Tuesday 19th June

After a record breaking 819Km today, I’m tonight camped at the place time forgot! I left Tan Tan Plage before dawn, the sky was just beginning to lighten as I pulled out of the camp site. Riding up the almost deserted street, I wondered why a  Land Rover was coming straight at me on the wrong side of the road… Yep, you guessed it I don’t think I had washed the sleep out of my eyes properly, it was me that was on the wrong side of the road, the first time I have done that in the whole trip! Anyway no harm done, we were both only doing about 20kph, so plenty of time to get it sorted. This may be sun-Saharan Africa but I left wearing my Merino wool thermal vest, a roll neck fleece and a pertex windproof under my heavy Gortex Jacket, and I even then I was only just about warm enough. As I passed through Tan Tan my GPS signalled sunrise by changing the screen colour, however there was not a glimmer of sun to be seen in fact it started to rain, only gently but it was nevertheless raining in the Sahara! By the time I had reached Guelmim at about 150km distance the sky had started to lighted and my fingers had gone completely numb in my summer gloves, so I did the only sensible thing and stopped for coffee and croissants; after all I hadn’t had any breakfast before starting out. The sun did eventually come out of hiding but it was one of those weak sun’s, playing hide and seek through the clouds.

Inspite of the weather I was having another good ride and I needed to! I am aiming to be on the ferry tomorrow afternoon so I needed to be within a reasonable distance of the port, in fact it’s now a run of about 350km straight up the motorway. I don’t usually do motorways on the bike if I can help it, but if I am to have any chance of being on Saturdays ferry out of Santander it was the only option. All I hope is that they can find enough room for one small motorbike and rider…Ok one not so small motorbike and rider! Which brings me back round to the Place that Time Forgot!

I’m on the edge of Mohammedia at a camp site, the coordinates of which I got from a camp site book for Morocco. It was supposed to be Camp Said, but in fact it’s the Mimosa Beach Club and it’s so weird it’s a bit spooky! It’s full of cabins, well wooden bungalows really, but most of them appear not to have been opened up in years. The timbers are all rotten, the grass is all grown up around the doors and the shower blocks look as though they haven’t been used (or cleaned!) since World War One! 

There are three restaurants around the pace but none of them serve any food even though they have signs out advertising all sorts of tasty things; if the werewolves start howling in the night I’m out of here tout suite! However it is only about £3.50 per night… I’d still rather my wild camp though, even it were free!