This was a bit of a fly drive trip for me. Gavin had 6 weeks, I had ten days. Just enough time for a quick jaunt down to Dakhla and back (to Marrakech airport).

Day 1 - Marrakech to Assa - easy to eat up the miles to Agadir thanks to a great motorway. Great little shortcut piste from 6km west of Bou-Izakarn down to Fask. Nice gorge and pools half way down. Then empty highway to Assa. Decent shops for bread and fruit/veg. The Police at checkpoint at the town entrance demanded that we stay in the towns hotel. We agreed, then drove out into the desert to camp (10km out the Guelmim road to be on the safe side).

Day 2 - Returning to town to start the run down to Smara using waypoints from Sahara Overland and the route description from Morocco Overland (don't ask!). This is a great route, full of variety and ever changing scenery. It looks looks it will soon be tar though. The earthworks are in place way past the village of Lebouirat. We camped in a nice fertile valley just 800 metres from the piste after a sandy section and Saharawi huts about 200km in.

Day 3 - Continuing varied terrain and challenging sandy sections, then a great run across the lake bed as far as the Spanish tarmac. Very rough from here. We soon picked up the new road for the last 100km to Smara.

If you want to do this excellent and varied route, this year may be your last chance!

Smara - Usual shops, but none of the stores on the main street sell fruit and veg. Nor does the market, it's mainly clothng, furniture etc. There are fruit and veg shops towards the south end of town, one street back from the main road (turn left when heading south).

The next part of our route was a 600km run down parallel to the berm, passing close to Galtat Zemmour, Bir Anzarane and onto Dakhla. We got out of town (telling the Police we were going to Dakhla via Layounne) and camped 15km down the piste in the shelter of a defensive berm.

Day 4 - Initially unpleasant stony desert ridges and barren landscape with corrugations, giving way to fast smooth sections, hamada and sand sheet with distant hills and small dunes. Many bands of acacia trees, giving a clue to the underground water perhaps in this area. Realising that we were only 15km from the Mauritanian border and with the knowledge that the berm runs well inside the Mauri border at this point, we plotted a course for the N12 W26 grid line. Judging by the tracks, we weren't the first. Easy, sometimes rocky with a dune crossing at the end and we were in Mauri for lunch.

Very pleasant driving in the afternoon with fast sections and an improbable mountain ridge crossing. We we soon crossed the N5 road 10km to the NW of Galtat Zemmour and continued SW for a few km to camp.

Day 5 - The morning saw us pick our way through frustrating low hills with no piste, eventually finding a huge white sheet of sand to the west of Sebaiera. Lovely driving, with banks of low dunes and the usual acacia to break things up. After a lunch stop at a dune we decided to head SE to pass through the mountain range - a real off-roaders delight. No discernable piste, just picking our way through never ending valleys, hills and sand banks. On plateaux and in valleys at times. Great driving and ever changing scenery. Soon werere back on the plain, the mountains parting.

At 4pm we came across a military checkpoint at N24.21849 W13.24884 and this is where the fun began......

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Fraser