Trip report - Suffolk to Morocco - July 2013

I thought I'd post up a trip report of our drive out from Ipswich to the dunes at Erg Chebbi, in Morocco last month.
I'd done a similar trip by motorcycle in September 2010, and have wanted to go back on 4 wheels to explore more ever since.
I also fancied going during the hottest part of the year, the benefits being that there are hardly any other tourists, hence less touts, better prices at campsites, and guaranteed sunshine. We'd experienced severe flooding in the high Atlas mountains last time in September, so the last thing we wanted after a wet year was more water.
Our truck is a Discovery 200 tdi, not really heavily modified either, larger wheels, the usual suspension upgrades, and the usual guards.
We took minimal spares. Our kit consisted of 2 hub seals, 2 pairs of wheel bearings, some rubber hose to fix fuel lines, a lift pump, and some fuses and oil, that was it.

I’d done quite a bit of pre-trip preparation in the weeks leading up to departure, new swivels, seals and bearings, track rod ends, full service, moly slip in the LT77, heavier oil in the engine. I’d also fitted out the back with a 25L water tank, (which was really just a plastic jerry can with a submersible pump), a compressor with tank, spare diesel can, a fairly comprehensive medical kit, and poles for our home made awning. All we now needed to do was pack a tent, a change of clothes, some rations, and a couple of sleeping bags.

and the next installment is when?

We had a 5pm ferry to catch from Portsmouth to Santander, with a 3:30pm check-in needed, so not wanting a last minute rush, we set off at 12, stopping for a late lunch at Ockham bites, just off the A3/M25 junction, incidentally, the same place we’d stopped last time out.
We made the ferry in good time, dumped our gear in the cabin, and headed up to the bar on the 9th deck for a celebratory trip. 149 miles in, and so far, so good!
The weather wasn’t brilliant, I’d hoped that as we neared the bay of Biscay cloud cover would dissipate, and we’d get a peek of the clear blue skies I’d been assuring B she’d see, but alas not, choppy seas, and cloudy skies followed us from Portsmouth to Spain, where we docked at a little after 6pm.

I should introduce B I guess… She’s my wife of 18 years, and friend of 21. She admirably held the fort here back in 2010 when I took 3 weeks out to explore North Africa by bike. She is also the other half of Hangar 53, and takes care of bodywork and paint jobs, while I juggle the spanners and fabricate things.
I’d been promising to show her Spain and Morocco for a little over 2 years now, and had been raving about the big blue skies that would remind her of South Africa, where we first met, and married, but as I said, Spain wasn’t offering much of that right this minute.

So, here we were at Santander, the port layout had changed, and the Garmin had decided to go into lockdown, and refused to give me any directions, so paper maps it was.
The mist rolling in over the mountains as we made our way up the A67 heading for Palencia was as thick as pea soup, visibility was 3 to 4 foot at best, not a great start, it would be dark in a couple of hours, and I was thinking that it would be a tad difficult to spot a suitable place to pitch camp for the night.
60 kilometers or so out of Santander, and the mist disappeared completely, and there before us, was the big blue sky I’d been raving on about. Despite being nearly 8pm, there was still plenty of heat left in the sun, and with lifted spirits, we made our way towards Palencia. Keeping a beady eye on the now working Garmin, I spotted a small village appearing on the screen, we turned off the A67, onto the P980, and headed to Poblacion de Campos. As we approached the fringe of the village, I spotted a small church set back in a meadow, and decided to investigate. The church was Ermita de San Miguel, built in 1227 as haven for lepers, it sat in a small meadow, with stone fireplaces and benches around it, and here, we decided, would be where we made camp.
It was now 9pm, we’d covered around 90 miles since leaving Santander.
We got the stove out, and set about brewing some redbush tea and cooking up some rations. B went off with the camera, while I eyed up a suitable spot to park the truck and pitch the tent. After dinner, we had a cigarette, and listened to the sound of screech owls in the distance, punctuated only by the occasional clanging of a cowbell somewhere out in the fields. Our first night on the road, and soon we’d test the two man Terranova tent, that was in truth, a generous one man tent that had last seen action in 2010 on my trip through France, Spain, and Morocco. It was a strange feeling being on the road again.

Great stuff keep it coming !

Wish that we had gone back there now instead of going to Croatia !

We were up at 6, and the kettle was soon singing on the stove as we packed the tent down, and dug out army rations of omelette beans and sausages to start the day. Already the sun was making an appearance, and voices could be heard along the main road behind the meadow. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and as I brushed my teeth I figured that today was going to be a scorcher.
We were on the road by 7:30, heading towards Palencia, and after that, Valladolid. These names were familiar landmarks from the last trip, and part of me hankered to be on a bike there again. We had allowed three days to drive through Spain. I had pre-booked our ferry from Algeciras to Tangier Med for the morning of the 6th, today was the 4th, so allowing for any mechanical or pilot errors, we should do that quite nicely I thought. The day turned into a scorcher, Spain was having a heatwave, and the temperature soared into the 40’s. The air burned the backs of our throats, and to make matters worse, the truck wasn’t having much of a good time with it either. Continuous uphill mountain passes called for more turbo, sending the temperature needle into the remaining quarter of the gauge, there was no way that stopping was going to cool her down, she needed to work less, but until we could hit level ground and come off the turbo a bit, we had little option other than turn on the internal heater to help with temperature. Well, think sweatbox torture, and you get the idea, and to make matters worse, the kenlowe fan up front had become a little noisy to say the least. Despite this, by lunchtime we’d had no major dramas other than losing our bodyweight in sweat, and decided to have a rest and a leg-stretch at a nifty picnic spot overlooking the Embalse de Banos reservoir just outside Hervas (the site of the angry farmer on the Moto Maroc trip).

We grabbed a quiet spot in the corner, changed into shorts and T’s, broke the camp chairs out, and relaxed, taking in the view…

Having realised that it was lunch time, and we were half way through Spain, I thought we’d push on, I was pretty sure that we could make Ubrique before nightfall, and I was curious to see if the abandoned stone lodge and camp ground was still intact, if it was, it would make a most excellent bolt hole for exploring the Andalucian mountains. But first, I had to show B, El Ronquillo.

Now El Ronquillo in itself is not particularly outstanding, I’m sure there are better, and worse little towns, it was, however, a place I had visited 2 years back, where the bar tender had held up a blackened hind leg of something of dubious origin, complete with hoof attached, and had made us sandwiches in this little bar that seemed to be stuck in an 80’s Mexican time warp… so we headed for El Ronquillo with gusto.
Not much had changed in the town, the bar was tended by the same keeper, they’d now banned smoking indoors, so we cadged a couple of cold cokes, and some cold bottled water, as our onboard supply was like lukewarm bathwater, and went for a look around. Incidentally, it’s surprising how one gets used to drinking hot, or at best, warm water, and so far today, we’d polished off about 10 litres between the pair of us.
We headed back out of town, and on to the A66, heading towards Seville.

We stopped for fuel, and a quick meal of hamburgers, disguised as a poor version of a fry-up at an eatery alongside the motorway at Merida, and were soon eating up the miles to Seville, and on to Jerez, were we abandoned the motorway in favour of cutting across country via the A-382, and A-372 into the Andalucian mountains, and towards El Bosque, and Ubrique. The view as you approach the town of Ubrique is quite stunning, loads of small white houses nestled against the mountainside, the town itself comprising of a myriad of narrow streets. We decided to press on through the town, promising to visit in the morning, as it was now 5pm, and the abandoned lodge was only a few miles out of town. It was great to see the abandoned camp “Garganta Barrida” still derelict, and we parked the truck up under the shade of an olive tree, and I nostalgically looked towards the veranda where 2 years previously our five motorcycles had occupied spaces between the pillars for a night.

I was glad I’d brought B here, it was a special place to be, but I missed my riding companions too, and could see us all here drying clothing and gear, eating and laughing as if it was only yesterday. As I stood on the veranda where I’d parked my bike, B snapped a picture of me wistfully reflecting back on that trip. I thought back to how various people had come and gone during the night last time, the place was obviously a bit of a “lovers lane”, and while it hadn’t bothered me then, I now felt a bit uneasy, there was just the two of us, we were fairly out in the sticks, and although it was a beautiful place to be, I had a nagging feeling of uneasiness, and as it happened, the night’s stay would be the worst of the trip. I kept my thoughts to myself, and set about making the redbush tea, and cooking up some ravioli and chicken stew for dinner.

Hello I'm Andy, your trip to morocco looked great, did you get your tuck checked over at Excalibur with Steve and mark?
They told me about someone that was going on a trip to morocco from Ipswich, I just got back on here after a long time off, I live near Ipswich, the guys at Excalibur did a final check over on my 110 truck cab a couple of months ago, that I've built up over the last few years, I'm planning a trip to Namibia soon , I just wondered if you would meet up some time and tell me about your trip and any problems you had.

Thanks for posting up the writings - it was a good read so far

Maaaan I need to be back on the road.

keep it coming mate. good stuff.

Enjoying this read with a touch of greeneye

Enjoying this

Enjoyed that. Thanks.