Just to say happy St. Patricks Day!
Irish Inside
The Irishness inside the Mog is bursting out!
Today only: Free Irish Coffee’s to anyone who calls round 🙂
A Tough life – for Man and Machine
Whats left of the truck...
Seeing as some folks were interested in the old plant equipment, here are another few shots of the gear. When I was taking them, the guy that looked after things at the yard (meaning the area fenced in by the rusty wire) came over to see what I was doing. We had no language in common, but he managed to explain that the truck with the total loss cooling system still works for a living. Even the tyres are pretty worn out. The good news is that it does’nt go out on the public road!
Steel belted tyre. Check.
Anyone got a multi meter? We seem to have an electrical issue...
The guy that looked after the machines, also cooked for the guys that drove them. They lived in a “tent” in the yard, and we had missed it initially, thinking it was a piece of a dirty truck cover thrown over some junk. We were wrong!  As they were many miles from the nearest town, they had to be pretty self sufficient. He invited us in for tea, and once we were sitting and supping stone cold tea, he went back to his chores of baking bread, and cooking a chicken stew. The chicken he was using looked like it had been starved to death, so we left him a pack of frozen chicken as we headed off. I don’t think he had ever seen a fat chicken before!
Anyone for Chicken Stew?
very handy at making bread.
Truckin’ and cookin’
the trusty grinder!
The Daily Grind
Well, the day starts with a coffee. Merv has been buying beans here in Morocco, and we’ve been grinding them as we go to make sure we always have fresh coffee. We’ve been trying to buy all our food here and so far it’s been working out well. It’s nice to support the locals markets.
Getting the pancakes ready...
Griddle bread, made by Claire on the camp fire.
Breakfast is usually porridge with Banana or Rasins – Merv’s with honey on top. Sometimes fruit salad with yoghurt, and sometimes pancakes. The pancakes go down well with Merv, provided he gets to put chocolate sauce on them, and probably bananas as well. For me, I go with lemon juice and a little sugar.
Griddle bread is another nice option, but the bread here is so good we usually try to buy fresh each day. Many camp sites and areas have guys that cycle between the trucks selling bread and pastries each morning. Now that’s service!
Lunch is often bread and cheese, maybe some salami (Brought from France, Italy and Spain, and almost all gone!). Merv sometimes has PBJ – Peanut butter and Jam.
This morning in the sea, this evening on our plates
Roast beef, with all the trimmings
Dinner is varied.  It sort of depends on the mood, and what we have in. We did roast beef once,and it turned out great. While the Moroccan meat looks fine, they dont create the same kinds of cuts of meat that we are used to but we have bought some mince to make Shepard’s pie, Chilli and pasta sauces (Credit goes to Lynda, who gave us a crash course in Italian cooking).
Pizza a la Mog
Everyone loves Pizza!
Where is moglander? 13 March 2012 (Western Sahara)
Western Sahara
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And we are on the way back up North from the Western Sahara. The map below shows where else we’ve been. We’ve traveled south to get a look at the “Western Sahara”. It has a lot less people, and a lot less of just about everything else too. Including the width of the roads! They like to play a bit of chicken when meeting oncoming trucks!
After leaving TanTan Plague, the first interesting stop was a sea cave, which had part of it’s roof collapse. This left a large hole in the ground, with a tunnel through to the sea. It’s pretty big!
We called to a town called Tarfaya, where there is a few things to see. There is a fort in the sea,
And we’ve a new toy to play with on the Moglander blog: Maps with Pictures. On the map below, you’ll see some photos which you can click to see in a bigger size. After you click, you’ll see the Lat and long, and after a few seconds you will see the thumbnail of the image. Click on the thumbnail for to see the full size. We’re still just trying this out. The idea is that anyone travelling this way in the future can see what to expect, and where.
Download GPX [maptype=G_HYBRID_MAP;gpxview=trk; gpxspeedchart=show; ngg_gallery=10]
And, A gallery of all the images, if you just like to look at pictures 🙂
garmin map test
This page should have a map, with lines of where we went, and the photos we took on the map at the places we took them. It should also show the altitudes we were at, and the speeds we travelled at.
Sarahs Walk [maptype=G_HYBRID_MAP;gpxview=trk; gpxspeedchart=show; ngg_gallery=9]
Love to know if this looks good…
Birdlife at Plage Blanche, Morocco
Plage Blanche is a 40km+ long white beach. At the northern end, there is a river that flows into the sea, and this means there is a river valley that makes it easy to get to the beach. It also creates a large area fo non tidal water, and this makes a good location for birdwatching.
Flamingo in flight
I took about an hour or 2 early one morning to see what I could spot within walking distance of the truck. I could easily see some flamingos on the water, and I started towards them. It was a bit further than I remembered from the previous days hike! The flamingo’s are not so gracious while trying to take off!
Getting all that neck and leg out of the water is not easy!
There were the usual gatherings of Gulls, both mature and juvinile.
Geese on the wing
Here I come, ready or not
ChiffChaff (Phylloscopus collybita) – Thanks to Simon Parker & Facebook!
Yellow Wagtail having a good look around.
Crested Larks cleaned up around picnic spots…
Always cleaning up…