Sorry to be a pain asking all these dumb questions, but knowledge is power

The big dunes Erg Chebbi in Morrocco. We plan to visit next year in May some time. Apart from pulling up at the edge, we fancy crossing them. We all have off road experience, but here in the UK. Is it do-able?? Any tips??

Thanks

the only thing I learnt about riding in deep sand was to give it lots of beans and don't worry if you think you are about to fall off - this is normal!

HI yes i drove across the southern part of the dunes 2 weeks ago in a bog standard discovery with road tyres aired to 1bar, took piste from erfoud to merzuga which brings you out on the "back" side of the dunes from merzuga.

only had one temory lapse of traction when i stopped on the crest of a dune as i thought it was steeper than it was due to fading light, my excuse anyway.!

lots of traffic bikes quads and buggys and lots of spanish 4x4's driving flat out everywhere.

regards

Gren

I was there back in January and the speed of some of the 4 x 4 was boarding on lunatic. One Frenchman had rolled a hire 4 x 4, looked like his passengers had got away with minor bruises. I would now think twice about riding a motorcycle in the area, these 4 x 4s come by so fast fill the air with dust and you become invisible to the following traffic. It was also a shock to see the huge increase in tyre tracks all over the place from the end of the tarmac to the dunes. Just a big off road play ground. Can’t be long before some one gets hurt and the authorities have to start restrictions.

A local had told me they are not allowing any more hotels to be built in the area.

Steve

Hi steve

yep same observations here, is it only the brits that do off-road slowly?

I was with my wife in a lone disco and had to get whay out to camp alone
but still found many discarded bottles.
I drove in with no trash and got to zagora with 2 black bags full of other peoples crap.!!

though did not see anything dangerous just careless.!

Great area though and well worth a visit.


Gren

Similar message to above - offroading in sand dunes is easy enough to do but required different techniques to offroading in UK. Last time we were down at Erg Chebbi I thought my mate knew what he was doing and then realised he didn't as he went off like a lunatic for five minutes not thinking at all about roll over angles / side angles / etc, just absolutely hammering it and ended up side on on a very steep dune where his top side wheels lifted off and he was temporarily perfectly balanced on the tipping point. After a significant brown pant experiance for him, we finally got him back out. Trick with sand is to have just enough momentum to get where you want to go, eg you need to give it a bit of power going up dunes to maintain momentum but you want to have lost nearly all of it by the time you crest so that you don't go flying off the other side. Also worth noting that Sand dunes are not uniform so that a dune can have a nice slope to drive up on one side but have a sheer drop on the other. Another thing worth noting is that people normally put some sort of pole / tall aerial / etc on the bull bar with a small flag in the air. This is to try and avoid two vehicles flying up from opposite sides of a dune without realising the other is there and crashing as the two crest. The flag / aerial gives just enough extra warning to stop - you stop quite quickly on the side of a dune.

If you want to see lots of examples of how not to do it, try looking at some of the clips on Youtube. Certainly when I lived in Aus, loads of people used to go out on places like stockton beach, north of sydney and write off their 4x4s, just by using too much speed, flying off dunes etc.

Hopefully none of this puts you off, its brilliant driving on the dunes and well worth doing, just need to consider some of the techniques.