Feb 4th – to Morocco

A rapid crossing on the sea-cat, averaging 35mph: look at the wake. But rough: actually, very rough! 35 minutes might not seem a long time, but it is when you’re feeling queasy (Colin).

Tangier port is a model of gross inefficiency. It took 2 hours to clear the 20 or so vehicles through customs. Police, customs officials and semi-official form fillers (who expected a generous tip) all doing roughly the same jobs, including directing the vehicles, combined to create maximum chaos.

The chaos seemed to spill out into Tangier itself, where road users and pedestrians competed to throw themselves at, or under, the car & caravan. Even on the motorway, cows were grazing on the grass verge and vendors had set up stalls on the hard shoulder. So, if you break down, you can stock up with fruit & veg while waiting for the Moroccan AA.


We finished our day near Casablanca, having come through high winds, driving rain and a sand storm (from the beach, not the desert!). The site was somewhat charmless and run-down, but cheap. The pitch markers clearly represented the tombs of the unknown campers!

Tarifa

Our campsite is 5 miles from the port of Tarifa and set in pine trees 400 metres
from a beautiful sandy beach. The walks through the wooded hills behind the beach give some lovely views, as per the picture that looks towards Tarifa with the hills of Morocco in the distance. Tarifa is reputedly the windsurfing capital of Spain and the wind’s certainly blown hard for most of the time we’ve been here. Doesn’t bode too well for the crossing tomorrow!


To put all our anxieties and exertions into perspective – just look at this guy, the dung beetle. All he’s worried about is rolling his ball of dung up the slope. Kind of “pack up your troubles in your old kit bag” attitude.


And to finish, a picture of the adorable little stray dog who has befriended us. We’re very tempted to take him with us, but without the doggie passport tests, injections and paperwork, the Spanish authorities won’t let him back in on or return from Morocco.

Wed 28th Jan: Gibraltar

Today a visit to one of the last outposts of Empire: Gibraltar. Nice quirky touch: having passed customs, you walk, or drive, across the airport runway to enter the colony. It’s nearly, but not quite, a patch of England, despite sterling currency, M&S and the Norwich and Peterborough Building Society etc.


Where Gib does score is its’ sense of history. Look at the tombstone of the sailor who died from wounds received at Trafalgar. The other photo is of the 100-ton gun commissioned in 1883 to guard the harbour. There were two originally, sited together, but the other’s barrel split due to practicing at too high a firing rate. The gun was soon outmoded and never fired a shot in anger. Coincidentally, the gun is located at the point where Nelson’s body was brought ashore temporarily after Trafalgar (preserved in a cask of brandy) while the Victory was being patched up.


Finally, to impress you with the efficiency of the dockyards, see if you can make out what the painter on the mobile platform is using to paint the lower hull of the ship. Yes- and we verified this with binoculars- it really is a four inch BRUSH!

Friday 23rd Jan to 27th

Sunday a real life expedition arrived at the site: two landrovers, a small lorry-like support vehicle and a dune buggy, all sporting sponsorship logos. A BRITISH expedition, of course, with lots of good chaps running around with clip boards and bellowing down mobile phones e.g., “ look, Nigel, I need the bloody thing here NOW!”




The dune buggy is driven through the campsite at a furious rate and has a large fan device on the back. Fuzzy picture confirms the perilous speed! It turns out they fit a para-wing to it and then it’s a microlite, which they plan to fly across the Straits of Gibraltar and onwards to Timbuktu at the rate of about 100 miles a day. It’s a windy coastline, so they have to wait for a calmish day. A film crew is all part of the convoy and the end result will appear on Channel 4 sometime in June.

2009 THE ROAD TO MOROCCO

Jan 9th. Left Alconbury in freezing conditions. Temperature first night in French motorway services near Le Mans dropped to –7 degrees (-4 inside the caravan following morning). Arrived mid-day Sat at the house: central heating full on & woodburner lit straight away.

Jan 14th- We’ve sold the house, we think! Now lots to do. However, we’re still proceeding with the holiday and have given our agent Power of Attorney to sign final documents should we get that far.

Our neighbour Paul has a friend Gerard. Chatting with them, Gerard became animated when he realised we were soon going to Morocco. Searching in his wallet, he scribbled an address on a piece of paper and handed it to us. “I once worked with a Moroccan, from Tiznit. You look him up, and tell him Gerard sent you”. Tiznit’s about the size of Huntingdon, somewhere down south in the desert. Yes, Gerard.

Jan 20th. Off tomorrow, but a.m. noticed a flat tyre on the caravan. PANIC as they don’t sell UK caravan tyres in France. Great relief: it proved to be a split valve which the local tyre depot refitted at no charge!



Jan 21st . En route: stopped for lunch at motorway rest aire, 50 miles north of Bordeaux. Unbelievably, this was also the location of a large outdoor exhibition of Romanesque carving, taken (pirated?) from local churches. See photo, the main exhibition is through the arch. We were enthralled by the skill of the 11/12th century stonecarvers. Rarther like finding a Constable exhibition in a layby on the A14.

Jan 22nd. Driving in rain & mist all day. Tonight (only) staying at Campsite Monfrague, south of Salamanca. Monfrague Natural Park has a vulture breeding programme, but we’ll need to see that another time. Next day arrrive Tarifa, most southerly point on the European landmass.

Oct 24th to Oct 26th

Back at our house in the Vendee. Seems odd after the caravan, but we soon settle in. The Vendee Globe yacht race runs every 4 years, and this year is the one. It starts 2 weeks tomorrow, Sunday 9th Nov., from Les Sables d’Olonne, 15 minutes away. Today was open day, where the public could view all the competitors’ boats and absorb the razzmatazz of it all. So we went along and were duly impressed by the 30 sleek vessels on show and the vast array of sponsors’ displays in marquees on the quayside (3 Brits, but no Ellen MacArthur who won it last time).

Thur 16th to Mon 20th Oct

We found a splendid river & gorge right on the doorstep! The river runs past the campsite, so we decided to follow it upstream along a dirt road. In half a mile it became a ravine, and in a further half-mile, when it had widened slightly, we were astonished to find a large factory-type building containing a paper museum. We had a conducted tour, in English: the valley had been producing paper since 1381 and at its’ peak contained 38 paper mills! We continued up the valley afterwards along the track and found ruin after ruin of these ancient mills, all in an idyllic setting on the banks of the river. The river was, of course, the power source for the industry, which employed hundreds of workers and achieved vast output despite the location’s difficult access.

On Wednesday 22nd we’re leaving for the house in France where we’ll arrive on Friday, so this is the last entry for the time being. Lake Garda has been wonderful & still summer weather.