10 May

After covering serious mileage across the desert yesterday we were hoping to do the same again, unfortunately today things got tough!

We left the hotel just before 9am with the aim of stopping for a drink and something to eat after about an hour which would be our breakfast. There were no petrol stations for miles, in the first 100 miles we saw only 2 cars! After 110 miles we came round a bend to see sand across the road, this isn't the first time, we eased off the throttle, but as we got up to it we realised it wasn't centimetres or even inches deep, it was a couple of feet deep! We broke hard and both came to a stop in the sand, unfortunately i was laying down, a few Sahara scars on the bike but no real damage!

Just to point out fully loaded these bikes each weigh well over 300kgs which doesn't make them easy to stop, with my bike tank and the spare tank strapped to the back I am carrying 45 litres of fuel when full, which adds a lot of weight!

After picking the bike up, dusting myself off and wading it through the sand with the help of several Moroccans that had just pushed their minibus through it, we were on our way again.

We continued to make good time and covered 180 miles by the time we got to a petrol station for breakfast! After this we did about another 60 miles to the Mauritanian border, this is where the fun started!

We arrived at 1.45pm and it took about an hour to pass through the Moroccan controls, then we had 3km of no-mans land before the Mauri border.

Not wanting to go off track because of the borders being littered with land mines to prevent anyone from avoiding the border controls, we stuck to the main track.... it was really deep sand which was impossible for us to ride through with all the weight on our bikes. After about 30 metres dad was the first to hit the ground and mum went flying, a car stopped to help pick it back up as I couldn't put mine on its stand as it would of just sunk in and fallen aswell! We decided to concentrate on one bike at a time, so I carried on but it wasn't long before I was laying down for the second time today! I got a bit further and reached hard ground so I could leave it and see how dad was getting on. He got a little way but it was just too deep and he was over again!

The main track we were following faded out into various random tracks, we had no idea which direction we should be heading and didn't want to get blown up! As this must be a common problem a man with a van turned up and together we got dads bike onto hard ground and for 10 euros per bike he would drive slowly the best route with mum in the van and we followed... money well spent

This 3km alone took 45 mins not including the 2 sets of border controls

We now had a choice ride 60km to Nouadhibou or push on another 400km to Noukchott. As we were really drained after all that in the desert heat and time was getting on we opted for the closer option

Although these bikes are designed to be very rugged we have to be careful as even after reaching Gambia we still have to do it all over again to get home!

Miles covered: 271