The Route

Our route for the Moroccan Rally 2012 started in London and took us all the way to Marrakesh on a similar trail to the Moroccan Road Trip 2010. The difference with this rally was that we pushed on into the Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara, which had outstanding off-road driving to offer. We headed for Smara before looping back towards Tan Tan via Laayoune.

The full route, which we'd intended to complete in no more than 17 days, took us through the eastern side of Morocco as far as Erg Chebbi, not far from the Algerian border. We finished our time in Morocco by heading north towards Jerada, then east to Fes, before reaching Ceuta for our crossing back to Europe.

During our time in Morocco, we set out to take on as many off-road routes and pistes as possible. Tarmac was the last resort. Knowing us, we often found ourselves wandering around lost on a non-existent route for a day or two.

As with the two previous adventures to the Sahara, live GPS tracking gave our friends and family our location, speed and temperature every 15 minutes, subject to mobile data coverage.