Day 7: Missour - Nador

Wake up at 5.30 with the local mosque's call to prayer, too cold to go back to sleep, get up to go and have breakfast, comfort eat for an hour or so in the coldest morning yet. We are in a beautiful corner of a growing town in Morocco, the trees are in bloom, the smells are evocative, the birds are full song, the sounds are all ancient and modern, it's an amazing internal film looking back, but the heating had most definitely been switched off.... Still, at least we get to ride the deepest river crossing of the rally this morning! After 20kms of easy road and trail we rock up at the river and find that it's reasonably easily navigable, two to three feet deep... Sit and watch one rider and then decide to just go for it. Roll in nice and relaxed, get half way over the two foot shallows with good momentum and then the front wheel batters a fairly sizeable boulder and shoots me off in the three foot deeps. I have no option but to up the speed to settle the bike which easily gets me over to the other side of the river but which also drowns me and gets all my kit wet. Still, glad I'm upright! a few kilometres more fast, fun, desert piste and then it's on to the road for a 40km blast, have time to dry out the gloves behind the radiator and the sun is starting to get some heat behind it, still arrive at the first dry river bed stage wet and frozen. Eat some of Nick Plumbs 'gummy bears' (Nick likes the red ones and Matt has bagsied the green ones so I'm left the wierd coloured 'e' number dregs...). After about 2kms of the river bed we have forgotten the cold, it's the toughest Ouedi we have ridden yet, endless and bottomless gravel beds, boulders galore and down to the water-worn bed rock in several places. Bike handles INCREDIBLY well with full tanks of fuel, sprung to unsprung weight ratio means even with WAY stiffer valving front and rear, the chassis remains stable even when I simply aim at the biggest rocks! I start to really enjoy the section attacking boulders as it they were not there and 'trialsing' over slick rock shaped like mini sand dunes. Dodging downed bikes and wheelying drops I feel I can put my front wheel anywhere I want, it's a lovely feeling and one that's hard to get when riding a couple of hours at a time every month or two at home. It feels like I'm riding the video replay and I know what's coming up next even before I reach it. Don't want the Ouedi to ever stop, but I know that the odds of the internal video player malfunction get bigger with every new turn. Have a sweet 'forest' ride through an ancient cedar forest in the hills in the afternoon, I ride more in the forest than most 'cos I get lost and end up in 'mountain goat' territory on 'pastoral cow' bike, interesting... Get to the port on time, it doesn't matter... Boat ain't ready! Get to bed on boat at around midnight, realise I haven't eaten more than a few jelly beans since breakfast - still, at least the German guest in our room is a 'World class' snorer, get some sleep but even being awake feels like a wierd and wired kind of sleep now...

Day 8: Spain

Eat a chocolate croissant and rush down to the car deck to find the van gone! walk off the ferry and onto the docks looking every inch the illegal immigrant stowaway! Jump into David Lambeth's support truck (UK Touareg rally rep) and then get the fright of my life when he shouts me round the back of the truck to witness what he says is the customs official placing a block of 'mareejoouarrner' in the chassis rails! We panic, re-run 'midnight express' through our minds on fast forward and realise that this not a happy film we are in.... It turns out he simply wants to place it there for the dog to get some practice and the two long haired hippy traveller types probably looked like a good bet. Spend an anxious few minutes wondering if we translated right and if he's working to a quota, but all turns out well, in fact the dog DOES need the practice, he fails to find the hash until almost led to it... phew... Todays stage is cancelled, Esteve Puygol was competing in a Spanish rally yesterday on the route were set to use when he had a terrible accident which left him paralysed. a very muted 100km road ride to a short 3km special down to a deserted beach kept us out of trouble a for a few hours and ensured we got neither food nor beer too early in the day. Back to the hotel for the finish celebration where the winners are held down behind an exhaust on full bore and then forced the 'drink' beer poured into the noxious jet-stream, these Germans are creative buggers! Suddenly feel exhausted and realize that some jelly babies and a chocolate croissant won't keep me going for two whole days, this is the most expensive diet I've ever been on...