Morocco Trip

[Bat21]

I thought I'd share my 2008 Morocco trip with you guys here, the writeup is not finished yet so please be patient :wink:

Wednesday 16th April
The Patrol was about as ready as it was going to be, so we headed off to Portsmouth to meet Dave and Wendy before catching the ferry to Bilbao which was due to set sail at 21:00


Once on the boat he headed off to the posh bar to escape the rather chavesque clientele that seemed to be occupying Silverstones Show Bar 2 decks below.


After consuming large amounts of alcohol, at throwing out time we headed down to Silverstones to see what delights we had been missing. A Northern lass seemed to take a liking to us and decided it was her mission to entertain us for the rest of the evening.


Thursday 17th April
We were awoken by a somewhat surreal experience, you know the feeling when you wake up after a heavy night on the sauce and the room feels like it’s spinning…… one look out of the window revealed that the ‘room’ was indeed spinning, well not so much spinning but pitching and rolling more like.


We were informed by the captain over the cabin comms system that we were indeed sailing through a storm force 9 gale in the Bay of Biscay. We managed to make breakfast but after that things went from bad to worse so we spent the day in the cabin on a diet of RedBull and Minstrels

Friday 18th April
Despite the rough crossing we arrived at Bilbao pretty much on time and once disembarked we were heading south destination San Roque. Initially the weather was very wet but eventually the cloud broke as we headed south.


It was during our 670 mile trek South that we were stopped by the Guarda Civil. Unfortunately I had forgot to pack my driving license and the rather miserable cop was not too pleased. The result was a 315 Euro (£250) on the spot fine.

Saturday 19th April
After an overnight stay in San Roque we had an early start and headed for Algeciras which was just 12km further South. It was another very wed day.

We decided to cross to cross to Tangier, although this is a longer sea crossing it was hoped that we would save time using this route as all the bureaucratic paperwork that you have to complete to get yourself and your vehicle into Morocco is done on the boat.

We bought our tickets and were told to be quick as the boat was leaving shortly. So it was a quick sprint back to the vehicles and join the queue for the boat where we waited and waited.


Eventually we realised that there was no one in the ticket booths and the whole place was in complete chaos as no one knew what was going on. We decided to drive around the ticket booths and wait at the port side.


Again there seemed to be no one who knew what was going on and after another hour we decided to scrap the crossing to Tangier and go for the tried and tested crossing to Ceuta.

Once over the water we were soon at the border control, the rain had followed us all the way.


It was a fairly trouble free procedure through the border and we were soon let loose on the Moroccan roads which always provide eye opening entertainment.




Our aim today was to get as far South as possible but the delayed crossing, a late border crossing of 3pm and torrential rain and sleet on the way down meant that by 8pm we only made it as far as Meknes,




Once the blizzard conditions had cleared it soon warmed up, the Patrol was shining like it had never done before, I guess it was the result of being pounded by the sand laden sleet.. a free T Cut ‘n’ Polish


Sunday 20th April
After finishing breakfast and stuffing Lucy’s handbag with boiled eggs (as you do) we were soon on the road heading south towards Merzouga which was some 250 miles away.

We arrived early evening and set up camp by the great Erg Chebbi sand dune







We were treated to a spectacular sunset





... to be continued