rallye du maroc - race day 2 "crossing an ocean of dunes"

firstly, please can i apologise for the bombardment of emails, but blame the press! the press have taken over the hotel internet and as a result i have had to find a hotel that has wifi.

daily stats
460km
98km liaison
260km special (consisted of 2 x 130km laps)
98km liaison
start time 0633hrs
return time 1422hrs

up at 0515 today in order to fit everything in before departing for the special.

it's dark at that time of the day

the title of the race today says it all, a 130km loop to be completed twice within the 4 hour window, 40km of proper dunes with another 40km of smaller, but very soft dunettes which proved to be rather challenging!

jago and i were feeling pretty content with our progress initially, but as time wore on this started to slow. the main issue was navigation. in the dunes this was in fact quite straight forward as the trail had been blazed, but off the dunes, the featureless landscape made this difficult. we were only 2 minutes over the deadline of the first 130km lap, but we were timed-out and for us that was the end of the day's racing.

although disappointed not to have the chance to go round again and try to beat the first lap time, it was probably a blessing as it gave us a chance to rest and prevent injury or damage to the bikes, a chance to tell the tale and enjoy tomorrow's racing. as it was we still had a 100km liaison to the hotel to complete!

the dunes were immense though; our first large dune was probably 30 foot high, with a car and spectators at the top enjoying the view and the struggling bikers. jago went up first, made it about 3/4 of the way up before turning around and i followed, only making it about half way. it was clear this was not going to be climbed without a serious struggle so we found an alternative route.

although i had experienced the dunes a month ago with patsy and zippy, we were on our own, well apart from the t5 (doctor/ sweeper) who was following on behind, making sure we were ok and stopping each time one of us had a fall. at one point i was too close to jago and as he neared a crest he slowed, i moved to the left to avoid hitting him and as i went over the top there was a small dune and i went into it! fortunately i managed to stay upright and keep the bike going, but paul, who was close behind me went over the handle bars, commando style!

mastering the technique to climb the dune at an angle, so that you can peer over the crest to choose the best route, the tracks before us were leading straight up and down.....crazy fools!! fortunately the day was overcast, which relieved from burning up under the saharan skies.

jago preparing for the ride home

fitting in a light lunch

thinking we'd had a difficult time, we were surprised to find out joe had not yet completed his first lap; he completed the previous days riding in 4.5 hours compared to our 6.5 hours. it turned out he'd struggled with a particular section of navigation and shot off on his ktm690 in the wrong direction.....it is so easy to do out here.

joe's got a nice bike though

barnes, if you're reading this, the choppers in the background are the film and emergency support crew. at one point today jago and i were surfing the dunes with the camera crew hovering above!!

log onto npo website for latest info and updates
http://www.npolive.com/maroc2010/en/etape.php?stage=1&rub=include.php

live tracking of our progress
http://vulcain.iritrack.net/tdcom/eviewer/shamrock2010/ 

and if you live in france, jago, paul and i made it onto french tv yesterday as a round up of this event is broadcast in france daily!!