2016 Trips

Morning All

Well, what a great year for travelling.

In June I travelled to Le Mans in France for the 24hour race on route spending a few days with some friends who own a campsite in southern Normandy after meeting up with friends at the circuit and watching the race and drinking far too much alcohol.

From Le Mans I drove across France and met Tom, Ralph, Ian and Jackie at the adventure southside show near Lake Konstance in Germany after a week at the show helping out where possible and drinking far too much alcohol I followed the Romantic route from southern Germany up to Heidelberg then cross country again via Luxembourg back into France, met up with more friends at the Le Mans classic watching the race and drinking far too much alcohol a great trip.

Back home then for August and jobs around the house done I then set off again for France and Andorra (due to some bad planning I had to miss Andorra out).

Then on to Spain via the Pyrenees and the tunnel wow I wasn't expecting the rise in temperature the mercury was topping out at 39 degrees.
The next week was spent driving south through Spain to Torre del Mar where I picked the wife up from Malaga airport and we spent a great week by the beach.

After dropping the wife off again at the airport I drove passed the horrible part of Spain past Porto Banuse, Marbella etc till stopping at Tarifa and waiting the arrival of Tembo, Silverfox and Colley.
After drinking far too much alcohol we crossed from Algercirias to Cueta and proceeded south through Morocco to Western Sahara.

Unlike our previous 2 trip to Morocco we spent more time on tar roads and stayed more in organised campsites but that said we did some fantastic off road routes from Bourdnib to Mazouga then following the boarder closely we proceeded south west crossing into Western Sahara making for the coast, shipwrecks etc.

We spent a night on the beach then the long trek home began.
My truck suffered some steering damage on the technical tracks which resulted in me having to take the motorway north at between 45 and 50 mph add to that a holed fuel tank the return trip was eventful. After around 2500k I arrived at Bilbao and waited for the arrival of the other weary travellers who took a more scenic route up through the mountains.
After 2 days we boarded the ferry for the return sailing to Portsmouth and home at 40mph

A great summer for me now the hard work starts fixing the truck and looking at routes for next year, possible the Western Isles of Scotland and a drive down through Europe to Greece.

Blimey, what a busy year! Next time you're down around Andorra, let me know so we can meet up. Me, after Adventure Northside in Northen Germany (another great success BTW), I headed south via Frankfurt for a few days, then on to my mate's place in the Dordogne - a couple of days turned into a week as he fitted a removable towbar to the Orangemobile (Range Rover Camper for those who don't know - it has fold down steps at the rear, hence it needed to be removable), then down to Andorra to find the fabled 'southern smuggler's route.


After a hairy ascent in the clouds where visibility dropped to virtually nothing, plus it was loose shale with big drops either side, I eventually reached the summit of a rather large mountain still in Andorra. A just under 3,000 metres, it was cold, wet and windy ... and zero visibility! Lo and behold, there I meat a group of Spanish bikers who told me the route I had taken wasn't the smauugler's route at all, instead it was a col which on a clear day had magnificent views of Andorra and Spain. Poo!!!

After helping out a quad rider whose fuel line had a blockage (I always carry a pin for unblocking the windscreen washers - it works a treat on quads too), I doubled back, found another track and hey presto, suddenly I was in Spain. Made it and still in one piece - result!

First bit of off-roading in the Orangemobile and I'm pleased to report it passed with flying colours. First of many I hope.

A couple of pics from our latest Morocco trip...

The third shot with the sand sea in the background is lovely.

Nice to see pictures of the soft sand without one of us (normally me) stuck up to the axles

"Stuck up to the axles" can mean two things though - either you're brave enough to venture where others fear to tread, or you're just a crap driver!  Let's assume you're the former.

Opps, I've just remembered the demise of the M Class Merc, perhaps it's the latter after all.