The Dunes (Erg Chebbi ) 60 kms
A Day in the Dunes (27th April) only 60 km but seemed like a hell of a lot more !!)
Our own parking at the Auberge Mamouche just in front of Dunes
View from our Auberge
Well this was our big dune day!! We left all but our daypacks in the hotel so was great to be riding the bikes unloaded!! Big big difference in the sand. We set off early after breakfast, stopped at local filling station to refill, lubed chains and dropped tyre pressure as low as we dared! And started heading around the dunes.
We’re in the sand!!
Dont worry Mat I hold your bike!!
Now this is fun!!
I’ll park here!!
Well done but can you get down!
I see that’s how its done!!
We found this abandoned hotel on the edge of the dunes – according to some locals it was destroyed in some floods a few years back!
Mat had been spending a lot of time in the Solarium before the trip and insisted on showing off his tan! Anyway we spent the morning driving around the edge of the dunes and occasionally testing our abilities by heading in and then back out again. As the morning went on we got more and more confident and started to get the hang of sand riding! It’s a very strange feeling at first but once you let the bike do what it wants to do then things become much easier!! Was hot work though so we stopped for a well-earned coke and a little salad!
In the afternoon we decided to try to traverse the dunes which would have meant riding around 10km as the crow flies to get across. All started well and we managed to navigate our way through the first 3km or so avoiding the massive dunes. It soon became apparent though that to get across we were going to have to get to the top of some really big dunes. Both our engines were at this point making pinking noses from the top ends! And the temps were rising – I guess it was around 35C!! I had visions of getting stuck in a bowl (between two dunes) and not being able to get the momentum up to get back out again!! Not life or death as we’d have walked out and had plenty of water – but would be a big pain in the arse getting the bikes back out so we accepted defeat this time and set the gps to trackback and got back out again!!
This was the most memorable day and so much fun!! And we got in and out of the dunes in one piece – both us and the bikes!
We got back to Mamouche drunk a beer or three and jumped in the pool!!
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