morocco day 5, 6, 7 - navigation
wednesday day 5
getting to grips with the desert was one thing, navigation with a roadbook was another. the previous day's nav had worked out pretty well, but was on the whole a little simpler when zippy knew the route but on wednesday we headed into unknown territory and this brought up some interesting challenges. firstly the roadbook was a few years old so the cap bearings were out, some roads or should i say tracks had been diverted, new buildings had been constructed and other features had been removed.
the day was hot, very hot, especially during the time we spend debating over which route we should be taking! having taken a wrong route we completed a 28km dog-leg to bring us back to a grid point on the roadbook that we could start again from. this was real desert, nothing for miles around, but then in saying that, we past small villages, or lone homesteads and nomads in the most inhospitable places. you could not stop anywhere for long before somebody turned up trying to sell you something or asking for money!
turn right at the wadi
we stopped under a tree next to a small escarpment for a little lunch and water, but the heat was intense so we kept it brief, only to stop again a short while later in a small village to buy a coke; you can buy coke almost anywhere in the world, it is bizarre!
what a beautiful smile!
where we had hoped to complete the entire 250km rallye du maroc road book route in one day, we only completed the first half of the figure of eight route as we reached merzouga. as a bit of fun, zippy took us over the dunes, always a fun and spectacular way to end the day! then of course it was a shower and chill in the pool with a beer or fanta......well, then it was air filter change, fuel, oil, rad check and roadbook prep for an early start.
zippy scratching his helmet...again!
thursday day 6
patsy and zippy were confident enough to allow ben, nick and i to head out on our own to complete the second half of the previous day's route that we had been unable to complete. we were up and ready to head off by about 0700hrs, but ben had problems with his ignition and the thought of having to kicks start his 450 encouraged him to fix it, at least attempt to.....sadly it came to nothing and at 0800hrs we decided to go.
sunrise
i set the gps to a known grid point on the roadbook that was close to the hotel, but orientating the roadbook to the direction of travel caused a little debate.....its in the detail! in the gps setting you can choose the units to use for grid references and where i had the wrong units in place it positioned the direction of travel to the north when in fact we needed to head east!! anyway, we agreed to head east and over the dunes on our own for the first time and setting the gps on a cap bearing we cruised over without ever really having to stop, such a great feeling!
brief stop at the well
however, the day was challenging. nick was suffering from the stomach bug, which half the group were including myself, but at this stage it seemed to be affecting him worse and therefore we had to keep the speed down. paradoxically, the thing about a rally is that it is all about 'moving foward' and at pace, not only does this mean you get to the end more quickly but it is in fact easier to handle the bike, you effectively skip over the surface rather than hit each bump or sink into the soft sand.....this was not to be the case.
needless to say we made it back to the hotel to shower and cool off before ben and i headed off into the dunes with patsy, zippy and mat! we were taken swiftly into the big dunes, while patsy led the way, zippy and mat hurled their bikes around like loons, impressive really! before we left pats had her very serious face on, so we were expecting a challenge......
poor ben suffered though as he was riding a 450 with about 30 odd litres of fuel, plus when he stalled or fell, he had to kick-start the bike. having headed back to help a couple of times, we eventually learned to make sure the bike was in neutral before kick-starting!!
the wind picked up and sand flew across the tops of the dunes and whipped at our clothes and faces, sand permeated everything and certainly made riding more uncomfortable!! we were only up there for an hour or so, but we hardly stopped, climbing what seemed impossibly steep dunes and attempting to rest the bikes on the crest; if you miss it by a foot, you have to go back down and start over. sweating like crazy we returned to the hotel as it started to rain, sand-storm looming and sun we made it back in time.
friday day 7
having been awake for most of the night with stomach cramps etc i was up at about 0500hrs as we were due to depart for the big day at 0700hrs sharp. all my kit packed and loaded onto the truck i forgo breakfast, i could not stomach anything, not even water which i was bringing up before climbing aboard my bike in readiness and steadiness!! i had written down the route and broken it down into 5 stages for my own benefit as i knew it was going to be a struggle:
stage 1 - road from merzouga to erfoud 60km
stage 2 - cheese track to goulmima 100km
stage 3 - off-road to tinghir 100km
stage 4 - road to dades 50km
stage 5 - offroad to ouarzazate 185km
total 495km
12 hours
as we left merzouga it started to rain, the only day i decided not to wear my jacket, in my attempt to stay cool as i was feeling so crap. fueling up in erfoud, we hit the cheese track, named after a bizarre contemporary architectural creation in the middle of the desert in which we were traveling, a triangular building, shaped like a block of cheese??? useful landmark though! zippy setting the pace, we were averaging 80-90kph along the tracks. really enjoying the speed, the sun came out and we began to dry off, just in time for a torrential downpour 30 mins later! and so the routine continued, fuel up in town and onto the next stage.
things became really interesting later on though as we climbed into the atlas and the heavens opened yet again.......the trickling streams very quickly became impassable torrents, with large rocks thundering their way down. zippy showed us how to cross, walking our bikes with the engines running, rather than riding and risking losing the bike under us. however, this is exactly what happened to a group who were about an hour behind us. we'd stopped for a brief moment and zippy's phone rang, kevin and perry had lost their bikes and nearly themselves to one of the flooded rivers. some of the routes took us down through the dried river beds, but these had become flooded very quickly in the rain, to quickly in their case. so zippy and chris headed back to the grid location provided and the rest of our group continued the on the final stage of our journey.
successfully navigating our way over a few more flooded rivers, we reached one that was not going to beaten, it was in full spate, a good 50 metres across and probably waist deep if not more and it was thundering. we searched a possible route further down, but decided to head back to a road we had crossed 20 minutes earlier, as we probably had only another hour of daylight and certainly were not going to risk losing ourselves or our bikes to the river.
arriving in ouarzazate (pronounced 'wazazat') was a relief, we'd reached the end of our route, 12 hours after setting off, in tact, but needing the loo!! we found a garage to clean our bikes quickly before finding hotel salam, which has a great collection of desert racing cars parked up outside. straight the bathroom for an explosion of kit and stomach, before having a shower.....and then i imagined maybe eating something? apart from sipping a few mouthfuls of water from my camelback (most of which i spat out), the only think i had drunk all day was a small coffee in the late afternoon in one of the mountain villages we'd stopped at, plus an energy 'syrup' ben had on him earlier in the day; it was one of the few benefits of the wet weather we'd had that day!
after eating a small plate of pasta, the rest of the evening was spent running to the loo and loading the truck and trailer with bikes and kit (as zippy and ben were heading north first thing in the morning) and by about 0030hrs i was asleep!
......so all in all a great trip, huge learning, physical training, acclimatising, and being with a great team. bring on the rallye du maroc starting on october 17th!!
p.s. jago, hope you are recovering well and can make the rally!
getting to grips with the desert was one thing, navigation with a roadbook was another. the previous day's nav had worked out pretty well, but was on the whole a little simpler when zippy knew the route but on wednesday we headed into unknown territory and this brought up some interesting challenges. firstly the roadbook was a few years old so the cap bearings were out, some roads or should i say tracks had been diverted, new buildings had been constructed and other features had been removed.
the day was hot, very hot, especially during the time we spend debating over which route we should be taking! having taken a wrong route we completed a 28km dog-leg to bring us back to a grid point on the roadbook that we could start again from. this was real desert, nothing for miles around, but then in saying that, we past small villages, or lone homesteads and nomads in the most inhospitable places. you could not stop anywhere for long before somebody turned up trying to sell you something or asking for money!
turn right at the wadi
we stopped under a tree next to a small escarpment for a little lunch and water, but the heat was intense so we kept it brief, only to stop again a short while later in a small village to buy a coke; you can buy coke almost anywhere in the world, it is bizarre!
what a beautiful smile!
where we had hoped to complete the entire 250km rallye du maroc road book route in one day, we only completed the first half of the figure of eight route as we reached merzouga. as a bit of fun, zippy took us over the dunes, always a fun and spectacular way to end the day! then of course it was a shower and chill in the pool with a beer or fanta......well, then it was air filter change, fuel, oil, rad check and roadbook prep for an early start.
zippy scratching his helmet...again!
thursday day 6
patsy and zippy were confident enough to allow ben, nick and i to head out on our own to complete the second half of the previous day's route that we had been unable to complete. we were up and ready to head off by about 0700hrs, but ben had problems with his ignition and the thought of having to kicks start his 450 encouraged him to fix it, at least attempt to.....sadly it came to nothing and at 0800hrs we decided to go.
sunrise
i set the gps to a known grid point on the roadbook that was close to the hotel, but orientating the roadbook to the direction of travel caused a little debate.....its in the detail! in the gps setting you can choose the units to use for grid references and where i had the wrong units in place it positioned the direction of travel to the north when in fact we needed to head east!! anyway, we agreed to head east and over the dunes on our own for the first time and setting the gps on a cap bearing we cruised over without ever really having to stop, such a great feeling!
brief stop at the well
however, the day was challenging. nick was suffering from the stomach bug, which half the group were including myself, but at this stage it seemed to be affecting him worse and therefore we had to keep the speed down. paradoxically, the thing about a rally is that it is all about 'moving foward' and at pace, not only does this mean you get to the end more quickly but it is in fact easier to handle the bike, you effectively skip over the surface rather than hit each bump or sink into the soft sand.....this was not to be the case.
needless to say we made it back to the hotel to shower and cool off before ben and i headed off into the dunes with patsy, zippy and mat! we were taken swiftly into the big dunes, while patsy led the way, zippy and mat hurled their bikes around like loons, impressive really! before we left pats had her very serious face on, so we were expecting a challenge......
poor ben suffered though as he was riding a 450 with about 30 odd litres of fuel, plus when he stalled or fell, he had to kick-start the bike. having headed back to help a couple of times, we eventually learned to make sure the bike was in neutral before kick-starting!!
the wind picked up and sand flew across the tops of the dunes and whipped at our clothes and faces, sand permeated everything and certainly made riding more uncomfortable!! we were only up there for an hour or so, but we hardly stopped, climbing what seemed impossibly steep dunes and attempting to rest the bikes on the crest; if you miss it by a foot, you have to go back down and start over. sweating like crazy we returned to the hotel as it started to rain, sand-storm looming and sun we made it back in time.
friday day 7
having been awake for most of the night with stomach cramps etc i was up at about 0500hrs as we were due to depart for the big day at 0700hrs sharp. all my kit packed and loaded onto the truck i forgo breakfast, i could not stomach anything, not even water which i was bringing up before climbing aboard my bike in readiness and steadiness!! i had written down the route and broken it down into 5 stages for my own benefit as i knew it was going to be a struggle:
stage 1 - road from merzouga to erfoud 60km
stage 2 - cheese track to goulmima 100km
stage 3 - off-road to tinghir 100km
stage 4 - road to dades 50km
stage 5 - offroad to ouarzazate 185km
total 495km
12 hours
as we left merzouga it started to rain, the only day i decided not to wear my jacket, in my attempt to stay cool as i was feeling so crap. fueling up in erfoud, we hit the cheese track, named after a bizarre contemporary architectural creation in the middle of the desert in which we were traveling, a triangular building, shaped like a block of cheese??? useful landmark though! zippy setting the pace, we were averaging 80-90kph along the tracks. really enjoying the speed, the sun came out and we began to dry off, just in time for a torrential downpour 30 mins later! and so the routine continued, fuel up in town and onto the next stage.
things became really interesting later on though as we climbed into the atlas and the heavens opened yet again.......the trickling streams very quickly became impassable torrents, with large rocks thundering their way down. zippy showed us how to cross, walking our bikes with the engines running, rather than riding and risking losing the bike under us. however, this is exactly what happened to a group who were about an hour behind us. we'd stopped for a brief moment and zippy's phone rang, kevin and perry had lost their bikes and nearly themselves to one of the flooded rivers. some of the routes took us down through the dried river beds, but these had become flooded very quickly in the rain, to quickly in their case. so zippy and chris headed back to the grid location provided and the rest of our group continued the on the final stage of our journey.
successfully navigating our way over a few more flooded rivers, we reached one that was not going to beaten, it was in full spate, a good 50 metres across and probably waist deep if not more and it was thundering. we searched a possible route further down, but decided to head back to a road we had crossed 20 minutes earlier, as we probably had only another hour of daylight and certainly were not going to risk losing ourselves or our bikes to the river.
arriving in ouarzazate (pronounced 'wazazat') was a relief, we'd reached the end of our route, 12 hours after setting off, in tact, but needing the loo!! we found a garage to clean our bikes quickly before finding hotel salam, which has a great collection of desert racing cars parked up outside. straight the bathroom for an explosion of kit and stomach, before having a shower.....and then i imagined maybe eating something? apart from sipping a few mouthfuls of water from my camelback (most of which i spat out), the only think i had drunk all day was a small coffee in the late afternoon in one of the mountain villages we'd stopped at, plus an energy 'syrup' ben had on him earlier in the day; it was one of the few benefits of the wet weather we'd had that day!
after eating a small plate of pasta, the rest of the evening was spent running to the loo and loading the truck and trailer with bikes and kit (as zippy and ben were heading north first thing in the morning) and by about 0030hrs i was asleep!
......so all in all a great trip, huge learning, physical training, acclimatising, and being with a great team. bring on the rallye du maroc starting on october 17th!!
p.s. jago, hope you are recovering well and can make the rally!
Labels: tydakar desert rose racing dakar
posted by youngerelagagesavoie at
20:45
1 Comments:
Hi Toby
Morocco sounds unbelievable - I wish I could have joined you....
Even with the early warning phone call at the Beacons, our 4th child has not arrived yet!
so, I won't be able to join any more bike outings for another few weeks.
Alastair is joining you in a few days, so I hope you all have a great week.
Good luck, safe riding.
Sean
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