Morocco GS Knowledgebase

2009 Daylight saving / summer time (1 June to 20 August)
During the winter months Morocco is on GMT. Morocco Summer Time will start midnight Sunday 31 May and end midnight Thursday 20 August and during this period will be one hour ahead of GMT (i.e. the same as British Summer Time).

The reason for ending Summer Time early is that Ramadan starts 21 August.

The net result is that compared to Spain, Morocco is

1 Jan to 29 March: 1 hour behind
30 March to 31 May: 2 hours behind
1 June to 20 August: 1 hour behind
21 August to 26 October: 2 hours behind
27 October to 31 December: 1 hour behind

Tim
 
GSHEAVEN

BIKE HIRE, TRANSPORT AND TOURS

This is a placeholder (post not yet finalised)

BIKE HIRE
GSHeaven has three 1200GS Adventures for hire in southern Spain and is happy with them being taken into Morocco. Contact Russell Howard on 0845 0046398, www.gsheaven.com

BikesHome in Ouarzazate can organise trail bikes. Contact Peter Buitelaar at www.bikershome.net

Bike hire in Marrakech
Loc2Roues: http://www.loc2roues.com/motos.php
Marrakech Deux-Roues: http://www.m2r.ma/
Loco for Motos (F650GS): http://www.locoformotos.com/
Marrakech Hotels: http://www.marrakesh-hotels.com/marrakech/carrent.htm

BIKE TRANSPORT
MotoMorocco
BikeTruck

ORGANISED TOURS
World of BMW
Wildcat Tours
Moto Morocco

GSHEAVEN R1200GS Adv RENTAL is taken over by Ronald and Carlo, who also own B&B Casa Don Carlos in Alhaurin el Grande, Spain, and Paul who helps us out with all bike related issues. contact us by our website or +34 6699 45046.
 
Good camping spot between Rabat & Casablanca

Camping L'Ocean Bleu
Stayed here when I was waiting for the Mauritania visa in Rabat. Nice campsite with plenty of shade. Good hot showers and the guy lets you use the Internet in the office. About £6 for 2 people, 2 bikes & 2 tents. There's a resturant onsite - but this wasn't open in early Nov.

It's signposted from the coast road. The route in is off putting but keep going.

N 33 44' 15.30" W 7 19' 27.74"
 
Ones again Tim comes to the rescue, I stayed at 'Chez Julia' in Merzouga, found it in Tim's waypoint file.

Julia now (if not always) have a house across from the street where there is an enclosed yard for bikes, also according to the people from the Dash 2010, this house can also be used for sleeping for groups.

"Lonely Planet Morocco" is wrong, it's not Moroccans which are cooking, she is and it some of the best moroccan food I've had for a while (next after Bikers Home).

She does not have email (someone should tell her to get it), but she can be contacted by phone: 00212/05 35 57 31 82, mobile: 00212/06 70 18 13 60.

N31"05'937 W04"00'850

No english, only French or German, one of her empoyees do speak English.

Another thing, during Easter the whole area around Merzouga is filled with Spanish mad people, probably not the best time to go.

Casper
 
morocco

Hi Tim, I think me and a pal met you on the ferry last year(spain to portsmouth) we was on 2 KTM 990 dakars, going out to Morocco next may, 4 of us, was interested in if you`ve bought the book out yet? if i have the right person be good to meet up if your out there, taking 600`s for a bit more fun!! just dried out from the ride home. cheers:beerjug::beerjug:
 
Fiche spreadsheet

Hi Tim
I used your excellent fiches last time I went to Morrocco. They were brilliant for hotels and saved a lot of effort.
I'm off to Morocco next April and, in an idle moment, copied your fiche doc again from the link on here. For some reason, I can't get the "Destination" and "Provenance" cells to copy into the other copies on the document.
I'm not nearly clever enough to replicate the way you've created this file but, when you get a moment, could you possibly have a look at check that's it's not me being an idiot?
It's also timely to thank you for all the invaluable work you do on here, which has helped give me the confidence to travel independently next time.
Cheers
Geoff
 
WAYPOINT FILE DECEMBER 2011
This is the latest release of the hotel and campsite waypoint collection with more than 220 listings. Some of the entries include telephone/email/web contact details, also an idea of price, and sometimes the facilities (pool, bar, wifi etc). It's in .gpx format so should be usable with all GPS receivers.

Post #5 on this thread

Tim
 
Thanks Tim

You really are a star * .
Thats reallly good, i'll get busy and start loading..cheers Mate.
That a cerveza i need to buy you..Paul

EDIT.. worked an absolute treat...easy peasy..chuffed to bits.straight into the custom poi's

Tim,have you got any poi's done for border pay as you go insurance, and or cash machines/ bureau de change etc, if so this just gets better by the minute.
 
I used your excellent fiches last time I went to Morrocco.... For some reason, I can't get the "Destination" and "Provenance" cells to copy into the other copies on the document

There's a reason for that. :augie

The destination and provenance (the place you are going to next and the place you are coming from) change every day, so these fields should be blank when you print the sheet so that you can handwrite the details later.
 
Rif Mountains

Just to add to the post about the Rif mountains (No 12): I had plenty of time in hand last week so thought that I'd head up the road through Mokrisset and Zoumi then go and have a look at the big lake shown on the map .. a number of observations to make: the road starts out fine, and detiorates progressively. The wild west starts here. However many yellow and white roads are shown on the map, there are many more not shown, and no signposts, and it's not always logical which way to go. The towns are scary. The tarmac runs out altogether, and the potholes are deep enough to land on the bash plate on a number of occasions. That said, it was interesting to ride, but however realistic you think you're being about rate of progress, I reckon that if I was making an average of 25 to 30 kph I was doing well in places. I also found myself speculating on the strength of the standard Vario pannier plastic lugs ............ however, they held up fine. The main point I'm making is that progress is slower than you might expect so leave plenty of time if you go off on that sort of excursion.
 
correction location petrol station

Hello Tim
Very informative and interesting website. Just went 4 days in Morocco last month (or is it the one before...) just to have a first introduction.

As I am riding a Xchallenge with very little autonomy, almost ran out of gas in various opportunities. I'd like to make a correction on the POI list, on the location of a gas station. there is one here at N34 26.759 W5 07.365
on the POI list there is one a few km before (going from North to South) but that waypoint is an intersection and there is no gas station. might as well eliminate it and put that one. It is a afriquia gas station, although a rural, small one.

cheers

claude
 
Daylight saving/summertime dates for 2014

Daylight saving was only introduced a few years back, initially in a very limited way (i.e. end May to mid August). It has gradually been extended with the end date being pushed back to end September, now almost to the end of October. And the start date has been brought forward to end April.

With 2014, the dates have finally been aligned with Europe (hurrah) with a start date of 30 March and an end date of 26 October.

As in previous years there will be a temporary realignment back to winter time during the month of Ramadan which is expected to be 29 June through to 29 July.
 
Recently back from 14 days in Morocco
To maximise time in Morocco I had my bike transported to Spain and flew in and out of Malaga

www.aegtransport.com
They are based in Alhaurin el Grande only 25mins from Malaga. Owner Tony picked me up and dropped me off at malaga airport and bike arrived bike at my home four days after me dropping it off in Spain.

Great service from them.
 
Hi,
Just got back from Morocco, we did a one-week guided ride and have seen the most wonderful country and nature:) We have been renting a bike there and followed a quite unconventional but beautiful route from Rabat, Asilah, Moulay Bousselham, Rif mountains, Chefchaouen. The climate is awesome, mild in January as well, only in the mountains its cold during the night, however we have got sunshine every day! The best place we have been was in Moulay Bousselham, the Villa Nora with awesome hospitality -as you can expect in Morocco everywhere- great dinner on the seaside terrace. The guy who operates the place is a Moroccan but speaks real British English...Last, but not least, thank you Greg -our fantastic guide- who guided us along the trip and assured that everybody's need has been catered for. (I am gluten-intolerant, but he arranged appropriate meals for me) Thank you www.wheelsofmorocco.ma for the awesome trip!!!
 
DOCUMENTS AND PROCEDURES

DOCUMENTS
Your passport will need to be valid until your return ticket, or for three months which is the longest for which you can get entry. A visa is not required for British nationals. You don't need an international driving licence, but should take your British driving licence. You don't need a carnet but will need your vehicle logbook (V5) and check the address matches that of your driving licence!

Hi Tim,

I just wanted to see if a photocopy of the logbook (V5) would suffice as I'm planning a last minute break to Morocco and don't have it with me!!

Thanks
Phil
 
Hmm, you're supposed to carry the registration papers in Spain as well. I managed to get through with a new vehicle when DVLC hadn't produced the logbook in time, though I had the vehicle purchase documents with me.

No way to predict with certainty.
 
Just to say we found the knowledge base on here very useful in preparing and doing out first trip to Morocco, thanks to Tim and all the other contributors.
Ceuta was fun, the traffic was mad everywhere, what a place!
found it very diffcult to reconcile the extreme poverty that such great people have to endure, with bimbling around on a motorbike, quite a lesson leanred about my complacent attitude
 


Back
Top Bottom