The beginning - What it's all come down to

The beginning.

Somewhere back last year, someone started a "trip to morocco" thread, which attracted a bit of interest, with several souls saying that they'd go. Thing is, back then, it was a raggedy group of individuals with no real game plan that met up one afternoon, and shortly after the first "meeting", the original poster of the thread dissapeared into mists of time, no longer interested in setting sail for the Sahara, and the thread disolved into sporadic, undefined posts, that were neither organised, or disorganised.
They were merely that, post. But, they prompted me to get on with it, and plan my own trip, I was going, with, or without company..

I had always planned to go this year anyhow, as a tribute to a late friend of mine Mick Dewhurst, with whom I was initially going to do the trip.
Back tracking a bit, one good thing did come from the initial meet up back then, that was in the form of Shad Williams, we seemed to hit it off from the start, similar age, similar interestes etc... You get the picture?

Shad and myself kept regular contact, talking over ideas and discussing possible spots to visit, so I set about planning a route, one that would cover places we both wanted to see.
Over the coming months, gear was assembled, routes were planned, offroad riding was slotted in where possible, and of course, one eye was always on the forum, looking for one or two others we may gel with.

Long story short, (so I can get on with the actual trip)
Darren, was someone we'd met on that first meeting back then, and he seemed like a good sort, albeit quiet. He'd kept in touch with Shad, and it appeared he was still eager to go. In the meantime, I'd been contacted by Allan, a diver out in Nigeria at that time, who'd seen the thread, and was interested in joining us. He would be on an "Unproven" Tenere 660, and a case of fly in from Nigeria, get on this bike, and ride back to Africa.

A similar, chance email came from London based engineer Jason, looking to hook up with us for the trip.

Blah blah blah, plan some more, blah blah and more blah .... that's it, 5 of us, enough for me, we sail from Portsmouth on September 8th, lets all meet there, and see what happens.