Day 4: April 17th

109 km, 1573 climbing 1574 down

Today’s ride

There were lots of dogs barking during the night. With the early morning call to prayer there was numerous howling dogs howling along with great gustos.

Slightly more organised getting out of the tent this morning. However only two toilets once again slowed everything down. Plus they were pretty nasty to go into by the finish.

Once again we were one of the last riders out of camp. We road along the coast line some lovely views especially with the sun just coming up. At 17 k into the ride you could see across the Strait of Gibraltar to Spain.

Strait of Gibraltar

Strait of Gibraltar

Strait of Gibraltar

We spent the next hour climbing up and down rolling hills and a couple of bigger climbs. Near the top of the 2nd climb I took a break to look at the view (and get my breath).

At the top of the climb

When I got off my bike I found my cleat had come out. The cleat is on the bottom of the shoe and hooks into the pedal. As the pedals for cleats are very small it is not safe to ride the bike without it. I looked around for awhile and then decided I needed to call TDA assistance. The sweep caught up and was going to wait with me so Brett rode off to lunch. The sweep is a TDA staff member who rides behind the last rider every day so can assist in situations like this.

The TDA van came back and got me, and the bike mechanic for the trip Bubba was in the van as well . Bubba put another cleat on straight away but given this had taken an hour I decided to go back with the truck to lunch and meet up with Brett there  (I ‘sadly’ missed a brutal climb from 47 k to 57 k 😀).

Brett caught up and after lunch we climbed the 15 min remaining to the top then had a 10 k down hill. On the way down we stopped and took a photo of Ceuta, which is a Spanish city up the top of Morocco. It is very small about 18.500 people. There is a border fence all around it to stop Africans crossing the border into Spain.

A part up the top of Morocco is actually still Spain called Ceuta .There is fence to stop people from Africa crossing the border

From 67 to 97 k was along the coast with great sea views plus a slight down gradient and mostly on a bike path with a tail wind. Lots of sea side apartments and hotels.

Apartments along the sea side

We went past an abandoned house with 12 stork nests which we named Stork Castle.

stork hotel

At 101 k we had to cross a crazy busy highway with no lights or crossing. Not that crossings seem to count for anything here you frequently see people stranded on a crossing whilst vehicles whiz around them. It took about 5 min but we finally got a break in the traffic and got across.

We then turned into the wind on a rough road with busy traffic and a few small climbs. We didn’t quite get to camp, at 1.2 km from camp Brent’s chain got tangled and wound round on itself. We could tell just looking at it that we’re not going to be able to sort it so we walked the last bit to camp.

Brett’s bike chain 1.2 k from camp

Bubba the bike mechanic quickly sorted it by breaking the chain with a special tool and putting it back together again.

Bubba owns a bike shop and is from India . Bubba has been the bike mechanic on a few TDA tours but this is the first time I have meet him. Bubba is incredibly helpful.

Last night we had lovely views and a restaurant to sit in. Tonight we are bush camping behind a petrol station.

Camp at Azia gas station

Camp at Azia gas station

No way once again of putting pegs in so we quickly put our bags in our tents as soon as we had them up to stop them blowing away. No showers and no WIFI, so wet wipe shower and took some notes to remind me about today.

There are four toilets tonight we can use, 2 for woman and 2 for men which should help in the morning.

Phone towers in Palm trees

Seen on the road today

Seen on the road today

Day 3: April 16th

We were the last riders to leave camp. A bit of a mission to get back into the routine of packing away a tent, especially in the dark. It took quite awhile to get to sleep last night as you could hear the trucks driving past and dogs barking. Also other riders shuffling around in their tents. Around 10 pm 2 locals came and sat on the balcony playing music and talking and laughing but despite that I did fall asleep.

Today’s ride

Was nice and cool to start and the first part of the day was rolling hills. There are a lot of locals still using horse and carts and donkeys. There are a lot of pot holes in the roads and there are cars swerving all over the place so we had to be very careful as we navigated our way through. We went through a couple of small town then a larger town.

On the uneven road

At 50.3 km we went past the ancient ruins of Lixus from when the Romans were here. We didn’t have time to stop as a long ride today. Just after the ruins we went past a field with flamingos.

flamingos

Then there was a climb and suddenly it was very hot and there was no wind. The climb seemed to go on for every and I wasn’t sure if I was going to manage it. I was feeling a bit bleak as still 40 k to lunch! Finally we got to the top of the climb and stopped at a village called Khemis Sahel for a cold drink and for water to fill our water bottles.

Am I near the top yet?!

Turns out the next 18 k was all down hill then we were on the main road for about a km. Then we turned and went up a quiet but steep road for about 2 k. Then it was down hill again.

Half way down the hill a local had got out of a car and went across the road to a small shop on the other side. She saw Brett and jumped out of the way but was not even looking to see if there was another rider coming. I managed to slam on my brakes yelling out to her and swerve and missed her by about a millimetre. Quite a lot of stray cats and dogs around. The dogs have a habit on a quiet road of sleeping in the middle of it so I keep thinking oh my god have they been hit by a car.

The lunch spot was beautiful by the beach. There were horses and dogs watching our lunch spot with interest.

lunch on the beach complete with horses and dogs

I decided at this point having been on the road for 6 hours to catch the lunch truck back to camp. On the way to camp lots of climbs and some spectral views. We went past a fairly big and new looking hospital King Hassan IV. Given the size of the car park it’s a substantial size.

We stopped at the point 131.9 km into the day where the Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea meet, at the Strait of Gibraltar.

the point the Mediterranean and the Atlantic meet

At 144.6km was Miramante Camp. The highlight was there were showers and toilets but only two so long queues. By the camp site it was a plus that you could charge your devices but we were on gravel so almost impossible to put in pegs.

There was also a restaurant up the top so went and bought a cold drink so I could use their wifi. Most places in Morocco don’t sell alcohol. The TDA staff bought a couple of dozen beer to sell at cost price which didn’t last long.

riders chilling at camp

Tangier looks like an amazing city but we don’t have a rest day here. Adding to my ever growing list of places I would like to come back to.

Two things I have noticed

1. There are Australian gum trees everywhere, clearly they love this hot and dry climate

2. Despite living in some fairly basic conditions most of the locals are well dressed and sparking clean. It must be a challenge especially as a number of the houses do not have running water.

view from camp site

view from camp site

View from the ride today

View from the ride today

View from the ride today

Day 2: April 15th

Breakfast was at 6:30 am but unfortunately the restaurant was not well prepared. There were not enough cups or glasses despite the hotel knowing well in advance knowing how many of us there are. A lot of cooked food was being put out as riders were starting to leave. However there was tea and bread and spreads plus fruit so plenty to start the day on.

Overnight my pulse has come down to around 79 which is a bit higher than normal but feel ok to ride. Will make sure I don’t push it and keep hydrated and stay away from coffee.

We left at 7 am so we can stack up as many kms as we can before the heat hits.

view from the road

On the way out of town we went past the Mohammed VI tower which is the third tallest structure in Morocco, and the third tallest in Africa (Editors note: Though this depends on your source, some put it as the tallest in Africa). This was built to be a symbol of the new Morocco.

The traffic getting out of town was hectic and a couple of times we felt it safer to get off our bikes to cross the roads. We also passed the Parliament buildings. In South America there were endless stray dogs the entire trip. Here there are also numerous stray dogs but an equal number of cats. Like in South America the dogs don’t appear to fight. The cats are another story, have seen a number of arched backs and hissing and spitting at each other. The locals clearly look after them to the extent they are not starving. There are quite a lot of locals using horse and carts and donkeys and carts around here.

We went through the outskirts of the city and then some quieter country roads. We had a 20 km stretch before lunch in the heat into a head wind with a slight upward gradient. It was very slow going. We were riding on a range of roads from gravel and sand, tarmac which is smooth and tarmac that is full of pot holes.

There is a lot of rubbish on the side of the roads and the locals quite openly throw bags of rubbish on the side of the road. I am not sure what the rubbish collection arrangements are but some of the rubbish looks like it has been there a long time.

Lots of the locals wave and call out and also people in cars at times toot and wave and yell out bravo! In general the local people are welcoming.

About 5 km after lunch we ran into a few groups of school children who wanted to interact and do hand swipes etc. In general it was all very friendly but one group of small boys took it a bit far and tried to put long sticks through our spokes. I lost the sarong off the back of my bike and another rider lost her tail light. This rider however speaks French and Spanish and was able to talk to the group and get the tail light back. I didn’t realise until later my sarong had gone. I had a sarong on my bike to wrap around myself when I went into a shop etc.

storks

After 6 hours and 100 km on the bike with long straights with potholes, and a head wind, and a slight up gradientm when the lunch truck came past I gave a thumbs down. Thumbs down means stop, thumbs up means all good and the lunch truck goes past. The lunch truck stopped and I got a lift the rest of the way to camp. Brett kept riding.

The place we are staying is by the sea but not a swimming beach. There was limited space on the grass for tents. Some of the later riders ended up putting their tents onto concrete.

This is my first night in a tent for 5 years. After 5 years I was having trouble remembering which way to put the poles went. Luckily Tony helped me put it up.

The camp ran out of cold drinks after the first 15 riders, then also ran out of water for the showers. They had to refill the tank.

Dinner was outside with TDA cooking rice with tomatoes and chicken with salad . I was in my tent lights out by 8 pm.

Sunset over camp

Day 1: April 14th – Leaving Casablanca

Awake before the alarm went off at 5:30. Very broken sleep due to the partying but am excited about getting out onto to the road. The restaurant was very organised today unlike the last few days when everything kept running out.

After pumping the tyres and all getting together in a group it was time to leave. My exit was not great as I lost my chain after 20 metres and had to stop. Luckily we were not in a convoy so the whole group did not have to stop and wait.

We met just before the King Hassan 11 Mosque for a group photo. Despite the TDA media person taking great effort to get everyone in the rider in front of me moved just before each shot. I am towards the end on the right, you can see my arm with a white arm warmer sticking up in the air (behind the orange fluro vest).

Michele and Tony

There was a local there called Mohamed who was having a quiet day fishing until we turned up. He was very friendly and was happy to have a photo taken with me.

With local fisherman Mohamed, King Hassan 11 Mosque in the back ground 

Time to leave. The first 5 km was riding through the city keeping an eye on the traffic. Remembering to stay on the right hand side of the road not the left. Nice and cool to start the day.

On the outskirts of town we started seeing little vans, the size of ford escort vans, set up as a coffee vendor in the back.

Photo from TDA Facebook page

There are a lot of stray dogs in Morocco but none of them are skinny so are clearly being feed. There were also a few with chips on their ears and sure enough there are a number of animal protection groups in Morrocco including MAA – Morocco Animal Aid.

At approx 9:30 it is like a switch was turned on, ‘cool and not much wind’ turned to ‘really hot and windy’. Of course it was head wind. We stopped about 20 k before lunch at a service station to have a cold drink. Unfortunately there were no cold drinks so we had coffee and a water. The coffee was in a small glass and was very nice but afterwards I realised was probably very strong. 

The ride was not that scenic before lunch, mainly fields and buildings. Not long before lunch we went through a town and there were a bunch of camels. In a small pen were about 5 baby camels which I have not seen before. I thought they were very cute.

We went through a town on on the outskirts, I saw my first storks nest of the trip. The lunch stop was at the side of the highway with a few dogs sitting back watching hopefully. 

Bird’s nest, first storks of the trip

After lunch we were riding mostly by the beach with rolling hills. The day seemed to get hotter and hotter. Brett was leading and instead of asking him to slow down I was pushing my self keeping up with him. As well as this I didn’t drink enough water until I was really thirsty. As a result of a head injury over 30 years ago, my balance is not great. I am not able to coordinate getting my drink bottle out on my bike and putting it away, so I have to stop to drink. My son Dan bought me a pack with a water camel pack inside so I could drink on my bike. I had not started using it yet, was thinking I would use this when we were in the mountains.

Pushing myself and getting dehydrated, plus a strong coffee and a longer than usual ride, I managed to get an irregular and elevated heart rate. The next 40 k I rode much more slowly and had lots to drink. I found my pulse stayed elevated all day, when I went to bed was still at 103 to 110 but regular so decided to see what was happening in the morning. In the morning it still higher than usual but not significantly more. (Note added 17 April: This has not been an issue since as no coffee, not pushing to hard and staying hydrated).

View from the road

The last 2 k before the hotel we had to climb a couple of hills and then went into the walled city part in Rabat. When we got to the hotel our room was not ready so we had to sit down the lobby for an hour until about 3:30.

Walls of Rabat, photo taken from this site

Once we got to our rooms we found we had no towels. I went and found the cleaner and we got given one with a promise of another one in 4 minutes. We left the hotel about 45 min later still no towel but it turned up while we were out. The thermostat in the hotel was not working so we opened the window to let some breeze in.

We went to have a look around the city and walked down town. Brett was keen on a cold beer and on google there was an Irish Bar about 7 minutes by car so we hopped in a taxi. No sign of the Irish bar anywhere near the google site. Most of the locals in Morocco don’t drink alcohol so there are lots of areas where there is no alcohol at all. We did however see a Heineken sign and through a half closed door we went into what was like a basement, where there was a bar that sold lukewarm beer. 

After this we caught a taxi back to the hotel in time for riders meeting. The hotel the taxi driver thought we wanted to go to was the wrong one but luckily we recognised where we were and the hotel was just around the corner. We had riders meeting and then dinner. Dinner consisted of salad lettuce and a corn and tomato, onion and cucumber, chicken, rice, fruit. Initially the hotel said we had to pay for water but then TDA told them it was part of meal cost they had paid for.

Off to bed with the window open you could hear the sound of the traffic but the other option was to cook slowly. When I went into the bathroom I found that we now also had a bath mat.

Sunset from hotel room in Rabat

Morocco – 13 April 2024

We started off the day after breakfast with a meeting with TDA and the riders. Usually these last about 90 minutes, this was over 3 hours. A lot of it was repeating stuff most of us know but there were a few new riders so need to ensure everyone is up to date.

Bit of a scare: turns out I should have a number written under my stamp in my passport which I don’t. This is put in by immigration at the airport, or not as in my case. Luckily there is a Moroccan employed by TDA for the ride and he told me to use the same number as Brett, phew! Was imaging spending a day having to sort that out.

After the meeting I spent about an hour separating my daily bag and my rest day bag contents. You only get the rest day back on rest days so important to get it right.

Daily schedule bags to truck by 6 am
We have two bags
1. Daily bags we keep with us all the time
2. Rest day bags we only get on rest days .
Most important to pack the right stuff in the right bag

I spent another frustrating couple of hours trying to get the blog working with a few messages back and forth to Kelly.

We then walked along The promenade from the hotel to the Morocco mall which took an hour. It was very busy, crowds of families on the beach and the promenade enjoying the holiday. Lots of street vendors selling balloons, food, home made chips in a paper cone, candy floss and cake? It was so crowded it was hard to walk through the crowds.

We went into the Morocco Mall it was huge at least 4 levels . This is the largest mall in Africa not just Morocco. There is a great big sea aquarium that comes up through two floors big enough to have string ray and small sharks swimming around it!

There are 3,000 sea creatures in total. There is 264 gallons of water. Northern Africa is quake prone but the aquarium was designed with this in mind. There have been two quakes already without an issue. There is a glass escalator right in the middle of it. This is the worlds largest cone shaped fish tank (until one pops up in Dubai).

We went to a couple of restaurants to get something to eat but after the holiday a lot of places were running out of food. We ended up having pizza and burgers. I had pizza and a really nice alcohol free mojito, especially nice as it had lots of ice.

Photo credit: Michele – view from the restaurant

To go back to the hotel we decided to take a taxi as it was dark and still really crowded. There were cars and bikes everywhere tooting and people criss crossing the road.

Back at the hotel went upstairs for an early night however a number of people in the hotel were having a party which went on till after 2 in the morning. The internal party was in competition with the party going on outside. In the hall outside our room lots of children were running up and down screaming at top of their lungs. I reminded myself it was Saturday night. We also lose an hours sleep tonight as the clocks go back.

We have 5 days riding before the first rest day. Tomorrow we are off to the capital city Rabat, 99.8 kms away. So starting off not too heavy compared to the rest of the week, approx 400 metres climbing up and down.

First five days riding 

Editors note: below are some more photos of the Morocco Mall taken from this website, as I don’t think Kaye’s photo really did it justice haha.

Casablanca: 12 April 2024

We have a jug in our room with one cup and 3 tea bags of tea I have never heard of. Managed to find black tea at the supermarket and got milk and a paper cup from the restaurant. Yay cups of tea again for now.

Brett, Michele and Tony went off to find the bike shop that TDA had given directions to. Unfortunately due to the holidays it was closed. From the outside it didn’t look like a bike shop but I guess when all the shops are open it looks quite different.

We booked a tour of the King Hassan 11 Mosque with a driver that picked us up from our hotel and sorted out the tickets. We also didn’t have to wait in a queue. What an amazing building, completed in 1993. King Hassan 11 built and partially funded this. Despite there being over 12,000 Mosque in Casablanca none are big enough to hold big crowds of people praying. The Mosque had more than 6,000 craftmen working on it.

The Mosque is built on the sea to echo a verse from the Quran “Gods throne was built upon the water”. There is a 210 metre tall minaret.

(Photo from Expedia)

This is one of only two Mosque in Morocco open to the public outside of prayer time. The Mosque can hold 25,000 inside, 20,000 men and 5,000 women. Men and women don’t prayer together. Plus 80,000 outside.

(Photo from this website)

After this the driver picked us up again and instead of taking us to Scala Restaurant where we wanted to go we got taken first to a place that sells Argan oil which is very good for you. Argan trees only grow in Morocco. There have been attempts to grow them elsewhere but this has not been successful. We bought a couple of small bottles of oil.

The driver then decided we needed to see Turkish carpets. Despite a very through presentation no Turkish carpets were purchased. A bit hard to transport around on a bike trip.

We then went to Scala restaurant in the site of an old fort. Lots of different Moroccan food. I wanted to try tangine chicken but they had run out so I had tangine fish instead. This dished is named after the earthen pot it is cooked in. We all had fruit smoothies to drink, mine had carrot, ginger and orange which was quite nice but not cold. We asked for ice but they had run out. I think due to the holidays all the restaurants are pretty pushed.

Michele and I outside Scala restaurant 

After this we headed back to the hotel and had a couple of luke warm beers on the deck and an early night. Still trying to get on top of the time zone.

I am having lots of trouble with the blog not sure whether my ipad settings have changed but I can’t seem to save it. This has meant I have lost a couple. Also the internet is really slow and whilst I can get and send emails and get onto messenger I frequently can’t get the blog site to open. Happily Kelly my daughter who edited the blog for my first few trips has kindly offered to help. Thanks Kelly it is greatly appreciated.

Casablanca: 11 April

The Kingdom of Morocco 🇲🇦 is in North Africa. Arabic name is al-Maghrib “The land of the sunset in the west”. The population is approx 37.8 million people. The mix is 67% Arabs, 31% Berbers and 2.6 % Saharams. Its capital is Rabat, while its largest city is Casablanca. The population of Casablanca is 3.6 million.

I forgot to mention yesterday the ride from the airport to the hotel in regards to traffic. As far as I can tell there are no rules. No one stops for pedestrians even on crossing which was good to note before I attempted crossing on one! Lots of tooting and braking and motor bikes going on either side of you while the traffic weaves around. Sadly we did see an accident where a young woman who was not wearing a helmet had come off her motorcycle. The majority of people on a motor bike or bicycle don’t wear helmets. When they do they often are not done up or are like tin hats. The most I have seen on a motorbike so far is 5.

Also the law in regards to smoking are like NZ 20 years ago people smoke in restaurants, in cars and lots of people smoke.

The day we arrived Ramadan had just finished and the 3 day following called Eid Al-Fitr just begun. This 3 days involves of feasting and spending time with family and friends. This one only two holidays celebrated by all Muslims. There were lots of people out on the beach by the hotel including some on horseback mingling with the crowds. The draw back for us is the hotel we are staying at is old and not very soundproof and the partying went on well into the night. This included frequent car horns.

In the morning we went down to the restaurant and had breakfast and made our way to the closest mall. However due to it being during Eid al-Fitr a lot of the shops are shut. We did manage to get a few things from the supermarket and then came back to the hotel to drop stuff off before going off to see the sights.

The first place we went was to the Medina (name for markets) but they were shut because o fEd al-Fitr also. It was strange walking through a place that would usually be teaming with people when it was empty apart from a couple of small stores selling fizzy drinks and sweet bars.

After the markets we went across the road at a set of traffic lights and walked around the outside of the Hassan 11 Mosque. This was the idea of King Hassan 11. Whilst there are over 12,000 Mosque In Casablanca none of them are large enough for huge gatherings. This Mosque can fit 25,000 inside and up to 100,000 outside. We are going to do a tour tomorrow so more about this place then.

After walking around outside we went back across the road again and by chance came across Ricks Cafe from the movie Casablanca. Of course this is not the real Ricks Cafe, which was on a set in Hollywood. This is a replica that former American diplomat Kathryn Kriger instigated when she was posted here. Kathryn ensured it was an exact replica down to the piano and a black and white showing on the movie running on a screen.

As this was on my list of must go to places I was delighted to have come across it and not only was it open but it had space for us for lunch 😀. Inside it is truly just like in the movie We were seated with a view of the piano and double bass. The meals were delicious and the portion size very generous to the point we had no room for dessert. I had a goats cheese and fig entree followed by sea food linguine. Michele had a very impressive entree prawn on a base of melon and avocado.

After the meal I couldn’t resist having a seat at the piano and Michele stood by the double bass.

We also had a look around upstairs which was also set up in authentic Ricks Cafe. We decided to set off back to the hotel and have a siesta. We meet back down in the restaurant at 6:15 out on the deck looking at the view of the sea. We were all so full from dinner that we didn’t have anything else to eat. We did have a couple of drinks and also caught up with Jo and Nick from the South American ride. We spent a couple of hours reminiscing over the highlights and the lows of the tour.

View from the balcony of the beach:

Then time to head off to sleep. Our hotel room has a wee porch with an oval window out onto the street. The photo below is the view from there.

Flying to Morocco

9 to 10 April

The flight to Sydney was full and also left slightly late. I passed the time reading and watching most of a movie called The lesson. I ran out of time to finish watching it but was able to pick it up again on the next leg. The Emirates lounge at Sydney airport is very nice and it was also lovely and quiet. By the time we went through security and got to the lounge there was only about 45 minutes till we had to leave to board the next flight.

Once we were on board for some reason the take off was delayed for an hour. The leg from Sydney to Dubaii is already long enough at 14 hours which now increased to 15 hours on the plane. It was lovely though having a seperate seat by the window with no one sitting either side of me. I really enjoyed being able to stretch out full length and I actually managed to sleep for two lots of around 90 minutes which was a bonus. The glass of bubbles at the start of the trip was also a nice touch.

We had a menu with choices of 3 entrees, 3 mains, and dessert which was cake or a cheese platter. I had a carrot and cumin soup, then a spiced chicken dish for a main and the cheese board to follow. After dinner I settled down to sleep. Unfortunately after about 90 min one of the passengers had forgotten to turn off their alarm which then went off while they were out of the cabin. This woke up a number of small passengers including the small children😫who then didn’t go back to sleep for a number of hours. This meant neither did most of the other passengers. A few hours later I did get back off to sleep again for another 90 min.

Below photos of
1. bubbles while waiting for the plane to take off
2. me stretched out watching a movie

Once we landed at Dubaii and got through security we headed off to the Emirates lounge. The Dubaii airport is so big that there are a number of lounges and there is one just for terminal B. This makes sense when you take into account one of the terminals there you have to catch a train too. Luckily we flew into the same terminal we are flying out of which saved having to navigate round this huge airport.

Due to the time delay once we got to the lounge we had less than an hour before it was time to leave to board. The first thing that hit me when entering the lounge is there are different smoking laws here. We had to walk through the smoking section to the non smoking section.

As we had eaten on the plane we just had a couple of cups of tea and then took the opportunity to have a quick shower each. Then it was time to head to off the boarding gate. At the boarding gate we caught up with our good friends Michele and Tony from Tasmania. We have done a number of rides together . We first met Tony and Michele when they did a section of the South American ride 2015. We then did the 2016 NZ ride and the 2018 Pub Ride together. We also caught up when they joined for the Tasmanian section of the 2022 Australian ride. At the gate we also caught up with Jo from Perth . Jo and her husband Nick did the 2015 South American ride with us. Jo was one of the 7 riders who rode the entire way and the only woman to achieve this.

The next leg to Casablanca was 8 hours. While waiting to take off I kept falling asleep. After take off once we had been fed, the lights in the cabin were turned off and people settled down to sleep. Thankfully the two small children across the aisle from me were pretty good and didn’t cry much during the flight.

Despite falling asleep while waiting to take off I didn’t manage to sleep much on this leg but I did enjoy being stretched out and not having people seated next to me. When we arrived at Casablanca we had to disembark down steps from the plane and walk across the tarmac to the terminal. The first thing that hits you is the heat and then a smell which I can’t describe but is a smell I remember from Colombia and Africa.

It didn’t take to long to get through immigration or to get our bags. The bike boxes were another story! We had to wait at over size until the whole plane load of cargo had been off loaded . Eventually our bike boxes appeared which is always a very welcome sight. Unfortunately by this time at least one other plane had landed and the queue for customs was very long. We finally made it outside and looked for the driver who had been pre booked to collect the four of us. No driver in sight ! long story short after a number of phone calls and about 90 minutes standing in the hot sun our driver finally arrived.

The van was not suitable for 4 bike boxes but we managed to get them in by pushing them over the seats and headed off. We headed towards the hotel which was about 45 min away and all was going well until the driver started going down some windy back streets. We stopped in a very derelict looking part of town and we asked why we were there . Apparently he thought we wanted to try a hookah (smoking pipe) on the way. We assured him that we did not and to take us right now to our hotel! We are staying at the Hotel Club Val d ‘Anfa by the beach.

All going to time we should have been at the Hotel by mid day but was just before 5 pm by the time we arrived. I was pretty shattered and just wanted to get to my room drop of my gear and then get something quick to eat and get to sleep. In the foyer there were about 4 riders for this tour I had not met before trying to introduce themselves and chat. In the end I just said I left home 2 days ago have had about 4 hours sleep and will catch up after I have had a sleep. So I am probably pegged as the ‘ grumpy’ one.

We dropped off our bags and went to the restaurant and ordered a beer which arrived warm, had a fish salad and lots of water and was in bed asleep by 7 pm

off to Morocco 2024

At the airport in the Qantas Lounge with Brett relaxing with a glass of bubbles looking forward to another bike ride. On this ride we are catching up with a number of riders we have ridden with before, always so good to catch up and reminisce.

As before a reminder that my daughter Kelly is no longer editing my blog. This is because she is a busy parent now with two growing children Lucy and Eddie and a new puppy called Maple. So a warning if you are bothered by poor spelling and bad grammar I suggest you leave now.

Well getting ready for a ride is always a challenge but this time I threw in moving out of the house I have lived in for nearly 36 years . This was on Saturday! Cleaned the old house on Sunday, I had a few tears as I left the house thinking about all the memories of the time in the house. Luckily my 2nd eldest daughter Tracey is buying the house so it is staying in the whanau.

Spent Sunday afternoon and part of Monday finishing work which consisted of lots of emails to the two people covering my services. These emails consisted of sincere apologies for not having finished what I was handing over and an update of where I had got to.

Hopefully I have packed everything I need. In Morocco when we are by the coast will be up to 29 degrees. However crossing the Atlas Mountains which we do 4 times the temp can be down to minus 4. My experience biking in Wellington will be helpful as every cyclist here knows to expect it can turn nasty at anytime and pack accordingly. During the 6 week ride we are cycling 3000k and climbing 31000 metres. As a result I have actually done some training this time fingers crossed will be enough.

As always my sincere thanks to Oli my fantastic bike mechanic for keeping my bike on the road. Oli gave my bike a full service and identified all the issues and fixed them ready for the ride. Then at short notice when the gear shifter went Oli fitted my bike in immediately so I could continue training. It is so great to have a bike mechanic who also loves biking and is interested in my rides. If you are looking for a bike mechanic and you live in wellington email oli@oli.co.nz .

This is my first big long flight since the Africa trip in 2019. We fly from Wgtn to Sydney. We have a 2 1/2 hours stop over Sydney then to Dubaii 14 hours. Then 3 hour stop over in Dubaii where thankfully we fly into and leave from the same terminal. Then Dubaii to Morocco another 8 1/2 hours.

Those of you who have followed my blog for a long time will know I have never been able to sleep on a plane. On the long flights, frequently emirates, I walk round and round the economy cabin and occasionally stopping at the stairs up to business and wonder what life is like up there. Brett has generously upgraded as a bucket list tick off from economy to Business on the Sydney to Dubaii and Dubaii to Morocco legs on the way over and all the legs on the way home. I am going to find out what it’s like 😀😀😀. We are flying economy Wgtn to Sydney but are in the exit row . I am very excited and am hoping I will sleep.

On the road again!

Today I head to Morocco for the “Kingdom of the West” bike tour, details below –