Morocco 🇲🇦 - Sand, Training and the Milky Way

170 kilos per wheel

We carry on through the sand with a view of the big dunes. You barely know where to point the camera first.

Today wheel change training is on the schedule. We had already done it involuntarily - but now everything is worked through calmly and step by step. Exactly as it should be.

For context: one wheel weighs around 170 kilos, and the axles carry 6 tonnes at the front and 10 tonnes at the rear. You develop a certain respect for the engineering - and for what a vehicle like this puts up with.

After the work is done we have more than earned a really good dinner.

The Tajine mountain

What a place to wake up. We are parked among dunes, the sun is slowly rising, and in front of us sits the “Tajine mountain” - which genuinely looks like a tajine.

After breakfast comes the next lesson. Practising very tight turns, we end up ploughing the ground so thoroughly that nobody really wants to drive there afterwards.

For once we stay in the same place today. That means plenty of time for photographs - and at night I try for the first time to capture the astonishing Milky Way with the camera.

The day of sand

We wake at the dunes and watch the sunrise from there. Then it is on through the sand to the next stopping place - which is, naturally, also sandy.

Here we practise reversing into a space. That particular skill, though, the last few months of daily life had already taught me fairly thoroughly.

To finish, I get better at night photography - and by now the Milky Way shots look about as impressive as the view with your own eyes.

Technical test day

Today every spare wheel mount in the group gets tested under real conditions: sand, dirt, awkward angles. Not every design copes well, and refitting the wheels in particular turns out to be a genuine challenge for some.

We had already worked through that topic intensively right at the start with our flat. Instead we spend today reworking how the motorbikes are lashed down - the terrain of the last few days has taken its toll.

Afterwards we continue over tracks and sand through the desert until we find another superb spot for the night.

• Truck
• Travel
• Morocco
• Desert
• Offroad
• Photography