Sunset.

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Tour finishes now the gearbox dies!

Got back to Spain and the gearbox has given up the ghost. ADAC have been fantastic and collected the vehicle to take back to England and paid for our flights home.
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Luxury!

Currently vegging out at the hotel in Essaouira, relative luxury compared to the previous few days.  Mooched about in the souk but havent bought any tables, lamps or 5' wooden giraffes.

Tj and some of the others took the cars down the road for a good clean yesterday, inside and out so its not too awful to get back in to now.

Tomorrow is a long flog up the coast, 360 miles or so, camping by the sea again then the ferry back to spain.

Gather the weather at home is a bit rubbish.  Going to be a shock to the system from this heat!!

Location

31.508367581066125
-9.765236377716063

--

Skytag Ltd

Kent Innovation Centre

Thanet Reach Busines park

Broadstairs

Kent

CT10 2QQ

 

08453 88 60 62

Skytag www.skytag-gps.co.uk provide a wide range of vehicle tracking solutions for both private and commercial applications. Offering excellent value for money, monthly testing and a unique 100% money back guarantee.
Skytag also include peace of mind as standard. 

Ramparts

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On the Coast

We are now on the coast and heading north in a day or so. Currently enjoying having had a great shower at the superb hotel in Essaouira. Time for a pizza!
Got the truck cleaned off for the huge price of £7.00 I don't think it has ever been that clean but it is a bit far to come on a weekly basis.
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Dhl bring Rugby to the Sahara!

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Clean!!!

Never thought a shower would be so welcome.  Both now pink instead of a tasteful combination of dust and sweat.  Now nesr the coast and its a more manageable 30° or so.  Great fun in the wilderness but will be glad for some lower temperatures!!

Location

Lat:+29.88513
Long:-007.40056


--

Skytag Ltd

Kent Innovation Centre

Thanet Reach Busines park

Broadstairs

Kent

CT10 2QQ

 

08453 88 60 62

Skytag www.skytag-gps.co.uk provide a wide range of vehicle tracking solutions for both private and commercial applications. Offering excellent value for money, monthly testing and a unique 100% money back guarantee.
Skytag also include peace of mind as standard. 

Lake Iriki

He lake yesterday was indeed a bit sticky.  You could.see.the.salt.rising to the top and those were the areas to avoid.  However in some places there was no alternative and the sticky mud sapped all power from the engine immediately.  john got stuck, as did we and couple.of others.  fortunately we were all able to get out and we stopped at the top.for a breather.  John said one group.got stuck there.for.3 days which would have been no fun WHATSOEVER. 

Downtown tata.

Its a bit like Aldershot really.

To tata

We're heading towards tata this morning,  after a peaceful.couple of nights in the desert.  Today sees us heading into.the draa valley for real.and depending on the weather and the ground it will either take one day or three.  Still a "balmy" 30° by 9am...

Some brilliant offroad driving yesterday,  more to come today!

Location

Lat:+29.74884
Long:-007.22635
Mountains ahead!!

--

Skytag Ltd

Kent Innovation Centre

Thanet Reach Busines park

Broadstairs

Kent

CT10 2QQ

 

08453 88 60 62

Skytag www.skytag-gps.co.uk provide a wide range of vehicle tracking solutions for both private and commercial applications. Offering excellent value for money, monthly testing and a unique 100% money back guarantee.
Skytag also include peace of mind as standard. 

Off to Lake Iriki

Today we leave Zagora and head for Lale Iriki. We have heard that it is wet so all the recovery gear has been dug out and made ready. We will be droping tyre pressures to almost half to create a bigger footprint on the wet sand and of course charging in at full speed!
More updates later as we go.

52 days.

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Zagora and the Draa Valley

Today we have a day off in zagora. After breakfast we'll head in to town for a look around the market and some lunch.

The truck should be ready about 4pm so once that's collected we can load it up again ready for the next leg into the Draa Valley.  Should be some more great offroading to come. 

Will try to post some pics from yesterday's awesome drive.

Fw: Zagora

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

-----Original Message-----
From: tjnicolson@googlemail.com
Date: Sat, 8 Oct 2011 18:29:39
To: <tjnicolson.adventure@blogspot.com>
Reply-To: tjnicolson@googlemail.com
Subject: Zagora

Made it to Zagora!
In Zagora for the next two days, a few things to get sorted on the truck but nothing major. Just tighten wheel bearings and get the fans stripped down and re greased. Unsurprisingly they have been working hard in the heat.

We had an epic off road drive over the Black Mountains from Tinehir. Off piste for the majority of the day with some epic views along with scary passes to drive along.

Now sitting in the bar in the hotel and getting the beers in.
Thanks to Guy at skytag for sterling work on tracking us and publishing to the blog.
Right beer time!
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Location

Lat:+30.33977 Long:-005.83698
Zagora, Morocco

--

Skytag Ltd

Kent Innovation Centre

Thanet Reach Busines park

Broadstairs

Kent

CT10 2QQ

 

08453 88 60 62

Skytag www.skytag-gps.co.uk provide a wide range of vehicle tracking solutions for both private and commercial applications. Offering excellent value for money, monthly testing and a unique 100% money back guarantee.
Skytag also include peace of mind as standard. 

Location

Lat:+31.49884 Long:-005.54189
Tinerhir, Morocco

--

Skytag Ltd

Kent Innovation Centre

Thanet Reach Busines park

Broadstairs

Kent

CT10 2QQ

 

08453 88 60 62

Skytag www.skytag-gps.co.uk provide a wide range of vehicle tracking solutions for both private and commercial applications. Offering excellent value for money, monthly testing and a unique 100% money back guarantee.
Skytag also include peace of mind as standard. 

Algeciras ferry

Well we've made it this far!   At algeciras ferry port waiting to board.  Wilderness camp tonight near volubilis.  Truck going well although heat and stonking big hills dont help the nerves! 

Location

Lat:+33.14577
Long:-005.24863
Ifrane, Morocco, up a mountain.

--

Skytag Ltd

Kent Innovation Centre

Thanet Reach Busines park

Broadstairs

Kent

CT10 2QQ

 

08453 88 60 62

Skytag www.skytag-gps.co.uk provide a wide range of vehicle tracking solutions for both private and commercial applications. Offering excellent value for money, monthly testing and a unique 100% money back guarantee.
Skytag also include peace of mind as standard. 

Location

Lat:+34.40547 Long:-005.50363
Morocco

--

Skytag Ltd

Kent Innovation Centre

Thanet Reach Busines park

Broadstairs

Kent

CT10 2QQ

 

08453 88 60 62

Skytag www.skytag-gps.co.uk provide a wide range of vehicle tracking solutions for both private and commercial applications. Offering excellent value for money, monthly testing and a unique 100% money back guarantee.
Skytag also include peace of mind as standard. 

Location

Lat +36.12908
Long:-005.44004
Algeciras

--

Skytag Ltd

Kent Innovation Centre

Thanet Reach Busines park

Broadstairs

Kent

CT10 2QQ

 

08453 88 60 62

Skytag www.skytag-gps.co.uk provide a wide range of vehicle tracking solutions for both private and commercial applications. Offering excellent value for money, monthly testing and a unique 100% money back guarantee.
Skytag also include peace of mind as standard. 

Off to Ceuta then further south

Leaving the hotel soon to head for the ferry to Ceuta. Hard days driving yesterday but nothing broke!
We have the fun of a boardercrossing this morni.g and all the temporary importation of the trucks. Looks like ours will be the oldest on the trip but i am sure we will keep up withthe new defenders and discovery 4's.

Location

Lat:+37.28262
Long:-003.65764

 

Just outside Granada

Day 2

After a relatively restful night north of madrid, today we ploughed our way south in stupid temperatures.  It's now only 30°. But we're nearly at the hotel and looking forward to a nice cold shower!

Scorchio!

Still at least the beers are cold...

Location

--

Skytag Ltd

Kent Innovation Centre

Thanet Reach Busines park

Broadstairs

Kent

CT10 2QQ

 

08453 88 60 62

Skytag www.skytag-gps.co.uk provide a wide range of vehicle tracking solutions for both private and commercial applications. Offering excellent value for money, monthly testing and a unique 100% money back guarantee.
Skytag also include peace of mind as standard. 

Bit warm...

Fwd: SMS From Nicolson 71527

Lat:+50.36302
Long:-004.15625
Speed:0.00KM/H
Direction:0.00
Date:2011-10-03
Time:06:47:38
BS:
FIX:V
ID:357671030794157
STATE:SMS

--

Skytag Ltd

Kent Innovation Centre

Thanet Reach Busines park

Broadstairs

Kent

CT10 2QQ

 

08453 88 60 62

Skytag www.skytag-gps.co.uk provide a wide range of vehicle tracking solutions for both private and commercial applications. Offering excellent value for money, monthly testing and a unique 100% money back guarantee.
Skytag also include peace of mind as standard. 

Decent enough cabin,  been in worse!  Hoping for a smooth crossing! !

Sunbathing!

The Bird family sunbathing.

OnBoard

So made it to Plymouth now for a nice gentle crossing to Spain.

So sunday is when we leave!!
This is the trip:
We start by travelling south from Ceuta to Meknes and from there we cross the Atlas mountains and drop down to Tinerhir. A stunning drive through the black mountains will bring us to our first encounter with the Draa Valley at Tansikht. Following the valley, we stop at the massive palmery of Zagora for a well earned rest day. Continuing south and west via Mhamid we skirt the dunes of Chegaga before temporarily leaving the Draa at Tata to stock up on fuel & provisions. Dropping back down to the Draa, passing the small towns of Akka and Assa it will take us 2 days to cross the remote and largely uninhabited valley before emerging at our goal of Cap Draa near Tan Tan on the Atlantic coast. We now have 4 days to complete our journey in leisurely fashion taking us along most of the Moroccon Atlantic seaboard with its many picturesque fishing villages & resorts, including Essaouria where we have another rest day. On this Grand Transit all types of desert driving will be experienced: gravel plains, rocky hamada, salt lakes, sand dunes, river beds, mountain passes and canyons, and indeed part of the route was used by the 2004 Paris Dakar Rally.

Planning the up coming trip.

So not much more preparation required for the up coming trip to the Draa Valley in Morocco. Just need to give the 130 an oil change and filters. Next weeekend is a strip down of what we are taking and do a list of spares we have on board and work out what we need to get. Also look at food we will be taking and how much booze we can fit in! Will check the truck over fully to see if there is anything last minute we need to do. Also Stuart Bird will be bringing his 110 over to do the same as he is travelling with us.
Roll on 2nd of October!!

New Blog

Time for a fresh blog all about our trials and trips with our Land Rovers.