A proper Off-road adventure between the Gorges Once warmth had returned and we had made tea and Jonathan had packed up his tent we headed out for what we figured would be a long day. We planned to head up past Tineghir and up the Todra gorge, before hopefully finding the bush track over the mountain pass that leads down to the Dades gorge. What a day it turned out to be..... Such splendour, the walls are vertical and I had to walk up the steepest part of the gorge, otherwise you simply don't experience the scale of it. We were [View Full Entry]

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Continuing the adventure, heading south for the Gorges of Ziz North Africa is a place you think of warmth, not on this morning...it was freezing as we drove south out of Fes towards the Middle Atlas and the town of Midelt heading for the gorges of Ziz. We were on the road well before 6, with the light slowly fighting it's way up into the clear blue sky, seemingly struggling with the cold morning. We had an excellent early run, out through Sefrou, with folk making their way to early prayer, wrapped against the chill of the morning. On out down [View Full Entry]

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A day, but what a day in Fes What an entrance, the road in took us past the great gate of “Bab Fettouh“ with the huge cemetery on the hillside opposite, just below the “Borj Sud” (the southern fort) Having managed to avoid getting the “motorcycle guide” killed in the process of trying to stop us and persuade us to use his services (he was riding alongside at 60km/h+ gesticulating wildly and trying to persuade us to visit his brothers shop, “best in Fes”, “best prices always”) we followed the signs for Centre Ville, it seeme [View Full Entry]

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Crossing the Border, entering Morocco and onward.... Well, didn't start off to well, we waited for the rush from the ferry arrival to dissipate at the border by parking on the beach front under the impressive walls and sea moat of an old fort, out came the Coleman stove and on went the water for a tea to pass the time, I went in search of one of the most elusive things in the “developed” world today, a public toilet, with the usual result of no luck, so being in the middle of town and not knowing what we may find [View Full Entry]

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From a wet and Windy YUK to the southern tip of Europe, which was as wet and windy!! After the usual mad dash to organise the 100 things that got left to the last minute we made it to the ferry at Newhaven on the south coast of Mud Island on a miserable March night, howling half a gale and raining, we thought it can only get warmer the further south we go....not quite, but a good hope being as we were going to Africa!! A bit of background is that I have never been to North Africa (the Ugandan-Sudan [View Full Entry]

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Back to Malawi, a lush green beautiful land..... Following on from the debacle of getting out to South Africa as chronicled in the last episode.... So nice to fly into a thunderstorm!! The captain had warned us in advance and we had slowed down, bit of turbulence (understatement....there was a lot of bouncing around!) then down from the clouds, the hail had moved off to the north-east of the airport, but the rain was still coming down. The captain circled once before deciding to have “a go”, always so casually put, but in we came, a very good if wet landing, [View Full Entry]

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Point Noire, Congo to Lilongwe, Malawi.... 4 days and lots of patience!! A laughable attempt to get home So this was it, the day finally arrived after 6 weeks my flight home was approaching and I made the biggest mistake of all, looking forward to it. All was set, having managed to walk into Point Noire and find an internet cafe that worked after the internet on the boat died again.... all was arranged to fit perfectly, out of Point Noire, after an afternoon stroll round the town and on to the beach, down Avenue General De Gaulle, past the [View Full Entry]

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Still trying to learn to type in HTML thing, so apologise for any mistakes I'm just going to add in here some photos of the rig, the GSF 135 on the Moho Bilondo field off the Congo coast. Before anyone gets to up in arms about it, just consider for me it's a job and someone would do it anyway and the computer you're using to read this with is probably using fuel from a fossil fuel powered station.... For me the best is seeing the aquatic life and actually now having an idea of how polluting (or not as the [View Full Entry]

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Dry land for the first time in a month! Well, if you can really call it that, not much of the experience I would normally look for, but the chance came up to head into town, via the FRC (Fast Rescue craft) so I took it to go and have a pizza in Pointe Noire. Having been on something that moves constantly with the motion of the ocean since 26th November, I ended up on a boat, anchored in Pointe Noire harbour and just after Xmas, 2 of the other guys I work with said they wanted to head into town [View Full Entry]

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Congo and Pointe Noire, a deep green sea holding the future of a country? Arriving off the Air Gabon flight from Paris CDG, I am joining the many "oil workers" that have descended upon the West coast of Africa in recent years. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised that the airport worked well and efficiently, passport control took less than 5 minutes, there was the usual gaggle of "give me luggage ticket, I will get for you" when you are stood next to the already working baggage carousel. I will be back to see if the same welcome is [View Full Entry]

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