The Morocco trip came about, thanks partly due to some friends in the Land Rover club I used to belong too. They were planning a trip to Morocco, and a group of us kind of hi-jacked the idea. At first I wasn't going to be going as I no longer had a Land Rover, and I didn't really fancy the trip riding shotgun in a friends Series 3, but then Christmas 2001 came, I was given a GPS unit by my Parents. All I needed now was a vehicle it would fit in. (At this point, most sane people would more than likely go and use the GPS for walking or cycling, but not me, I was feeling it was about time to buy another Land Rover, so that's what I did).

The trip started out on Saturday the 30th of March 2002, at a services station on the A3, just south of Guildford, where the 4 vehicles all met up, and travelled together down to Portsmouth. As per usual Neil Crawford and myself, had done no planning what so ever for the trip and managed to win the award of cramming absolutely everything you own in a 110. This did bring some amusement to everyone, as there were only 2 of us, but the 110 was full to bursting. If we had actually sat down and done some planning, we wouldn't of had 3 cookers, about 15 canisters of camping gas, a 7KG and a 15Kg camping gas bottle, 4 jerry cans of acquired diesel and enough food to feed an army. As I was taught in the cubs, be prepared. The trip down to Portsmouth was very uneventful, but we then had to wait 6 hours before being loaded onto the ferry. This gave us a chance to sit and watch all the other Land Rovers arrive, and to find out where they were all heading. It also gave us a chance to panic a bit, as the support truck from Trailmasters had broken down on the M3, not a good start for a vehicle that we would be following into the Sahara desert.

The ferry trip from Portsmouth to Bilbao takes two days, so that gave us plenty of time to sit down and relax. On the first evening on board, we all gathered together to watch the boat leaving Portsmouth and see all the Naval ships that were docked, receiving refits. On the Sunday (Easter Day) Neil and I met up with Pip and Becky who were original booked to come on the trip with us, but pulled out at the last minute to tour Morocco alone, and we spent the majority of the day sitting down, talking and drinking, whilst the rest of the group, kept telling us they had seen Dolphins from the outside deck. We neglected to tell them, that we too had seen them from where we sat, and enjoyed a few beers whilst watching them. After about 10 hours sitting in the same place, with not much of a view, (how can people go on cruise holidays, it would bore me rigid looking out at sea all day long), It was then felt that watching a film, would be a good idea to pass the evening, so we duly went along to watch Ice Age, apparently it was a good film, but as we spent the majority of the day drinking, I feel asleep 10 mins into it. Only to be woken as people wanted to get past, as the film ended.

The following morning, (Monday), the ferry had arrived at Bilbao, haven been woken at a early hour to get ready to disembark, we eventually managed to get off the ferry at about 8am. If anybody has used the Portsmouth to Bilbao ferry, you will realise what I'm talking about when I say, the exit to the ferry at Bilbao takes you through the docks and isn't signposted at all. We all managed to depart the port though without any incident, I think mainly by the process of just following everyone else. We had planned to get as far as we could into Spain, as we had only allowed ourselves 2 days to cross Spain, ordinary this wouldn't of been a problem for me in the 110, as that will cruise all day at 70 - 75 mph, but we had a V8 Range Rover, a Discovery and a Series 3 in the group. So we had to keep a steady pace of 50 - 55, which wasn't too bad as it gave us time to admire the view. The Range Rover and the Series 3 also had to keep stopping for fuel, whilst myself and Darren and Roz in the Discovery, pretty much made it across Spain on a tankful, ahh the joys of a Tdi.

The first evening in Spain was spent at a nice little campsite, about 3/4 of the way through Spain, the evening was spent as per usual, drinking a variety of alcoholic beverages that everybody had brought with them, as well as admiring the kit everybody had brought with them. As this trip was mainly going to involve camping, I had bit the bullet and opted for an Eazi - Awn Roof tent, whilst everyone else had opted for the usual ground tents. I did feel slightly smug in the morning as it had rained overnight, and was still raining when we awoke, as it only takes about 4 minutes to collapse the tent, whilst everyone else struggled folding theirs up. Made a mental note to myself that before doing anything like this again, I will have to invest in an Awing, as eating breakfast in the wet conditions was no fun, and this was only the first real morning of Camping.

The following day was spent getting down to Algeciras in southern Spain. The journey wasn't too bad, although I was starting to have problems with my CB by this point, we could hear all the banter, but they couldn't hear us, very annoying, but liberal use of spotlights often got the message across that we wanted to stop or something was wrong. We were booked into a hotel for the night, just as well as it rained heavily overnight, so this gave us some time to visit the local supermarket for some last minute items. For me that meant buying some better storage boxes, as mine were just about falling to bits, it also gave us time to stock up on some milk and other items we still weren't allowed to bring into Spain due to the foot and mouth restrictions still being in place. The evening was spent filling in paper work for the ferry crossing - I'm sure we were done in this deal as nobody in our group spoke a word of Spanish, and when we compared it to other peoples crossing later on it was a bit on the steep side, ohh well you live and learn. Tomorrow we enter Morocco.  

The day started early as the ferry was going to be leaving at 8am, but for us it felt like 6am, as we had to put our clocks forward 2 hours since laving he UK, (1 hour for the European time, and another hour as it was now BST back in the UK). This meant it was a 4.30am start for us, I must really learn that drinking and getting up early do not happen. When Neil and I were packing our stuff into the Land Rover, we heard engines revving but thought nothing of it, the next thing I knew, we were driving like loonies trying to catch everybody up, they had left without us!!! We were all imagining a run down ferry on the crossing from Spain to Morocco, or more precisely Spain, as the first strip of land you enter is owned by the Spanish in Morocco, (does make of mockery of the Spanish asking for Gibraltar back, when they won't give this land back to Morocco), but it was a 2 year old catamaran. The crossing was over within about 45 mins, now came the daunting task of getting across the border.

The border crossing wasn't too bad, except we all had to remove all traces of the CB's as these are frowned upon, a quick 5 minute job, the only other problem was knowing which window to go too, and in which order to do it all in. I was quietly worried, as the Land Rover was still registered in the previous owners name, as the documents hadn't been returned from the DVLA, but a quick bit of school boy forgery and it looked like it was in my name. There were plenty of locals on hand to guide you through the process, and all expecting tips, in the end we found 2 locals who spoke English and guided us through the process, we ended up tipping them about £2, they seemed more than happy with this.

When we finally entered Morocco we did wonder what we had let ourselves in for, as the northern part seemed to be a very run down part of Europe, but as we drove on down towards Meknes, we all started to feel a bit better, if not a little anxious towards the way the Moroccans drove. They would overtake on blind bends, and then force themselves into a non excitant gap between you and the car in front. We all soon joined in the fun, by overtaking lorries, by driving in fields to get past them, not exactly the recommended way of doing things, but it felt safer. After about 8 hours driving we reached the outskirts of Meknes, where we were going to be camping for the night. Some of the group went off to look at the Roman City of Volubilis, whilst the rest of us headed off to our campsite. Again this wasn't what we expected, you had the choice of either a muddy field, or the concrete where you parked your vehicles. (Smug moment number 2, I could pitch the roof tent where ever the Land Rover went so I opted for the dry concrete). By the time the rest of the group joined us it was getting dark, and James came into the campsite on a tow rope, apparently there had been a couple of incidents down at the ruins. Darren got his Discovery stuck, so James went to assist, and managed to burn out his electrics. After a couple of hours spent rewiring the dash panel, and bypassing the ignition system, the electrics were as good as new, the only problem was he now had to start the Land Rover by using one of the lighting switches, rather than by Key.

The following morning, (Thursday 4th of April), we were on the road by 7.30am, and just a few miles away from the campsite, we found a lorry that had tipped onto it's side, with a bunch of Moroccans sat there looking at it, we presumed they were awaiting a recovery, but the question that should have been asked, was how was it on it's side in the first place on a perfectly straight road. We never did find this out. At lunch time we stopped in a town called Azrou, where we all stocked up on fruit, veg and meat for the up and coming couple of days. After this we carried on driving up and into the Cedar forest, which is about 6000ft above sea level. We just pulled of ht road and setup camp amongst the trees, which in a way was very handy for the fire that was needed in the evening as it did get very cold that night, we woke up in the morning to a layer of frost, but this was soon forgotten about, as watching the sun rise through the tree's was a fantastic sight. We collected a lot of fire wood, in the morning, and strapped them to the vehicles as we were told tonights camp would be very cold and there were no trees around in the area to collect wood from. We all wondered just how cold it would be, as last night was cold enough.

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