Planning

If the the Credit Crunch has a silver lining then this is it. Nothing like the excuse of an enforced break to justify a bit of an adventure. Last February, when I was suffering one of my 'shopping' hangovers I made the mistake (or providential decision?) to crank up the laptop and see what was on Ebay. I spotted a bargain go round the world motorbike and put a sneaky bid on it just for therapy sake... and won it. So now I get to use it for what it was designed for.

London is looking decidedly wintery right now and Morocco is the closest warm place you can get by land and sea. This trip was initially proposed as a 2 up with my friend Richard but sadly, somebody in his company had the bright idea of organising more work at the last minute. This one is just a recce Richard ;-) Mauritania, Senegal and Mali will still be there for a while longer.

The last few bits and pieces have been purchased and I am about as ready to go as I will ever be. At the moment it is a case of what to leave behind rather than what to include. One of the experts on bike touring in Morocco advises that it is a "cold place with a hot sun". So I am a little confused about what to bring.

Thanks to those excellent guys in 'South London Motorcycles' who let me sit in the workshop for a morning and ask dumb questions about how to fix the bike if I bend it. Unfortunately there is no RAC or AA in the boonies so some knowledge of how to use a spanner might come in useful.

Of the month away, I hope to spend 3 weeks in Morocco and the rest of the time getting there and back again.....sounds like the title of an adventure? ;-) Hopefully, I will get to update this blog regularly. The guide books say you cant do it all so I wont try. Last night, I checked the proposed route with a friend who actually lives there and discovered that I have planned to do far too much on some days and very little on others. I feel a little improvisation coming on.

My initial idea of a route....I will update the GPS track as I go so you can see how I get along.


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