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» 3. Bridlington meet 1st to 10th June
Brilliant post from Fun ... I_icon_minitimeby jolly camper Today at 8:24

» 4. Bakewell meet, 2nd to 11th June 2024
Brilliant post from Fun ... I_icon_minitimeby Ambilkate Thu 14 Mar 2024 - 14:20

» 5. Lee Meadow Farm Matlock, 11th to 18th June
Brilliant post from Fun ... I_icon_minitimeby Polly Sat 9 Mar 2024 - 14:02

» 2) Breighton Ferry, 12th to 17th May
Brilliant post from Fun ... I_icon_minitimeby Chameleon Thu 7 Mar 2024 - 2:16

» 1. Haxey Quays, 9 nights 03/05/24 - 12/05/24
Brilliant post from Fun ... I_icon_minitimeby Chameleon Thu 7 Mar 2024 - 2:07

» New Member Hello to all
Brilliant post from Fun ... I_icon_minitimeby beerdrinker Sun 4 Feb 2024 - 17:35

» New member
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» RIP Sharon Lomas
Brilliant post from Fun ... I_icon_minitimeby Polly Tue 16 Jan 2024 - 21:49

» Christmas greetings
Brilliant post from Fun ... I_icon_minitimeby Polly Fri 29 Dec 2023 - 21:35

» Emmisions
Brilliant post from Fun ... I_icon_minitimeby rebbyvid Tue 12 Dec 2023 - 13:36

» 6) Xmas meet at Whittingham club, 30/11/23 to 04/12/23
Brilliant post from Fun ... I_icon_minitimeby Ambilkate Tue 5 Dec 2023 - 21:56

» Rally Group Reminder
Brilliant post from Fun ... I_icon_minitimeby KSH Tue 21 Nov 2023 - 22:51

» 2024 meets open
Brilliant post from Fun ... I_icon_minitimeby jolly camper Tue 7 Nov 2023 - 21:37

» 2023 AGM details
Brilliant post from Fun ... I_icon_minitimeby KSH Sun 5 Nov 2023 - 11:14

» 4) Bridlington meet, 4th to 11th July 2023
Brilliant post from Fun ... I_icon_minitimeby KSH Sun 5 Nov 2023 - 11:02

» Techno
Brilliant post from Fun ... I_icon_minitimeby Polly Thu 19 Oct 2023 - 21:55

» SORRY
Brilliant post from Fun ... I_icon_minitimeby Polly Thu 19 Oct 2023 - 21:49

» Birthday greetings
Brilliant post from Fun ... I_icon_minitimeby Polly Thu 19 Oct 2023 - 21:46

» 5) Haxey Quays 29/09/23 to 09/10/23
Brilliant post from Fun ... I_icon_minitimeby graham & dale Fri 29 Sep 2023 - 13:49

» New meet lee meadow farm
Brilliant post from Fun ... I_icon_minitimeby jolly camper Thu 14 Sep 2023 - 23:45

» Morecambe
Brilliant post from Fun ... I_icon_minitimeby Polly Thu 14 Sep 2023 - 18:58

» 2) The Breighton Ferry, Breighton Selby, 01/05/23 to 09/05/23
Brilliant post from Fun ... I_icon_minitimeby KSH Sat 24 Jun 2023 - 19:56

» 3) Bakewell Rally 1st June to 8th June 2023
Brilliant post from Fun ... I_icon_minitimeby KSH Sat 24 Jun 2023 - 19:23

» 1) Haxey Quays, 21st April to 1st May 2023
Brilliant post from Fun ... I_icon_minitimeby KSH Sat 24 Jun 2023 - 19:11

» Rally Pack
Brilliant post from Fun ... I_icon_minitimeby KSH Fri 23 Jun 2023 - 20:42

» Apologies I've deleted pics of fbook group
Brilliant post from Fun ... I_icon_minitimeby Ambilkate Fri 9 Jun 2023 - 23:45

» Happy birthday Jolly Camper
Brilliant post from Fun ... I_icon_minitimeby John Sutcliffe Fri 2 Jun 2023 - 13:55

» 2023 - Motor-Homers AGM, time and location
Brilliant post from Fun ... I_icon_minitimeby KSH Sun 28 May 2023 - 20:04

» Hello everyone.
Brilliant post from Fun ... I_icon_minitimeby Ambilkate Sun 28 May 2023 - 19:25

» INFO FOR THOSE ATTENDING BAKEWELL 1stJUNE TO 8th 2023
Brilliant post from Fun ... I_icon_minitimeby Ambilkate Sat 27 May 2023 - 23:17


 

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The Burchies
SandJ
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SandJ

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SandJ


Posts : 452
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PostSubject: Brilliant post from Fun ...   Brilliant post from Fun ... I_icon_minitimeFri 28 Mar 2014 - 8:51

Agdz is a small town in the valley of the Draa river on the edge of the Sahara in Southern Morocco. There's water in it, which is a dramatic change from the usual dry river bed, and when we saw it we both did a "double take". A couple of days at the brilliant campsite, adjacent to the mud brick Kasbah currently being restored, and we were refreshed and ready for the off. 
Climbing out of the river valley, on the old road out of the Sahara North towards Marrakech, we climbed and turned up a steep corkscrew of a road. At 1600metres, we stopped to have lunch, and to enjoy the silence and the view from a deserted lay-by -right up in the middle of nowhere, hanging over the valley. A lunch stop can be very quiet, traffic is so light down here. 
No sooner had I switched the engine off, than a local appeared! Not so deserted then... 
He had dates for sale, and asked for any ladies and children's clothing. These people are exceptionally poor, and yet so cheerful. Sue said "Don't be so soft, we can't feed the whole of Morocco" but anyway, we provided him with olives, bread, 5 litres of water and a pair of jeans -and off he went behind some rocks, very pleased.
Having finished our half of lunch, the trouble started. 
I turned the ignition key- nothing. Puzzled, I tried again. Less than nothing. Some dash lights on, the preheater and ignition lights not being amongst them!
"Oh gosh, well I never did" I said to myself. Maybe they were not the exact words...
After a quick check I found we had lights, indicators and so on, but nothing on the ignition side. Just to be sure, I hauled the "house" battery out of it's hole and swapped it with the starter battery. The starter battery isn't easily accessible, but once you've scraped off that layer of skin down your arm you didn't really need, then you can reach the live terminal at the back. Try again- still nothing. 
I looked at all the fuses, none blown. Lifting the bonnet, I checked the ones Fiat decided to hide in an inaccessible box, in the dark, where they cant be disturbed- or inspected- without removing yet more unnecessary skin, this time from the back of your hand. Why do designers think we should be skinless, boneless and double jointed, with eyes that can swivel and focus through 360 deg? Gollum would make a great mechanic. 
I then checked the connections to the starter motor, and the more I checked the less I found. Bugger. 
I was thinking, whilst scratching my chin with a 10mm open ended.
At my shoulder a voice, in French, asked me if I was having problems- it was the date seller, fresh from his half of our lunch, and a friend. No idea where he popped up from. 
Things now started happening. They insisted on helping, and insisted it was the battery, then did everything i'd just done but twice as fast. They certainly looked busy. Still nothing. 
A huge truck arrived, and a rapid conversation in Berber resulted in the driver repeating all of the usual steps, whilst his truck rumbled and growled in the background. Then, he checked all the cables again, and scraped the skin off the back of his hand to get to those bloody (!) fuses. 
All the time, Sue had been sitting reading in the motorhome, having decided there was nothing she could usefully add. Her peace was shattered when the truck driver decided to try to bump us off in reverse down the layby! Very scary- this is steep country. Sue's eyes were like saucers, and her mouth dropped open in alarm.
It didn't work and the driver jumped back in his truck, waved cheerfully and silence returned to the mountain. 
My two companions scratched their chins with a selection of my tools.
Then the date seller made an executive decision, pulled out his smartphone, and yelled down the line for some minutes in Berber. Yes, smartphone- the Moroccans love their phones. With villages being many miles apart, technology must have made a huge difference to their lives. Satisfied, he invited me to sit down and enjoy the view as the problem with the battery, he still insisted it was the battery, would soon be solved. I got oranges out, and we all sat looking out over the incredibly rugged steep and arid valley slopes. 
From time to time, a vehicle would stop, and the date seller sprang into action with his wares. He wasn't doing bad, either. 
An hour later, a mechanic turned up. He'd got the local schoolteacher, who spoke some English, to give him a lift up the mountain. Clever idea, and we could now have a discussion of sorts. 
The mechanic quickly decided it wasn't either battery. How? By bridging two of my beautiful Sheffield-made spanners across the terminals! A 2 foot high shower of sparks must mean the battery's ok. 
My test meter isn't as spectacular, but it clearly wasn't masculine enough. 
So, we re-fitted both batteries with their shiny, newly cratered terminals, and the mechanic decided we would push the motorhome backwards, out of the protective lay-by, and into the road - then shove it down the mountain to try a bump start. 
I had grave misgivings about this. Very grave.
The practical part of the Moroccan driving test examines the candidate's ability to take a blind bend on the wrong side of the road, whilst having a conversation with a person in the back seat. And all this, whilst wearing a Berber headdress which obscures all but the nose. The driver absolutely must take the bend with 50% of the vehicle in the wrong lane.
I forgot to warn saucer-eyed Sue, who bobbed up again inside the motorhome when she realised she was being propelled across both lanes backwards, with a view of the valley floor straight down through the windscreen. She looked a bit bothered- more than a bit.
After 20m of trying downhill, it was clear that it wasn't going to work, so our mechanic announced in French that we would go back to town. "Ok, but what about the motorhome?" I enquired, confused.
"DANS le camping car!" he announced, as if to an idiot. 
The date seller and his mate disappeared back into the rocks. The schoolteacher was nowhere to be seen.Should I have read something into this? 
I did a quick risk assessment in my head. 
We will be freewheeling a 4 ton motorhome down a mountain. Ok. 
We are left hand drive, ok, but that means I'm closest to the edge. Hmmm.
The road is like a slalom course, and bends tend to be 60deg plus. Ok 
We have useless brakes without an engine-powered servo. Fine. 
It's something like 10kilometres to town. Brilliant. 
Stop thinking- it's getting scary. 
Say nothing to Sue, and she'll never notice. 
I climbed into the passenger seat, and the motorhome slid forward silently, gathering pace at an alarming rate. 
Jeeeesus, part of the barrier's missing , hard left turn with ignition on in 4th gear.
Oh my God, 60 deg right tucked up against the armco at 70kph.
A bit without a corner, probably 100 metres but sharply downwards. I prefer the corners, this just makes us go much faster and more out of control.
Scores more corners probably followed, and i believe we took some of them on our side of the road, but i had my eyes closed a lot of the time. 
My stomach was thrown right, left, right - I had a good grip on the door handle, but I've no idea why- what difference would it have made as we plummeted over the edge upside down?
A straight, and we were accelerating up behind a pickup travelling slower than us. "Merde, merde !!" the mechanic yelled.
We sped down the hill -left, right, up and down, whilst the mechanic yelled and tried really hard to run right over the pickup . Perhaps the driver realised that the Foreign lunatic in the uncannily quiet motorhome might have passed the Moroccan Advanced Driving course , and was capable of anything. He went left along an adjacent track.
Travelling at almost 85 kph, our 4 ton missile sped up a long gradient, and straight on over the top. Another 5 mins of downhill slalom, and we were back in the river valley, hurtling through a roundabout on the outskirts of Adgz town. 
Following the highway code to the letter, the mechanic nonchalantly turned the hazard flashers off.... then suddenly braked, turned sharp right scattering a group of schoolgirls, then sharp left and rumbled to a halt right outside his workshop. I looked suitably amazed. He looked at me as if to say " nah, done it all before" but I could see he was very chuffed with himself, and we'd had a pretty free run too. 
Best of all, we weren't even a bit dead in the bottom of a rocky valley......
Whilst our new best mate and his brother attacked the motorhome, I unclenched my butt cheeks and chatted with a group of onlookers, who always turn up to watch something interesting. 
Incredibly cheerful, Moroccans have to be amongst the most amiable people we've ever had the pleasure to meet.
The schoolteacher, newly re-appeared, asked me "are you alone?" The audience listened attentively.
"No no, my wife is inside -but she's a very quiet woman" I replied. 
It's not really true, but I don't have enough combined French, Arabic or Berber for the truth. 
They all moved as one, and tried to peer through the windscreen to get a look at the quiet Western woman, but thankfully they couldn't see what I could- Sue was half way down a very large glass of red! 
It might not have been her first. Perhaps she had noticed some of the corners, too. 
After shaking hands with half a dozen additional onlookers who wanted to know 
" where are you going, where have you come from, how much did the motorhome cost and- most important- do you like Morocco? -the repair job was complete. A replacement cable to the starter motor, and a lot of undoing, and tightening back up.
The crowd, the mechanic and his brother all shook my hand again, grinned broadly at the pantomime and waved, and we headed back to the campsite we set off from earlier in the day!
Returning up the mountain to continue the journey next morning, we recorded 14.3Ks from the workshop back to the lay-by. Some slalom.
The cost of repairs etc ? Sorry, almost forgot. 
Under £50 all in. $100 NZ.
I mean, where else can you get a mechanic, breakdown callout, an audience, repairs and two pyrotechnic battery tests-with a Wall of Death ride thrown in - for that price!!!!
Give me Morocco every time. 
Freewheelin' Steve.

    I hope you enjoyed the read 
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The Burchies

Brilliant post from Fun ... 300010
The Burchies


Posts : 3981
Join date : 2012-11-15
Age : 111
Location : Bournemouth

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PostSubject: Re: Brilliant post from Fun ...   Brilliant post from Fun ... I_icon_minitimeFri 28 Mar 2014 - 12:17

Enjoyed that a great read steve.  cheers 
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Tugga

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Tugga


Posts : 871
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Age : 30
Location : Bedfordshire

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PostSubject: Re: Brilliant post from Fun ...   Brilliant post from Fun ... I_icon_minitimeFri 28 Mar 2014 - 14:53

What a superb story Steve.  I was laughing so much I had tears rolling down my cheeks.  Poor Sue, I think I would've needed more than a glass of red though  affraid
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SandJ

Brilliant post from Fun ... 25010
SandJ


Posts : 452
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PostSubject: Re: Brilliant post from Fun ...   Brilliant post from Fun ... I_icon_minitimeFri 28 Mar 2014 - 15:33

It was a good read I don't think Jan or me for that matter would have been so keen.
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whistlinggypsy

Brilliant post from Fun ... 400010
whistlinggypsy


Posts : 4766
Join date : 2012-11-13
Age : 79
Location : Southport

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PostSubject: Re: Brilliant post from Fun ...   Brilliant post from Fun ... I_icon_minitimeFri 28 Mar 2014 - 18:51

Not very dissimilar to my escapade in Morocco when I broke down, good job I had Peter behind me, but these Moroccans can build a tranny van from a bag of rags. Fabulous Place and lovely people, gotta get back there someday.
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whistlinggypsy

Brilliant post from Fun ... 400010
whistlinggypsy


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PostSubject: Re: Brilliant post from Fun ...   Brilliant post from Fun ... I_icon_minitimeFri 28 Mar 2014 - 20:01

This was the start of our fun in the desert
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

This was the guys that done a great job and got me back 800 miles into Spain for a warranty repair which will not be done in Morocco and all thanks to Pedro the the Berber  cheers 

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And just for a laugh this is a Moroccan taxi.[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
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SandJ

Brilliant post from Fun ... 25010
SandJ


Posts : 452
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PostSubject: Re: Brilliant post from Fun ...   Brilliant post from Fun ... I_icon_minitimeFri 28 Mar 2014 - 20:11

Did I miss that blog Bob? Any links?
Ta mate
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whistlinggypsy

Brilliant post from Fun ... 400010
whistlinggypsy


Posts : 4766
Join date : 2012-11-13
Age : 79
Location : Southport

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PostSubject: Re: Brilliant post from Fun ...   Brilliant post from Fun ... I_icon_minitimeFri 28 Mar 2014 - 20:38

Hi Steve, I didn't do blog on that trip which is a shame really because we really enjoyed it travelling with Pauline and Peter and we saw and did some great things, I still have all the pictures so i might just get around to doing a blog but of course the dates will not be correct because my dementia is getting worse the more  Brilliant post from Fun ... 2823363253   I consume.

We fully intend returning to Morocco in the not so distant future and before my senility sets in, would love to do one with 5 motorhomers (thats a good number for a trip as you will always have your back covered in the event of a problem.)

Morocco is the second safest country we have travelled in apart from from Norway, but it does require at least 8 weeks minimum preferably longer to really get the experience and of course the different climates from the Western to the Eastern side of the country.

The roads are quite good but you come across one like this (only Joking) this was the road beside the road we where on going to the Todra Gorge a fantastic must place to visit.
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This is the actual Todra Gorge, and Peter would not go in his m/h so we went in mine right through the gorge and about 5 miles up the mountian before we bailed out  affraid 

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Hay what are you carrying, can you imagine the truck on a UK motorway, only in Morocco, that is what makes it so fascinating

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
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Dave Guice

Dave Guice


Posts : 2
Join date : 2014-03-02
Age : 66
Location : Leamington Spa

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PostSubject: Re: Brilliant post from Fun ...   Brilliant post from Fun ... I_icon_minitimeSat 29 Mar 2014 - 6:24

Great story thanks for sharing. Glad all was well in the end. Regards Dave from The Motorhone Podcast.
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http://www.motorhomehq.co.uk
Leapy

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Leapy


Posts : 3265
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Age : 75
Location : Staffordshire

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PostSubject: Re: Brilliant post from Fun ...   Brilliant post from Fun ... I_icon_minitimeSat 29 Mar 2014 - 7:46

Certainly brings back the memories BOB!
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