In Chapter 10 of Desert Travels the cantankerous 101 leading my first desert bike tour was stranded at the Tin Taradjeli pass (above). As so often happens in the Sahara, the next person to turn up happened to be a diesel mechanic. Steve soon got the 101 running and, long story short, the following year we decided to team up and do a big Sahara trip together: him in his Land Cruiser, me in an old Land Rover 109.
For both of us this was the desert trip we’d each been planning in our heads for years. When travelling together briefly with my bike tour the previous year, we’d quickly established a shared passion for exploring the Sahara and set about doing a big trip together, each with his own 4×4. Though I’d been keen to head for the Ténéré Desert in Niger, we’d settled on keeping off the tarmac where possible and decided to head down to the Guinea’s highland jungles and the Mauritanian Sahara.
Nineteen ninety was not such a good year for me: post bike-tour debt, a bad crash leading to hospitalisation, followed by homelessness, a smaller bike crash which at least put an end to my dozen years of despatching. And finally my Land Rover, all set for a desert adventure with Steve, blew up in darkest Sussex at 2am, while I was doing some late deliveries.
As a way of keeping the tip on the rails Steve invited me to ride his XT600Z instead. I wasn’t that keen on bikes by that time, plus it would leave me dependent on him. But I accepted his offer and we met up in France, the bike towed on its back wheel with a similar arrangement I’d used on the 101.
Unfortunately, as so often happened in those days, all my films were lost on a flight in Mauritania. Since then I’ve learned: do not put things you cannot afford to lose in the hold baggage. What few photos I have were shot by Steve.
On the ‘closed’ piste between Fort Mirabel and Hassi bel Guebbour. Steve’s XT was nicely set up and of course all the essential gear was carried by the car. I’m wearing my airey, paper-thin Swedish Tenson jacket. Beyond wearing a lid, gloves and boots, the idea of wearing any sort of armour never occurred to me.On the gnarly piste up from Hirhafok to Assekrem deep in the Hoggar.I found this picture recently on the internet and am pretty sure it’s the same ancient Beetle we saw at Hassi Tabelbalet, just after the Gara Khanfoussa dune crossing on the Graveyard Piste.
“… A couple of hours later we reached Tabelbalet well on the far side of the erg and were dumbfounded to come across an eccentric German father and son in a ratty VW Beetle. Amazed that a forty-year-old 2WD had made it through the dunes, Steve confessed later that the Germans’ presence had soured his crossing…” One of the easier sections on the sandy trail along the Niger river from Bourem to Timbuktu.Tooling around in the dunes somewhere near Timbuktu where our trip was about to unravel.
‘I think I’ll head off when we get to Ségou [the next major town]. I’m not really enjoying all this riding around after you. I want to go off and do my own thing.’ I was determined to salvage the trip for my own ends. The shared driving had not materialised, the pace was ridiculous (we’d done around 4000 kilometres in less than two weeks) and everything I did was wrong or not enough. I didn’t see such a separation as a failure, it was merely the right thing to do if I was not to end up feeling resentful. Somewhere near Timbuktu. Too much vegetation for my likingGetting water in a village in the Malian Sahel.Fuelling up in Nara, just before the Mauritanian border.Digging out on the way to Adel Bagrou, the Mauritanian border post where we managed to talk our way in without a Carnet de Passages.Trackside break on the way to Nema.In Nema we picked up the Ghandi-like guide called Nani for the 800-km crossing to Tichit. Just as well; there is no way we could have found the way without him as most of the time there was no track (or he rarely followed it).Steve and Nani have a brew near Oualata.I remember this bit well – a steep sandy pass called ‘Enji’ about 300km from Nema by which time I was riding the unladen XT like a Dakar vet. When you’re good it feels like ski-ing.Enji is the plateau at the bottom right. This 1960s map shows a track, but in 1990 most of the time there was nothing but sand and annoying tussocks.Sunk down to the axle in the soft sands west of Tichit.
As agreed near Timbuktu, in Tidjika Steve went his way towing the XT, and I went mine. I met some American Peace Corps Volunteers and my travels in Mauritania took on a whole new direction.
Once in Tidjikja, I flogged my crash helmet to a delighted policeman. This time Steve didn’t even try to persuade me and drove off towards Nouakchott.
I’m parked up below the ramparts of the Saghro massif, just over the road from an old French-era fort where they filmed one of those ‘SAS: Are You Tough Enough?’ shows. Up in the hills, new-to-me tracks wait to be logged, but by the time I get rolling I realise I’ve left it way too late to do what needed doing before dark. I nose up a new track just to check it’s there, and up another new road over the jebel, but going for a there-and-back excursion seems silly.
Heading back to the hotel in the late afternoon heat, huge dust devils spin menacingly by the roadside. There must be some way of doing something new and saving the day. Yes: cross the ridge and ride Route MS1 out through Tafetchna and into the stony desert, then come back up the little-used east bank of the Draa river on a new backroad. I haven’t done MS1 for years and as elsewhere, tarmac has seeped up from the south and shortened the off-roading.
It’s only about 12km through the shallow gorge, but as always, it’s miles more engaging to be on the dirt and follow the track weaving through to the other side. In the shallow gorge, an abandoned track leads over the riverbed and back north, but I’ve never managed to make the link. One for next time on something lighter. As more and more pistes in southern Morocco get sealed, obscure trails become Tois or ‘tracks of interest’, but because they’re largely unused and unmaintained, they’re rougher and slower going. It’s a bit like mountaineering in the second half of the 20th century; once all the highest peaks had been knocked off, climbers had to start looking for harder ‘north face’ routes.
Tafetchna Gorge and the Jebel Rhart
Once through the gorge, up ahead I remember the water tower landmark visible at the village of Touna Niaaraben where the asphalt now runs to the N9 over the stony plain.
Touna Niaaraben: a ruined kasbah, minaret and palms against a backdrop of mountains: the classic south Moroccan vista.
Back on the bitumen, I nip down to Zagora for some fuel: the AT has peaked at 63mpg (52 US) on a mixture and 2nd and 3rd gear tracks and 120-kph road stages. I then turn back up the Draa backroad – an east-side alternative to the main N9 but it turns out to be nothing special. On the edge of a village I pull over by a ditch alongside some shady palms for a snack, then get back to the hotel pleased I’ve done something new today. Tomorrow I’d need to crack on.
‘Cheese’ handy if I hole another sump
A few weeks ago a Moroccan geologist got in touch. He’d spent the summer in the mineral-rich massif of Saghro on his Himalayan and told me of a couple of new tracks traversing the ranges. I traced one 100-km crossing from Nekob on Google sat – for me the most reliable way to find new routes online because unlike maps, WYS is WYG. Once over on the north side, I could turn east via the new Kelaa bypass and finish off by closing the loop via the classic Saghro route over the newly sealed, 2316-metre Tazazart Pass (MH4) back to Nekob. An action-packed 400+ km day of discoveries lay ahead.
At the fuel station west of Nekob I remember to reset my Montana correctly, then set off to see what I might find. Not far out of town, three dump trucks roll in which suggests the piste will be better than average and may well have been built for- or by the mining outfit. Once I pass through a small gorge and the ascent starts, there’s only one semi-deserted hamlet for 90km; not enough reason a track might get built or improved.
Soon, the distinctive Saghro vistas rise around me, a little different from any other range in the Atlas mountains complex. Buttes and spires jut abruptly from the dust and rubble, recalling Algeria’s Hoggar. It’s no place to be a lettuce. Through it all the smooth, wide piste swings around the heads of chasms and across the arid valleys.
It’s not all plain sailing. As the twin rear axles of the heavy trucks scrub round the most acute switchbacks, the tyres grind the sand and gravel into a fine powder which I just can’t get to grips with on the Africa Twin. And that’s with a Motoz knobbly on the front. I’m definitely struggling to find my off-roading mojo today. I put it down to the heat and the weight of the machine, plus riding alone on an unfamiliar track. After KM3 out of Nekob I didn’t pass any other vehicle.
Powdery switchbacks
Motoz Tractionator Adv
Soon I reach the junction where the much gnarlier and even more dramatic MH14 and MH15 routes come up from the south. I last came this way on the little WR250R in 2017. A great bike for those sort of pistes, but less of a high-speed highway sofa. The zen-like search for the Middle Way continues.
October 2021 – end of summer
March 2017 – end of winter
I pass the 2100-metre high point above the basin with Tagmout village and the new copper and gold mine – which explains why this track got built or improved. Tagmout may have been big enough to justify a mosque once. Now it’s just half-a-dozen scattered dwellings with adjacent gardens drawing on the groundwater of the basin’s dry river course.
I ride out of the Tagmout basin (there are a couple of left turns to get right, here), back up over a pass that leads westwards to the winding piste, a lovely trail curving through the scrub and rock at over 1500 metres. Apart from those tricky hairpins.
Within an hour the track drops towards Bou Skour and the high mountain drama is over. A couple of forks guide me around the old Bou Skour mine, past the village of Sidi Flah on the Oued Dades, and finally down into Skoura itself on the N10. I pull into the roadhouse for an omelette salad and a litre of yoghurt drink. While I’m waiting, before I forget I jot down the route’s twists and turns on the handy paper tablecloth.
I whizz along the new Kelaa bypass (left) in 30 minutes; handy to know for next time. They really must have asphalt and roadbuilders to spare if they’re starting to build bypasses in southern Morocco, although it’s true the section of the N10 between Kelaa and Dades is a near-continuous built-up stretch with attendant distractions. We used to come back this way on my tours after crossing Jebel Saghro via MH4, but the mildly more aggrressive driving on the N10 added with the sun setting straight in our faces on the way to Ouarzazate was not a safe way to end the day.
Back to now, soon after Dades, I turn back south into the Saghro massif and climb up to near Iknioun, then take the newly built spur over the 2300-m Tin Tazazert back down to Nekob. What used to take the gasping XR250 Tornados half a day now takes the AT just 35 minutes of asphalt and Armco. We first came this way in the late 1990s in the Land Cruiser (left), looking for routes for my Sahara Overland book at a time when so much of this part of Morocco was only linked by rough tracks.
Back down in Nekob, I get a young chappy on a pushbike to do me a selfie in front of the mural. All that remains is to bomb back to Tamnougalte, back to Marrakech next day and fly out the day after.
The plan was to come back for the Honda after leading a tour in early November, but rising Covid numbers in the UK (as well as DE and NL) saw Morocco suspend flights. Mass cancellations all round. So the Af’Twin is stuck again in Morocco, but at least I know it’s running well. By the time it gets back I’ll need to retrain it on how to ride on the right. C’est la vie.
Everyone remembers where they were in March 2020. Me, I was hurrying back from the Mauritanian border ahead of a nationwide transport shutdown when debris on the road punched a hole through my Africa Twin’s sump (left) as the Corona tsunami crashed into Morocco. With two days to get out or be trapped for months (as some were), what might have been a fairly easy roadside bodge with putty, dragged on for well over a year as my attempts to fly back to Morocco stalled. Read that story here.
Dusty AT
Go Lithium!
By October 2021 travel impediments cleared and travel confidence rose, so I flew out to 41°C Marrakech with a new battery and oil pan. Amazingly, the stock lithium battery took a slow charge and lit up the dash just like it should. Even the tyres (the rear an MYO tubeless) weren’t totally flat and the chain was in good shape.
Shards in the bashplate
Spot the difference
With these vitals established, I replaced the sump, oiled the motor and – with Hail Mary on redial – pressed the Button of Destiny. She fired right up to a steady tickover with no clattering or error codes! Nice one, Honda. Actually, the ‘MIL’ icon did light up on a test ride, but I wasn’t too bothered as those things can come on if your shoe lace is undone. It did remind me to check the coolant level which I did and it went away.
Next day I packed up and headed south to pre-run my Fly & Ride tour route ahead of November’s group. Even though it’s first year had been at Honda’s off-road centre in Wales, I’d only ever ridden the AT on the road so it would be a chance to actually discover how it handled the dirt.
Having not ridden in a year and a half, once swinging into the High Atlas’ bends, the creeping front Motoz Tractionator Adv knobbly took some adjusting to. I’ve had tyres like this before, though not on such a big and powerful bike, so I kept things smooth and gentle as I got accustomed to the feel. As so often happens, a day or so later odd felt normal: the very nub of the human condition.
Heading south without a group I was free to divert up a series of switchbacks climbing a hillside, just to see where they went. I didn’t think twice about it and the AT took to the gravel like the giant trail bike it is. I sometimes feel the trail bike layout and riding position is embedded in my muscle memory so then when I’m doing it everything feels fine.
I free-wheeled back down passing a few MTB-ing Marrakshis and near Ijoukak popped in to see one of my tour hosts, Houssain, who told me of a new track over the High Atlas which reached a high col further down my route but bypassed an initially gnarly climb. On the AT I was happy to dodge that particular ascent which anyway, was never a great start to my tour’s off-roading.
It joined up near the newish road which climbs up to over 8200 feet (2500m+) before dropping down the far side of the Atlas. A great way of breaking into the hills
In the blue ridge mountains of Morocco…
… On the Trail of the Lonesome Pine
After a tasty feed in Igli, down the valley I decided to check out a way across a river bed feeding a drying reservoir which I’ve been wondering about for years. But that soon proved to be beyond the limit of me and AT, and without going cross-country, the link suggested on Google Maps probably wasn’t there.
A good run up…
No way across
I scooted on along the highway over to Taliouine for the night, appreciating the effortlessness with which the big Honda knocked out these flat, main road stages. That was two tour days ticked off in one, and in the heat it was enough adventuring. Time for a brew.
Next day I headed into the Anti Atlas, following the new road east out of Agadir Melloul (MA13) to swing by a homestay in the oasis of Assaragh and see if they were still up for it. They were, so after another chai, I said I’d see them in a month.
From here it was down the ‘waterfall’ into the Aguinan valley (MA13), always an impressive descent.
Then out through the cool serpentine canyons and into the baking desert. That’s Jebel Timouka on the horizon below – an abandoned piste and no place for an AT.
Far south and at a much lower elevation, I knew it would be cooking down on the desert floor, so the best thing was to keep moving. As long as you remember what you’re riding and where you are [heavy bike; middle of nowhere], the AT zipped along the desert trails well enough. I very much doubt I’ve ever used more than half of the 88hp in all the time I’ve owned it. Topping up in Taliouine from the same servo guy who’s been there for years had returned 60mpg (21kpl; 50 US). I don’t think it will get much better than that; one of the juiciest bikes I’ve had for years. One benefit of a high-end Adv is you get quality – or at least, adjustable – suspension. Up to a point that means you can get by with tyres left at road pressures and let the springs absorb the shocks. And the knobbly front Motoz lead the way with a reassuring bite.
It’s only and hour or two but this is a desolate stage and the thought of having a flat on my still-tubed front was not appealing. I stop off on a ford a schnik-schnak and a cool down.
Once back on the asphalt the Palmer screen is working too well and I can bear it no longer. I stand up into the breeze to decompress the backside and generally air the heck off.
I get to my usual roadhouse where the tour 310GSs often arrive on fumes, but the coffee machine has packed up and there is no fresh OJ. Quelle horreur! So all that remains is a late-afternoon, 100-click ride ride back out of the desert and over to Tamnougalte where I’ll spend a couple of days to explore some new tracks.
The pool looks tempting.
All the veggies come from the adjacent garden irrigated by the nearby Oued Draa. And they taste like it too. Potatoes with actual potato flavour. Remember them?
A cool dawn. I should have got out there but fancied a day off – this heat really wears you down. There’s no wifi so I get absorbed into my interesting book.
Book Chapters: Chapter 4: The Trip of a Lifetime Chapter 5: Four Green Bottles Chapter 8: The Dune Corridor Chapter 9: Three Green Bottles Chapter 10: On the Piste Chapter 11: Djanet Chapter 12: Anna’s Southern Tour Chapter 13: The Cathedral Chapter 14: To the Land of Terror Chapter 15: Cracking Up
Most of Desert Travels covers my first attempt at running a desert biking tour in 1989. As it said on the back cover: five left but only one came back riding, but as well as the usual setbacks, we did see a whole lot of interesting Algerian desert along the way.
Some pictures by me, Pete Corbett (PC) and Mike Spencer (MS).
How to get the word out in 1988? Stick an advert in the biking press! Response? Close to zero.
Next: source a support vehicle. I get an ex-army Land Rover 101 with a diesel engine conversion.
101 fresh from the auction
Ford York 6-cylinder
Testing in Surrey. This is why we’re now having a climate crisis.
More testing on an MX track near Canterbury. Jerry rack and sand ladders in place, a raised air intake too
Michelin XS sand tyres. I could only afford 4
I organise a day out (MS)
on the Ridgeway
Mike’s XLM (MS)
The press campaign picks up
Clive; co-driver and cook. Note the ear defenders
Camped off the autoroute near Marseille
Marseille and we’ve already lost Bernie – he got his passport pinched on the sleeper. Four riders left. Mike and Clive have a chat aboard the ferry to Algiers.
Ghardaia
Campsite (PC)
Lunch break on the road to Ouargla. The chain on Bob’s Tenere has snapped.Our first desert camp in the dunes before Hassi Messaoud. (PC)Pete’s 1VJ Tenere. (PC)Next evening camped near Hassi bel Guebbour, we bomb around the huge dunes of the Grand Erg. Bob does an endo and sprains his wrist badly. No more riding for him.
Bob (middle) sits in the van while Clive rides his XT. Note the inflatable splint on Bob’s left arm. Later that day we leave Bob at In Amenas oil town to head back north once his wrist’s better.Morning at Erg Bourharet after the oil filter drama. Three bikes left. (MS)
Sand drifts over the road
Desert wave
We camp by the Tyre Tree with a couple in a VW Kombi. It was here that Pete’s trip ended prematurely in 1987.
Next day the 101 crawls across the Fadnoun Plateau. It’s rougher than it looks.
Clive rides Mark’s DR. The van is so slow he builds a stone throne while they wait for me to catch up.
Tin Taradjeli escarpment, the southern edge of the Fadnoun. That morning, passing diesel mechanic, Swiss Steve, helped get the 101 running.Big Fire Camp below the Tassili N’Ajjer on the road to Djanet.
(PC) The Incident of the
Unfortunate Gerbil at Nighttime
Delivery truck stuck in the sand on the Djanet track. (PC)Encounter with BMWs. Riding unsupported in the desert is a whole different game. (PC)After a few of days in Djanet we set off to take the Southern Route to Tamanrasset with a couple of other 4x4s. The heavily loaded 101 struggles to cross the Erg Admer dunes. (MS)On the far side we meet some sub-Saharans heading for Libya in a clapped-out 109″.Camp on the southern route near Tiririne, or maybe Tarabine. (PC)Nomads at the well at Tin Tarabine. (PC)Mark crashes out and his DR’s electrics soon follow suit. (PC) It gets hooked up to the van and stays there for the rest of the trip. Two bikes left.
Ostriches. Long gone from this part of the Sahara (PC).
Pete himself nearing Tam. (PC)
VW shell. You used to see a lot of these in the Sahara. Does that make them popular or unreliable? (PC)
Another victim of the desert sands. (PC)
Like the Pope on tour, he kisses the tarmac just out of Tamanrasset where he leaves the group to head home. (PC) There is now only Mike left still riding.
In Tam we meet up with Steve again and together head southwest, past the well of Tim Missao for the Malian border.
Tim Missao well.
We take turns riding Mike’s XLM.
At the border post of Bordj Moktar, Steve and his girlfriend carry on south into Mali for Guinea, and we turn back north along the bleak, flat Tanezrouft. With the heat and end-of-trip fatigue, morale begins to fall apart and I become a pariah. See the book for the grizzly details.
Pete’s map of our one-month trip in Algeria.
Land Rover 101 for sale. Two previous owners. Light off-road use.
In Djanet I checked into the campsite which all the overlanders used. here I met a couple of very rich, young Berliners, playboys you might even call them, driving a lovely FJ45 Land Cruiser loaded down with every conceivable accessory and on their way to Cape Town. Toyota had only stopped making the 40s a couple of years earlier, and they were still by far the most common vehicle in southern Algeria before the 70 series took over.
I’ve had a soft spot for the classic Land Cruiser 40s after working on a farm with one in Queensland in the early 80s. I think it’s quite possibly the only Land Cruiser with any character, the way a Series Land Rover has in spades. A few years after this trip I bought a BJ45 (petrol 4) in Darwin to do my Rough Guide Australia research. I travelled all over the NT and WA at 15mpg and nearly as much oil per kilometre. But it kept going for a year.
Back in Djanet, I soon discovered, or was told, that the route south into Niger had been closed nearly ten years ago and all the marker posts had been pulled up after too many people had gone missing. So that was the end of the grand Teneres to the Tenere idea, not that I now had the intention of tackling it alone. The route was still possible providing you left Djanet on the sly, but as this report from 2001 found, doing so can end badly.
While enjoying a breather at the campiste, I also met an older French chappy who was in the habit of walking round in his saggy underpants. He was visiting Djanet in a vintage, twin-engined airplane from the 1930s or 40s. At one point it had been used by the Vanderbildts to escape Nazi Germany. One afternoon we all went down to the airport, half an hour out of town, to admire the old plane. I wrote in DT:
From this flat vantage point [the old airport], some 20 kilometres south of Djanet, you could clearly see the unmistakable conical profile of Mount Tiska… the first and only landmark in the featureless expanse which leads across the Ténéré to Chirfa and ultimately Bilma, nearly 900 kilometres away. A waterless expanse of flat, soft, sand, this was the route I’d planned to follow with the only partly cognisant Pete...
I also met a French bloke who walked around with his trousers on and was riding yet another 1VJ. I’d chop off that mudguard, mon ami!
A couple of days later I set off for Tamanrasset with the two Germans in their red Toyota and a shy Swiss couple in a VW Kombi. That was nearly 700km, still a healthy distance, but with more landmarks and chance of traffic than the Chirfa piste to Niger.
We are near the point marked ‘Borne’ on the Michelin map, an important junction 241km from Djanet. Somewhere nearby was a big stone block, but all we found was this rock-filled orange oil drum which in itself is a major landmark. Here the regular truck route carried on northwest for Amguid, but we turned southwest into the low hills for Tamanrasset.
The map for Route A6 from my Sahara Overland book from 2005.
A shot of me and the VW from the Toyota.
We arrive at the ruins of Serouenout fort [KM300]. By the new millennium it had been reoccupied by the army.
A sandy passage somewhere on the way to Telertheba mountain.
Telertheba mountain (2455m), about 400km from Djanet.
An hour or two from here the sands turn to stones as the track rises into the Hoggar foothills.
There may be rubble ahead…
Ex-Dakar Range Rover could use some TLC.
On the outskirts of Ideles, the first village in 370km. Here we decided to prolong the tour by taking take the ‘Outer Ring Road’ around the Hoggar mountains via Tahifet village to Tam. The track was often two sandy ruts jammed between the rocks and boulders so I’m sure pleased I had the Mich Deserts and 10 psi.
A Tuareg chappy on walkabout.
Two signs in a day! This one near Tahifet village. By now I must have been running low on film. To think of all the photos that could have been (rubbish and otherwise) if we were not held back by rolls of 36 prints. My photography has definitely improved in the digital era now I can see and take risks.
The next shot is over a 1000 km away on my old nemesis, the Tademait plateau north of In Salah. The bike started chocking up and dying, with an odd hiss. Then it would start fine and run again, then slowly choke up and stop again, like a partial seizure but without the engine rattles – and that hiss. I checked the carb was OK and then assumed the dodgy 1VJ cylinder head or worn piston was the problem and the bike was kaput; prematurely killed by the tough crossing from Djanet. I pushed the dead bike off the highway behind a mound, took what I couldn’t afford to get pinched and flagged down a trans-Saharan trucker who dropped me back in In Salah. (Empty pickups were too rare to bother waiting for for the chance to load the bike). I thought if it gets pinched that’s one less thing to worry about and is the cost of desert biking.
In the In Salah campsite I met a Belgian hippy couple travelling with their baby in a VW LT35 camper. Well, Pappa Hippy was enjoying the road trip but, as so often happens, Mamma Hippy was not so in love with the desert. Explaining my plight, he kindly agreed to drive up with the LT and retrieve the bike next day. Amazingly, it was still there and intact. Back in the campsite the XT had the same symptoms, but without the roadside stress I was easily able to diagnose the problem: the silencer was somehow clogged and the trapped gases eventually choked the engine. I removed the silencer’s end cap and noticed the attached baffle’s fine gauze covering (left) was all clogged up with oily rust flakes. Exhaust gas has to pass through this gauze to get out the tail pipe. The bike revved fine without the baffle, but of course made a racket which may have leaned out and damaged the engine. So the easiest way to bodge it was to refit the end cap and punch three holes in the end to bypass the baffle. I’ve never heard of other 1VJ-ers having this odd problem, nor any other bike. Where did the rust come from and, more worryingly, where did the oil? Was it down to the leaded Algerian fuel? We may never know.
With the bike running well again, I headed back up the trans-Sahara Highway and on the 6th of January ferried out of Algiers port for Marseille. By past standards, this trip had gone rather well, the bike was well set up and I’d learned a bit more about travelling in the desert. This time it had been first-timer Pete who’d had to pay his dues back at the Tyre Tree. The Berliners had a rum do too: they rolled their overloaded Todje in Tanzania, cut off the roof and carried on to Cape Town through the rainy season under plastic sheets. We didn’t get to cross the Tenere, something I didn’t do until 2001 on a German tour out of Agadez, and again two years later riding off piste on XR-Ls from Algeria as far as the Lost Tree. These days, a lap like that looks less likely than ever.
By the time I got back to the UK the 1VJ engine was quite rattly and needed a rebore. I did that, flogged it, got another Benly and started planning my first Sahara Motorcycle Tour. More about that later.
Adventure Motorcycling Handbook 