Loading the cargo, packing the bags.

Time's getting short, less than 2 weeks to go and Sue's continuing to fill Elly with the things we need for the "kitchen". This is easily achieved, it seems to me, by taking the cutlery drawer out of the house and tipping it into the back of the truck....Same for pots 'n pans - just empty one cupboard into another, simples!

 I'm just kidding, of course. I know that every item has been carefully considered for its usefulness, weight and ability to do at least 2 jobs...then thrown in anyway 'cos you never know when you might need it. 😉

OK, OK, I am really joking. Honest. We've done this enough times now to know exactly what we need, so The Head Chef has been busy filling Elly's cargo hold with all of the essentials for comfortable living. These are not only things to cook in and with, but essential stores that make life a bit less spartan than Landrover Living might suggest it could be.

Most of this stuff is hidden away for a "Rainy Day" - for that read Blowin' a Hooligan  -when we need something to eat but haven't been near a grocery store for a week or so or it's too hot to cook with the hatches battened down. Most of it's edible with the minimum of preparation and, if it were me eating it without the benefit of Sue's expertise, would be an adequate if uninspiring meal. Fuel, basically. However, with some imagination and skill -which I don't have in the kitchen - these basic ingredients are transformed into something really tasty by Herself. My philosophy where "emergency rations" is concerned is that they should be as unappetising as possible to stop me eating them unless I have to. But, as they say in all the Survival Schools,"any fool can be uncomfortable" so luckily I have someone around who can conjure a gastronomic silk purse from a sow's ear.

We're now getting to grips with all the little jobs that've been waiting for some warmer weather to be done. The water storage has been carrying a solution of baby-bottle cleaner around for a week and I hope all the pipework, pumps and tank are now properly sluiced with clean and sterile contents. This couldn't be done earlier as it'd probably have frozen and split the tank, if not worse. Having messed about with ways of filling it, the addition of a breather and a filler funnel has finally overcome the difficulty of getting water from the outside to the inside without spilling it everywhere.

I had hoped to just fill the tank directly from the water bottles bought from shops but it spits back and slops everywhere. The funnel stops this. The bit of bent wire holds it in place so I can fill the tank single-handed from a jerrycan if I have to. We can still fill it with the normal campsite tap, but the necessary hose is something else to carry that won't have a lot of use on this trip. But...I'm still not convinced that having all the drinking water in one place is a good idea. As insurance, we're taking the small 10 litre plastic container we bought last year at the HUBB meet. If we don't use it for drinking water it'll sit on the roof during the day wrapped in a black bin bag. With luck and some sunshine it will have warmed up nicely for a shower when we stop for the night, but if necessary it'll provide safe water until we can get more, and because it'd be already warm it'll save on gas when we make the tea....think positive!

Elly is now all "blinged-up" with all the toys we like to take on holiday to the beach.

 All the stuff that doesn't like to be bolted on over the winter has been re-installed together with the Soft Furnishings, electricky gizmos, full gas bottles and cuddly elephants. We're not taking the woodstove; hopefully it'll be a bit warmer north of the Atlas in mid-April than we've experienced before in March. This also saves the weight of the flue and the fuel to make it work. I reckon we can always light a traitional campfire if we want the Cosy Factor. 
I've decided not to take the portable compressor either. We'll trust that the one built into the winch will do the job but we'll probably have a foot pump as a backup, not that I'd welcome bringing four 265 tyres up to road pressure with one of these:

A lot of effort, not to mention having to dig it out of the sand every 5 minutes. The only "luxury item" is a shortened ex-loft ladder. This is a skip rescue and will make it easier for Sue to help with the tent cover straps. The alternative is to climb onto whatever is available and try to undo buckles with one hand, the other being used to stay upright. Since it weighs about the same as a bottle of wine, I reckon it's a good swap...I might think differently in Smara in a few weeks.


Now there's the paperwork. Not just passports, medical insurance cards, driving permits, customs and immigration forms, fiches, ferry tickets, money and insurances but all the other stuff for navigation and just getting about in Morocco and Spain. We have phrase books in French and Spanish as well as Darija, so we can make a reasonable attempt at conversation in most places we'll go. The Moroccan Darija dialect (or language?) especially has been a real problem to research. Despite some local help to polish our vowel sounds it seems that every You-tube "How to Speak Moroccan" site pronounces vital phrases differently. Given that Arabic isn't the easiest of languages to master, this has been frustrating and time consuming and may turn out to be a waste of time given the blank looks we got last time. However, once again we'll inflict our bad pronunciation on the locals and hope they'll listen a bit more carefully! At least, it gives us the Moral High Ground  - we'll not be behaving like the Typical (British) Pith-Helmet-and-Fly-Whisk Tourist and just talk BBC in a louder voice. Not all the time, anyway.

A little something to pass the time on the ferry.

There's also those last minute bits of personal gear that always seem to appear out of nowhere for the Loadmaster to find room for. For instance, there's the stuff we need for the 2 overnight stops we have to make as we head for Plymouth. Here's our overnight kit:

Mike's on the right...Sue's on the left....






A few months ago we passed the word around that we we going to try to take some small First Aid kits to distribute to some of the more remote communities in the south of the country. This is as a result of several requests from people we've met - or intercepted us - during previous visits. We've bought some small car-type kits from e-Bay like this....

and thought they would be the total of what we could provide, but some very kind people at work  - a big Thank You to Margaret and Andrea - have donated enough for us to provide some pretty comprehensive trauma kits which we've made up in zip-lok bags - themselves excellent for sucking chest wounds! 
With our addition of a few bits like sticking plasters and safety pins they'd be adequate for most domestic accidents. A pity, but we felt we couldn't include any drugs. Even the fact that they remain effective long after their printed "use by" date and could be a great comfort to folk without access to immediate medical care, the lack of understanding of the written instructions might make them a bit dangerous to include even if they're just, to us, ordinary painkillers. There's also the possibiity of getting ourselves into trouble with the Moroccan authorities if we import any large amounts of drugs that we can't claim are for our personal use. There are recent reports of other people getting embarrassed by this in nearby countries.

 

 As well as First Aid, we thought about another aspect of health care; for the kids, especially. 
 

Stock image, not ours - but a familiar sight

Anyone who's travelled through the remote areas of the country will be familiar with the constant attendance of the local children whenever the chance arises, and like kids everywhere they've learned to take advantage of tourists. Not to put too fine a point on this, it amounts to begging...often for sweets (candy). The trio in the picture look relatively affluent. Most of the kids we've seen in rural areas are less well presented, to put it mildly...Anyway, wherever they're from the usual reaction to passing strangers is the same - a race to make contact and see what they can "score".

This behaviour has been rewarded by tourists over many years and has contributed to a wisdom that "all Moroccans are very friendly, the children always rush up to you and say hello". This might be true, but the kids aren't doing it at the behest of the Tourist Board - they've got wise to this source of freebies.
The people who respond to this friendliness with "cadeaux" are well-meaning but are contributing, in our opinion, to a potential problem. No, actually several problems. Apart from encouraging children to approach unknown adults - a dangerous habit to encourage - we've seen crowds of school-age kids running headlong into our path as we've driven past tiny villages, clearly expecting that we'll not run them over in their hurry to be first in the queue for whatever Today's Tourists are giving away. They'll survive, of course, providing we've seen them soon enough....but there've been several close calls. We've also had plenty of abuse when we haven't produced the demanded sweets, pens or money, which tends to colour your view of the ever-friendly locals and might put you off from engaging with them at all.
Anyway, to return to the point...if you feed an unknown child with sugary treats in our society you might get several reactions to your "kindness", one of which might be a good telling-off from Mum for trying to pump the Little Darling with E-numbers. In a society that isn't used to coping with the effects of sugar on teeth, you might earn a gap-toothed, blackened smile from a youngster who's won the "bonbon race" too often. And as likely as not from his Mum too. Rant over.😌

 
So, even though it might be a drop in the healthcare ocean, we're also taking toothbrushes and toothpaste to give away. 


Some these have come free from airline comfort packs and hotel rooms or bought with our Tesco vouchers, but the majority have been donated by our local dental surgeries.

The South Street Dental Practice in Elgin

Another big Thank You to both the South Street Elgin and the Lossiemouth Dental Practices who both responded to our requests for donations so well we're having to reorganise the cargo.

Natalie, from the Lossiemouth Dental Practice

We'll be coming home with quite a bit of empty space..unless we get ambushed by a carpet salesman who makes us an offer we can't refuse.

With everything packed or ready to be, we had a bit of a practise today. We've found that it can be quite difficult to negotiate rocky tracks if the Spotter doesn't speak the same language as the Driver. Things can get fraught. So using the Walkie-Talkies to avoid shouting we rehearsed some ways to drive over an obstacle course made of firewood logs. This is to simulate the difficulty of getting along a rocky track without smashing anything underneath. More difficult than it first appears, because the spotter has to convert "turn to my right" in the head into "left hand down" to the mouth while watching all four corners of the truck and not walking backwards. And pressing the transmit key at the same time.

Sue directed, Mike drove; the objective was to pass the wheels over the logs - representing rocks -  without  missing any. We succeeded, didn't have an argument about it and only hit the gate a little bit. Should be fine, then. No worries....

...and you trusted us again!

This was written over 2 weeks ago but I couldn't publish it from where work has taken me....The saga continues - trying to get a professional tyre balancer/wheel aligner/MoT Centre to sort out the tracking shouldn't be difficult but it appears that Defender wheel alignment is close to bloody Rocket Science, the way these guys are performing. I replaced the track rods and drag link ("cross tube") yesterday. Lying on my back on the gravel, in the snow, with a gale blowing around my ears. I did it because the experience would be valuable, not because I wanted to save the garage any work..actually, based on their recent performance it's probably a better idea to DIY. Anyway, since the parts had arrived in time despite the "Beast from the East" (a barely noticeable snow shower) I thought I'd get on with being proactive and save a bit of time. I tried the "whack it with a hammer against an anvil" method of separating the ball joints with no success. In the end I put the nut back on and just "whacked it with a hammer", underneath, hard - agricultural but effective.

Back at the Well-Known National Tyre Fitter in the morning I showed them how to slacken the pinch clamps and turn the rods by hand - no hammers, blowtorches or Mole grips required - and after a struggle they got everything lined up. I thought. Leaving them the bill for the new rods I drove home, noting along the way that the steering wheel wasn't centred...can you hear the sigh? To quote from an earlier post " a Landrover main dealer for the area is 200 metres away." In the course of conversation the manager happened to mention that they sent their vehicles to him for wheel alignment checks. This is the guy who declared ignorance of 4x4 mechanics, "we don't have much to do with 4x4s" remember? I'm beginning to think that giving the work to this guy was a huge mistake.

So, back home, on my back on the gravel in the snow, I note that the steering drop arm isn't pointing straight ahead. This limits the amount of steering we have left and right. I have 1 and 3/4 turns of left and only 1 and 1/3 to the right....I need to research this as I believe that a small amount of "right bias" is built into the steering geometry, but I don't know how much....in the meantime I'll put the bash plate back on, which is about all I can do before going away for a while. It may be that I just accept that it's "good enough" if the vehicle rolls in a straight line with the steering close to centre, and just move the wheel round to be centred. I don't like the idea, but it'll probably be the least worst option. The reason I wanted the alignment checked in the first place was due to the odd wear pattern on the previous tyres, and only time will tell if that's been cured.
Moving on to other minor stuff, we've modified the attachment for our DIY version of the very expensive "Trasharoo", which is, after all, just a big bag to put rubbish in...

I don't mind spending the money on one of these if it does what it's supposed to do, but the thing I don't like about the design is the way it relies on straps and buckles to hold it in place. Given the cost of the thing I'd prefer a more secure fixing. Straps are OK for something cheap and semi-disposable, but at £65 a pop, these things are worth keeping attached to the vehicle. In Morocco we've had people asking us for our trash, probably because it's imagined to have some useful stuff mixed in with it. We've even been approached by women who were working the fields during a lunch stop; they'd seen Sue putting things into the trash bag and wanted to take it. The bag was, and is, the canvas bag from a "follow-me" shopping trolley-basket. It too was held on by straps like the one above, and was just as vulnerable to being completely removed for its contents.
Our solution, short of investing more cash, is to make use of a plastic-and-fabric wheel cover as a carrier for the bag.

Fastened to the hard cover with short bolts and large washers, it's much more likely to still be with us at the end of the trip and it's useful enough to take the trouble to hang onto it. After all, with no facilities to get rid of our junk other than burying it - which we don't do - we have to have some way of carting it around that keeps any smell, flies and decay outside. The elasticated wheel cover is awkward to get off so is more secure, the bag has no straps to cut or buckles to undo and if we line it with a plastic bag anyone who wants the contents has an easier job. This includes us, so we can empty it more easily. I must be honest, I've been looking for a smarter container but haven't had any luck. I think an old army rucksack might do the job but for now the ex-shopping bag will work.
The Noisekiller engine blanket needed to be replaced.

It'd done good service for over 6 years but was now just a bag of shrapnel; the lead sandwich inside the heavy duty bag had just broken up into small pieces and wasn't doing anything useful any more. I was going to replace it with another, but the amount they wanted to charge me for delivery made it uneconomical - nearly a quarter of the purchase price added on for postage! Sorry, but I won't pay that, it's robbery and encourages the practice if I pay it. So, once again it's the Internet and some lateral thinking...

This is lead/foam sandwich, marketed by these guys. I bought the 1 metre x 600mm size, which is plenty large enough to completely cover the 300Tdi engine with a lot left to slide down behind it. One side is heat reflective but the other is self-adhesive. Since we didn't want to stick it to anything inside the engine bay we had to come up with something that would cover the adhesive, be hard wearing and also fireproof. After a bit of thought, we decided to try one of these:

It's certainly fireproof, cheap and big enough to cover the whole side and wrap over the other a little so we can glue it in place. Because it's quite a coarse fibrous weave it didn't adhere well to the self-adhesive layer on the sandwich so using spray glue to fix it might be best if it comes apart. It's also white so will show the dirt quickly, but we can put up with that. It may not be very hard wearing, though. Time will tell, of course, but the reduction - hopefully - in noise level will be worth it. The cost was less than half of the Noisekiller product and covers more of the engine.

While I'm away, the Base Ops Manager/navigator/head chef/expedition medic has been busy stocking up with all the essential stuff that we can't possibly travel without - in other words "We can't buy it Over There". No arguments with that, but I didn't realise how deprived the Rest of Europe is of some things... 

"Just the kitchen sink to go in and we'll be sorted!"