Hi all,
sorry for the delay, i'll try not to make it too long winded, but it was a calendar month i was away for. i think this story is best told over a bar on a meet somewhere,,
ok here goes,,

Trip Statistics ,,

km covered door to door 6419
tyres front TKC80
tyre rear MITAS E07
FUEL QUANTITY 384.98 Ltrs
oil 15/40 semi synthetic ,
oil consumption approx 0.25 lt

ok well i left London on the 27/5 traveled to Doug's arrived late afternoon so we could catch the ferry the next day relaxed,
Doug was fully prepared with some light maintenance pending


We caught the ferry with minutes to spare, upon arrival we noticed Doug had a oil leak which took us both by surprise due to all the careful pretrip prep ,
anyway we got the ferry , had a great night and arrived at Santander the next morning ,
we traveled about 18 km, but Dougs oil leak was very bad, and getting worse , so we took refuge up a mountain where we set up a wild camp


In the morning we investigated and it was the bottom pulley seal , but after several attempts at curing it , which involved some local rocks and some tyre levers , only proved to make the situation considerably worse , which in turn lead to a minter survival pack of casings and spares being sent ,as we had no address , they were sent to Spanish Paul , who rose to the challenge and saved his bacon , well done Spanish , your a star mate ,,
A decision was taken between us, and i left him up there to the mercy of the eucalyptus beetles and the incoming storms ,
while i on the other hand got on with the trip ,
i entered Portugal as early as poss , and spent about 3/4 days going up and over mountains , i have to say Portugal is definitely worth exploring , it is so out in the middle of nowhere

I developed what i thought was an electrical problem , and as Doug was still waiting for his parts , Spanish very kindly gave Doug his Genny for me to borrow , Incidentally it turned out to be more holes neaded in the airbox
I found us a great campsite in Castel Branco and waited for Doug ,,
about 7 days into the trip , Doug's mobile again , so he took the direct route to me , We had a great couple of days a real hoot,
but then it's time to move on again , Doug developed a wiring/battery fault the end result was a loom fire before we left the campsite, tow truck and home he goes ,

[mt bandit]

2nd week, and i'm on my own ,,
So i thought i may as well carry on , i just wont go to Morocco, on my own and all that ,,
i spent another 4 days in Portugal , i really liked this country ,
i decided to enter Spain and travel to Gibraltar, as i got near the coast around Cadiz , i got caught in a lav ante, do you know what that is ,, No neither did i , but i bloody do now ,,us English would refer to it as a Hurricane , it was murder , i lost so much kit, my kettle, one glove , half my glasses , my sunglasses , i know your thinking how do you loose one glove, easy, they were strapped on the back coz they were soaked from earier in the day due to 39degrees , i was riding at 45degrees then the wind would sheer and i'd be off,
that was a bad day , i eventually crawled into a campsite and took refuge ,,i stayed there two days and did some sprag maintenance,
i knew it was getting weird so i thought i'd fix it before it fixed me ,


note to self , no point in bringing a spare spag and new spring if you don't bring a 27mm ring spanner ,
it's a very long story but the short version is ,. i walked 7km in blistering heat persuaded an iron mongers to let me borrow a new 27mm wheel brace , returned it an hour later and gave him it back and 15euros , when i left he was still scratching his head ,,
off again ,, never got to Gibraltar ,,
carried on down the coast to a place called Zahara , check this out


Any way then i saw the ferry to Africa ,, i just couldnt help myself ,, i jumped on it , an hour later i was there ,,,managed to find a campsite within 3km of the port, lucky ,, regroup till tomorrow ,,,
i'm off , SOUTH
with my trusty compass and Michelin road map,,,i'm going to the desert ,


The roads got worse and worse ,, basically that was a good road it had tarmac ,, but you'll note the complete lack of cars and other idiots travelling to the sahara ,

there actually was signposts now and again in the middle of nowhere saying turn left ,,, really ,,,
the temperature is really turning up now ,,well into the 40's this is the only time i started to use a drop of oil,, every day i'd check it and give it an eggcup full



Ok so now i'm getting deep into the Sahara ,temp is accelerating now 48 plus , i can see the dunes in the distance , once i hit them Algeria is only 50km away ,

[MT Pocket]

Awesomeness, it's a diff kettle of fish when you're on your own as opposed to a group - let's have more info whenever you are ready. What was wrong with the sprag?

[Wirralman]

An interesting read with fantastic photos .I await the next installment What might be useful to others is a Lesson Learned list, so that they can perhaps avoid /delays on future trips

[mt bandit]

i'm there , i made it ,,but i had under estimated how hard it is to ride on soft sand , whilst loaded up like a pack horse,, the inevitable happened ,,


Theres more.. i landed badly and broke a rib , I think they may have heard me crying in Algeria ,, i was in so much pain ,i couldn;t pick my bike up ,, obviously i took all the luggage off, and the seat and the 23ltr tank,, and i still couldn't do it ,,
i'm F*****d
i've got water , but i knew it would only last 4/5 hours in that heat, the only thing i could do was get to a track and find help,, so i start walking , i get about 300 yards


Then i think No way ,, i'm not leaving my bike ,, i made her come here, i'm gona get it out somehow ,,
i go back ,
Brainstorm,,, i dug a big hole under both the wheels ,, went to the top and kicked her in the two holes , it stood up ,, i can't believe it,,half way there ,, then i dug the sand out from under the engine , made a sort of ramp in front of the front wheel, put the tank on, and stood by the side of it and drove her out to slightly firmer sand ,, YAY
after a good few hours i made it to a shantie town is the only way i can describe it , where i paid 3 euros a night to pitch me tent ,
i got quite friendly with the owner , he said you idiot no one attempts that , you need a camel ,, guess what his brother only had one ,

so i gave him 30 euros and off i went again ,, i ended up about 35km from the Algerian border . but even the camel got the hump with the heat, , his brother thought due to the heat it wasn't overly safe this time of the year to go any deeper , so we spent the night with some Nomads in the middle of the desert in their tents ,, bit weird especially when they started singing and banging drums




i had done now everything i set out to do,,so after some careful r &r in Merzouga , i legged it back to Tangier ,
whereupon i was sitting at the traffic lights , minding my own businesses, when a lady Arab shunted me,, next thing i know i'm on the deck,,
great, now i've got a sore arm to go with my busted rib
by the time i got back i started feeling quite unwell ,, looking back now i think i got heat stroke,, i was very ill for about 3 days in all,
by the time i left Morocco i was cutting it a bit fine to catch the ferry back ,,
i did make it ,, although a bit of me wishes i didn't ,
The first two hundred miles of the bay of biscay was force 10 apparently ,, the rest of the bay was gusting up to force 9 ,
i was even more unwell here , never again , 29hrs i was on that bath tub for ,,,
Any way there's a lot more to it really , but i really need to tell you at the North Wales meet over a beer or two ,,

[mt bandit]

Awesomeness, it's a diff kettle of fish when you're on your own as opposed to a group - let's have more info whenever you are ready. What was wrong with the sprag?

Well the sprag started making a lot of noise, and occasionally didn't engage and it was getting worse,, so as i was carrying a separate serviceable sprag and a new spring , i decided to prevent rather than cure ,
turned out the spring was very worn and sloppy,
but also the retaining circlip and the outer ring that holds the sprag in the primary gear had come undone, and were just laying in there , an easy fix,

[#skippy1970]

Fantastic ride report Mick
You know you've already volunteered yourself as the team leader for the next epic desert expedition
I Just need to find my pith helmet