Back to Blighty One Last Time

 Gatwick airport surrounded by its green and pleasant land. Getting though security in London was, in complete contrast to Marrakech (even after Brexit), an absolute doddle, and took just moments. Another reason to dread going back to Morocco.

After a quick pork pie we headed to Gatwick train station and picked up our rail tickets. Leb had a few hours to wait (to be spent supping endless teas in Wetherspoons) but I had a train to catch pretty much straight away as I had a long journey north. Leb was going back to Stroud.

After a big goodbye kiss (we'll be 12 days apart) I was off to Victoria and then across London on the tube to King's Cross to catch the 5:30 to Edinburgh, stopping at Darlington.

Another pork pie before getting on the train and four tins of Doom Bar would keep me going. I have to admit I was a bit embarrassed supping my ale next to a young dude who appeared to be studying for a law exam, presumably at York, where he got off. One raised eyebrow and I had my retort ready... I'm old.. and I don't care, young man!

Darlington station is magnificent and my next stay was just a few hundred metres away. The Dalesman is part hotel and part busy pub. It is also just across the road from a chippy. My joy at discovering this didn't last long though... not the best, shall we say.

Still. All very good. I'm so pleased to be back in good Old England again. It was great to watch a bit of football in the public bar downstairs too. I had a chat with a lovely old Darlington fan. He was impressed with my heroic tale of reaching the 92 up here in 2000. I watched Hartlepool v Exeter in a 12:30 kick off, drove here to Feethams to watch Darlington v Sheffield United for a 3pm start and then, the next day, up to Sunderland v Wimbledon at their, then, brand new Stadium of Light for a Sunday game to complete the much sought after full set of league grounds visited. Of course both Darlo and Hartlepool are outside the league these days. It's for reasons like this that my 92 has gone down to below 70 today. Tonight Leeds deserved their 2-0 win in their top of the table clash against local rivals Sheffield United and it was good to see that Chesterfield won away at Newport too. I'm hoping to see them for the first time at their new ground next Tuesday.

Hello, Morocco, my 69th Country

 <<< Back to Gatwick                                                                                          Back to Blighty >>>

Marhabaan, Morocco, Country No 69.
Thursday 10th - Friday, 17th October 2024 

Summary: 

This .

Hello Morocco (Country 69). (Thursday, 10th October)

Day 216 (26 to go)

مرحبا بالمغرب

After a rough night at Gatwick we boarded a very early flight and soon I was out like a light... only to be woken by a glorious sun rise over Morocco.

It was nice to land at 8am and feel warm already. Any wishing this holiday was over - and I definitely have done that a few times in the last three days or so - evaporated in the dry sunshine of Marrakech.

Even a ridiculously long queue (I reckon it took about two hours to get through) to pass immigration didn't put us off. The problem was clear to us: it was only at the very last minute, when you were about to be interviewed by the border guard, that you were told to get your flight boarding pass out again and have the address of the hotel you were staying at ready. If they'd have made this clear at some point earlier, during the two hours of queuing, everyone would have been prepared. Instead pretty much every passenger going through the system fumbled and struggled to find the things they needed. The accumulation of these two extra minutes for each visitor must have slowed the whole thing down unnecessarily.

Anyway, once through we picked up some more cash ($10 aud = 60 Moroccan Diram) and booked a taxi to take us to our 90th accommodation: O'Loft. The taxi driver was great and proudly told us how Morocco will partly host the 2030 (centenary) World Cup.

It was a 15 minute or so ride to our very nice quiet hotel in the southern outskirts of Marrakech. We had Moroccan tea by the pool while we waited for our room to be made ready.

The temperature apparently reached the high 20s but it felt much cooler than that. I had a nice swim in my new trunks anyway. It's a very pleasant pool.

Then we ordered a dinner for later: Tagine beef with plums, and set off for a walk across a very busy main road to the nearby village of Lagouassem.

There, we stopped at a café for a tea and a coffee before popping into a shop to buy a bag of crisps and a bottle of water and then returning.

The dinner by the lit up pool was truly wonderful. I had a vegetable soup starter, Leb had a salad. Lovely, soft, freshly baked bread too. For afters we had a selection of Moroccan biscuits. I'm off the booze this week so I had a banana juice. Very nice.

Back in the room, I booked our buses for the next leg of our Moroccan adventure to the coast on Saturday.

In the world of football, I was pleased Tony Popovic got off to a wining start in Australia's Asia Championship qualifier against China. 3-1 was pretty emphatic. But I was shocked that England screwed up at home to Greece, losing 2-1. This puts their promotion back to tier A in serious jeopardy.

Anyway... we were truly back in holiday mood again by now. Woohoo!!

Day Trip to Marrakech. (Friday, 11th October)

Day 217 (25 to go) - We had two nights at our peaceful stay at O'Loft, so that gave us a full day to do a bit of exploration of the famous city of Marrakech. Of course, one day wasn't going to be much but we set off and caught a very cheap bus into the city center and visited the big market square.

We started with a delicious (albeit a bit carb rich) breakfast. We weren't the only creatures attracted to the honey.

Then, we walked the short distance back to the main road where we quickly caught a very cheap bus into the city center.

Once we got off the bus it was a short walk to Jemaa el-Fnaa, one of the biggest souks in the center of the city.

Leb bought some new slippers...

We stopped for some refreshments...

Before catching the bus back...

Once back, I went for a nice swim in the pool.

In the evening we had a lovely meal by the poolside.

From Marrakech to Sidi Kaouki ( ⵙⵉⴷⵉ ⴽⴰⵡⴽⵉ ). (Saturday, 12th October)

Day 218 (24 to go) - Exploring Moroccan Latitudinal Counterparts to Western Australia - From Marrakech to Sidi Kaouki ( ⵙⵉⴷⵉ ⴽⴰⵡⴽⵉ )

It occurred to us today how similar the landscape and climate was of the part of Morocco we have been travelling in is to our home back in Western Australia for the corresponding time of year (October in the Northern Hemisphere = April in the Southern). And, I guess it's no coincidence as they're both coastal places with big hot desert areas in land, at about the same distance from the equator. If you flipped Australia on its head and slid it close to North Africa you'd see that where we are now (and were yesterday) would pretty much align with Perth (31.9° S = Gharbat Harbala 31.9° N).

The day of travel began in Marrakech (31.55° N = Yanchep, WA, 31.55° S). It was another really early start and one of the most critical for a while. We had a bus to catch at 8 am from Marrakech Public Bus Station so asked for a taxi to pick us up at 7 am, and set the alarm to wake us up at 6 am.

Our alarms (yes both if them) went off on the dot at six and we were up and (after my 'goodbye vide') we packed by half past. My plan to have a last dip in the pool in my undies and then dump them so as not to make my new trunks wet again, was vetoed by Leb. (It wouldn't have been a very nice sight for any early riser, that's for sure, but it was still dark.)

We headed to the front gate of O'Loft, our home for the past two nights, where we'd been dropped off, assuming that's where we'd be picked up from. We waited in the dark for five minutes before deciding it would be best to go to the main road and try to flag down a taxi from there - as this was time critical. It's a good job we did, because as we approached the busy street, we noticed a taxi with its light on waiting and as I started running towards it, it beeped. Yes, this was the taxi we'd ordered. The arrangement clearly was that we'd get picked up on the main road to Marrakech but nobody had told us that or, if they had, it had been lost in translation.

There was also a bit of a language barrier in the taxi itself as the driver's French was not too great and our Arabic was non-existent. We kind-of let him know we wanted to catch a bus to Essaouira, but as to exactly which bus station we wanted (there are two apparently) he was not sure.

We got a bit freaked out when he took a slight detour from the route we were tracing on Google Maps, but we had nothing to be fearful of as he only wanted to find a fellow driver who spoke English to be certain of the destination. We arrived there at 7:30 am, exactly as required.

Stood inside the bus station was a man who seemed to just sense that we wanted to catch that bus.

"For Essaouira?" He asked, in good English.

He took us to the kiosk where, having shown the eTicket on my mobile phone, he gave us paper equivalents and directed us to the bus waiting in bay 8. We had to pay 10 MAD for each bag to be placed on the bus (for the second time as the first guy had already trousered the same fee - but to be fair all of this only amounted to a total of $7 AUD.

Soon, the bus filled and we were off.

As the sun rose, Marrakech was covered in a hazy smog, presumably from dust from the desert. It gradually lifted as we headed west but it was an overcast and quite cool day.

There was a distinct lack of communication on the bus. At about the half way mark, it stopped as it had many times before but didn't continue for about half an hour. It was already too late to get off for a pee by the time we realised some of the younger men were eating breakfast at a café next to the bus. Rookie error.

After about three and a half hours the bus arrived at its destination, Essaouira bus station (31.51° N = Toodyay 31.51° S). We had half an hour to find the Hotel Café Manal where I'd arranged a pick up for the final leg of out journey, We had time to use their toilet and have two nice coffees before the minibus (actually just a large taxi) arrived at noon, as booked, to pick us up.

The driver was a very nice fellow and picked his wife up on the way to our next destination, the relatively quiet village of Sidi Kaouki (31.35° N = Gingin 31.35° S) which, it turns out, is a surfers paradise, in the Margaret River (33.9° S = Settat 33.9° N) mould.

Remember these Latitudinal Counterparts are not exactly antipodean. In other words Perth and WA are not exactly on the other side of the world from Morocco. We're closer to the opposite of the Bermuda triangle. (See https://www.omnicalculator.com/other/antipode)

Australia's actual antipodean position is nearer the USA

We arrived, early again, at our 91st accommodation: Dar Iziki. The hotel manager, Ahmed brought a pot of Moroccan tea and sat with us whilst we waited for our room to be made ready. He is such a friendly chap and, a Berber too. He told us quite a bit about Berbers and their language (one of three official languages of Morocco) which is totally unlike, and much older than, Arabic. Its script is fascinating too. It's hieroglyph-like and written from left-to-right, like the Latin script, not right-to-left, like Arabic. One of the topics of discussion was how similar this part of the world is to the one we're used to near Perth. It looks dry and the vegetation is a similar kind of scrub. Ahmed said they were worried about the lack of rain and hadn't had a good downpour for years.

I chose this hotel because a) it was quiet; b) it was relatively cheap; c) it has a pool, d) It's five minutes from the beach and e) it had lots of great reviews and almost no bad ones. We'll spend three nights here and then head back to Essaouira for two. We could see why the reviews were great from the start. The room has a sea view and has more natural light than the one in O'Loft.

After settling in we went out for a walk along the sea front. Of course I didn't need a rain coat. There's been no rain for years, right? Murphy's law struck again. After we stopped for a coffee the heavens opened up and I got soaked!

Incredible timing! https://www.theguardian.com/.../dramatic-images-show-the...

I had to change into another set of clothes to go down for the most delicious meal we've had, certainly in Morocco, but perhaps in the whole trip: A wonderful chicken tagine. I practically licked the bowl out!

Tashelhit ! (means thank you in Berber!)

ⵜⴰⵏⵎⵎⵉⵔⵜ !

مرحبا بالمغرب

Walking along the North Atlantic Coast at Sidi Kaouki. (Sunday, 13th October)

Day 219 (23 to go)

We came here to chill and the second day at Sidi Kaouki was very much a chill day.

That first night was so quiet. Not one dog barking, only the distant roar of the Atlantic surf crashing into North Africa. I must say I was half expecting one of us to have forgotten to turn our alarms off from the morning before but in the end we woke up late, but early enough to have brekkie.

First, we had a lovely quick video call from Roz who wanted us to see Lenny's amazing progress as a biped. We had breakfast with a teacher from Köln, Germany, who was here for the surfing. Unfortunately she had smashed her knee with her surf board so was out of action for a few days. Then we were joined by the hotel manager Ahmed's brother who runs a surfing school as an instructor. We climbed up onto the roof of our hostel where there was an open air lounge from where you got a great view of the town and its prominent position near the beach.

That was our morning done.

In the afternoon we put our bathers on underneath a layer of clothing and went for a walk on the beach thinking we might go for a swim too.

The beach at Sidi Kaouki is very impressive. It is long and wide and flat with massive waves crashing down and lapping up against the soft sand.

Tragically, it also has a lot of rubbish on it. Far too many plastic bottles and bags littered what would otherwise be a wonderful natural scene. There are so many waves crashing down onto the shore the roar is incessant. No wonder Sidi Kaouki a popular spot for surfers. I have to say though, that although I saw many going into the water with their surfboards under their arms, I saw very little actual surfing going on. Maybe the waves weren't right today. In any case it certainly wasn't a place for snorkelling or, let's face it, even going for a quick swim.

Whenever I walk on a sandy beach like this it reminds me of my PhD thesis on the wading hypothesis and how ideal waterside habitats like this are for bipedalism. In waist deep water a great ape has little choice but to move on two legs and the buoyancy provided by the water makes it easy to do so. Just a few metres away, a wet sandy beach provides the perfect flat, firm, vegetation-free, carpet-like surface for an efficient striding gait. A beach like this would have been like a highway for early humans to migrate along. Zero predators but close to an endless supply of food.

Anyway, after our walk we had a tea in a beachside café and then returned to the hotel for a dip in the pool (at least I did!) and some more nice mint tea. Then it was back to the room to catch up with my podcasts.

That was our afternoon done.

Later we walked past three gorgeous puppies, back down to the beach area, for dinner in one of the restaurants there. I had bream and chips, Leb had a vegetable gratin.

Earlier in the day I'd listened to the Guardian's "Today in Focus" podcast about Trump's agenda if reelected and we spoke gloomily about it and the prospect of the crooktraitor being back in the White House. The threat of fascism has not been greater since 1941. The unpalatable truth is that as our trip comes to an end early in November so it might signal the beginning of the end for democracy itself. Heavy stuff.

It was time to get back to the room and try to cheer myself up, at least a little, with news that England had won 3-1 in Helsinki against Finland in the Nations League. Come on now Ireland! Do us a favour and win in Greece!

And that was our evening done.

90% Up. (Monday, 14th October)

Day 220 (22 to go) 90% Up.

This 90th percentile milestone day was pretty much a repeat of the previous day. Up for brekkie. Walk on the beach. Tea. Back to our room to catch up with the interweb and then a delicious dinner.

At brekkie we met Linda's (the teacher from Köln) friend, also a teacher from Köln.

For our walk, we went further than the day before... about 6km altogether.

With us for tea this time was a very friendly donkey.

The sun went in and it got a little chilly, so no dip in the pool in the afternoon.

And we had another delicious chicken tagine at the hotel rather then going out to a restaurant.

That's it!

The next day we headed back to Essaouira, back north from our southern-most stay on the east side of the Atlantic.

Essaouira sea view, Berber barber and Royal lamb tagine. (Tuesday, 15th October)

Day 221 (21 to go, 92nd accommodation)

Sidi Kaouki was a lovely stay but we didn't get much sleep on the last night as it was very windy and there was a lot of banging going on upstairs on the "sun" roof. Also, it pains me to complain but, the bedroom floor was so dirty you had to wipe your feet before climbing into bed. The drain in the shower was partly blocked too so we were always worried about the bathroom flooding. Apart from that... it was really lovely. The staff were so nice and the food, especially the evening meals, were fantastic. Ahmed the manager was great and overall it was good value for money.

After the goodbye video, we packed, left room Koz (#4 in Berber) and walked down to the village thinking we'd catch a bus to our next destination, Essaouira. But when we got there we saw a mini bus taxi about to leave with two spare places. 50 diram each was much less than we'd paid to go the other way.

The half hour journey was very pleasant and we had a good chat with our two fellow passengers, a Moroccan from Casablanca and a Frenchman who was working in Sidi Kaouki.

Upon arriving in Essaouira, near the bus station, we had a twenty minute walk into the old town center to find our 92nd accommodation. I'd found one right by the coast in the old walled section of town.

There was a little confusion about the actual location of the room but once we'd got WiFi in a local Cafe and communicated with the host, all was resolved.

Every place has its pros and cons. This one has a balcony with an amazing view over the coastal fortress walls to the North Atlantic. To our right you can see an awesome array of huge cannons pointing out to sea. On the down side, it was a bit grotty - perhaps as we should have expected as it's called "Appartments le Grotte".

It was about the time of the month I needed a haircut to de-Koala-ise my head, so whilst Leb had a relaxing catch up on the web I went off to find somewhere to have a short back and sides.

A quick Google search revealed... YES! the perfect one, the one I'd been dreaming of... The Berber Barber! It was just twelve minutes walk away, through the narrow, market stall filled streets of old town Essaouira.

When I found it, the Berber barber himself was sat back, as if waiting for my arrival. In my dodgy French (avec Google translate) I asked him "dos et côté courts avec peu de relief sur le dessus" and I think he did a great job for 80 diram.

Then, back to Leb and we shuffled off to do a bit of sightseeing before finding a restaurant to have the most delicious royal lamb tagine at M'Riste Jouhar Restaurant The waiter surprised me by asking if I'd like wine with the meal. I'm proud to say that I declined the offer and only had water.

Booze returns at the weekend!

Thomas Tuchel eh? Who would have predicted that? A brilliant new era for the England team has begun. Let's be optimistic while we can!

Following in the Footsteps of Jimi Hendrix (Wednesday, 16th October)

Day 222 (20 to go) 10km walk to the Jimi Hendrix Café in Diabat and back.

The penultimate day in Morocco and the last in Essaouira started after a pretty rough night's sleep. The crashing of the waves down below our room was really quite loud and it was cold too.

Anyway, we emerged into quite a warm morning and set off to find some breakfast. I avoided the "English Breakfast" option and had Berber Omelette which looked like two fried eggs, tagine style, with tomatoes. Leb had tagine eggs by name. Moroccan breakfasts are tasty but there is just too much bread. You end up feeling bloated with carbs.

After that we headed to the fishing docks where the stink of fish was overpowering. There were many stalls selling all sorts of types of fish that had presumably been caught earlier in the morning.

We then headed to the long Essaouira beach and walked along the busy sea front where surfers bobbled about on the frothy surf, which looked rather disgusting. In fact I had tried to badger Leb to walk on the beach with me before I realised how bad it was. Once again... she was right, and I was wrong!

Further along there were horses and camels which could be hired to ride along the sand.

We carried on though, past the end of the beach and over the bridge crossing the Oued Ksob river into the village of Diabat.

As legend has it, Jimi Hendrix went there in the summer of 1969, almost a year before his death at the young age of 27. There are all sorts of myths surrounding the visit, such as that he wanted to buy it - the whole village, that is, and that the area inspired his song "Castles Made of Sand". What is indisputable is that there is now a café in the village called "The Jimi Hendrix Café" so Leb and I made it our target destination for the day.

It seems many tourists went to the town with similar ideas and the café was quite full of people from all over. We met a couple from the USA and yes, I mentioned the "T" word. They said they weren't "with him" but didn't seem particularly upset by him either. I must say I find this almost as disappointing as being a full-on MAGA. I mean, if the man doesn't disgust you, what does that say about you? One woman wanted to share her business venture idea with us.

We walked back and quickly made friends with quite a sweet stray dog that, I can only imagine, was attracted to my very stinky plimsolls - the ones I bought from K-Mart, Perth for $3.50. They were a bargain and I've worn them most days when it's been dry and warm. It was long over the time to discard them though. And that was the last day I wore them them.

Back along the sea front, we finally lost our canine friend and I wanted to see if I could see inside the Essaouira football ground, Talk about elusive. I've never known a ground like it. I presume there is an entrance to it somewhere but it wasn't on the three sides of the ground we walked around.

Anyway... who cares? Then it was back into the walled old town, past the Berber Barber back to our room for an afternoon kip.

This evening we nipped out again and walked around the corner to another Moroccan restuarant for - you guessed it - more tagine. I have to learn how to make this dish. It's divine.

The next day we would head back to Marrakech and the following day back to good old blighty one last time.

I loved the food in Morocco but I was definitely ready for some proper English Ale and fish and chips.

Bye Bye Essaouira. Bye Bye Plimsols. Hello, the Kasbah. (Thursday, 17th October)

Day 223 (19 to go, 93rd accommodation)

So there we were on the last of eight days in Morocco... in the Kasbah (means "castle"?) district of Marrakech.

It was a very different experience to the weeks we've spent in Europe and certainly a lot cheaper, allowing us to get closer to our budget again, but the food has been amongst the best. Tagine lamb tonight for me again, veg for Leb, and high up on my priority list for when we get back to Perth is to learn how to cook them.

We woke up at our appartment de grotte and quickly got packed before taking in the amazing Atlantic view one last time.

Then, having dumped my trusty and very good value plimsols, we walked a different way through the Medina to a lovely little square full of cafes where we had brekkie and three coffees.

Four cute kittens and their mum entertained us for a while but soon it was time to continue back to the bus station where the bus was due to leave in an hour.

Time for tea at the nearby Café we'd come to on our first day here. Bizarrely they had Japan v Australia on the TV.

Then, it was time to get on the bus for the three hour trip east back to Marrakech.

It was a pretty comfortable, if packed, journey with spectacular panoramic views of Essaouira early on. I listened to a couple of gloomy editions of the Daily Telegraph podcast "Ukraine the Latest" which lamented, once again, the lack of leadership and motivation of Western politiicians to stand up to the Moscovian bullies as Putin's criminals continue to grind away at Ukrainian territory.

The latest one featured an interview with Yulia Mykytenko the amazingly young senior lieutenant of Ukraine's drone force. She was, I'm pretty sure, the young woman I heard speak at the Ukrainian Club in London back in May during our first visit to blighty. What an amazing woman she is. She lost both her husband and her father to the Russian imperialists but she still stays positive and optimistic. "Fight like a Ukrainian" is her mantra.

We arrived at Marrakech bus station around 4:30 and got a taxi ride to our 93rd Accomodation, a very nice riad in the Kasbah district of the city, not far from the palace and conveniently placed to get to the airport tomorrow morning.

We popped out to get some more diram for the taxi ride to the airport the next morning and had yet another delicious tagine dinner. Back at the riad sun roof there was the most glorious full moon.

So... bye bye Morocco, and thank you.

From Marrakech to ... (Friday, 18th October)

Day 224 (18 to go, 94th accommodation).

It was a good idea to visit Morocco and it certainly ticked off a few boxes... the first visit to a North African country; avoiding adding more Schengen days; experiencing some warm weather, bathing in pools and walks on or by the beach; eating great food; not spending too much so getting closer to our budget.

But I'm not sure how soon I'll want to go back ... maybe for the 2030 World Cup? The people there are all very friendly and we always felt 100% safe. Even at their most pestering, the market / restaurant sales guys were not as "in your face" as the Balinese, for example.

So what is it? I do have to say, it is a bit, well, dirty. Walking along the vast Sidi Kaouki beach, it was quite depressing seeing so many plastic bottles and bags and other litter, just dumped there. You'd think a country that was trying to encourage more tourists would allocate at least some of their budget to getting people to keep their beauty spots pristine.

If I was the hotel manager of the place we stayed at that village (and Ahmed is a really lovely guy) I'd like to think I'd get some staff to clear the plastic bottles etc from the path from the Riad to the beach, at least. The froth on the sea front at Essaouira was really quite disgusting. I was looking forward to a stroll on the beach there until I saw it. Come on, Morocco! You can do better than this.

The other big negative point for me, sorry I have to say this, in all honesty, is their apparent obsession with Allah. Being woken up at 5 am by the singing of the first of five adhans reminds you that this is not a very open minded country. I wonder how big their atheist society is.

Seeing so many women covered in black hijabs, even when it's hot, whilst their husbands walk next to them in brightly coloured shorts and T shirts, turned my stomach, I have to say. How many of these women really, truly, choose to do this voluntarily and not through some dark, unspoken, peer presure, at the least? As an atheist since the age of eight, I am dismayed by all religion but Islam is surely the most oppressive and obsessive. It just depresses me to see so many bright young people bowing down in worship to some mystical being in the sky. Intelligent human beings deserve being treated so much better than as a mass of slaves to a vengeful, jealous "God".

Anyway, it was an early start again and we set our alarms for 6 am and were packed and ready to go by 6:45. A member of staff at the excellent Riad Nouceiba very kindly made us some breakfast for 7am and ordered a taxi to the airport for us at 7:30.

We ate our brekkie in silence with everybody else at the hotel still sleeping in the dark. We were joined by a very brave (and no doubt hungry) sparrow that was looking for any crumbs off our table. We kept very quiet, not wanting to wake any of the other guests but I wished one family had thought of us like that last night. From 10 pm until maybe 11, they were chatting away quite loudly and, worse, their (I presume toddler) child was making an awful racket.

Anyway, not only was the taxi ordered and pre paid but the guy from the hotel walked us to where they'd booked it to stop so he could make sure we got on. Brilliant. O'Loft take note.

The taxi ride was smooth and we were dropped off about 2 hours and 45 minutes before the flight was due to leave.

We had to queue to even get into the airport with bags having to go through a light security scan. Then it was time to check in with ... "Easy" jet. We tried to check-in on line last night but, of course, we couldn't - that would have been too easy - so instead we had to queue for 45 minutes or so, even though we had no bags to drop off, just to pick up our boarding cards. When we finally got to the front of the queue the guy doing the checking in clearly couldn't care less (or as my dad would say "he cared less").

"Where is your boarding pass?" He asked.

"This is why we've just been queuing for 40 minutes. We couldn't check in on line"

He didn't like that. Reluctantly, like a 13 year old asked to complete his maths homework, he tapped my booking id from my mobile phone into his computer, printed out and handed us the boarding passes.

"Have a good flight" was never spoken with less feeling.

Hurdle one complete, it was then on to the proper security check and another big queue. That was stressful enough and lopped off another half hour but at least neither of our bags were selected for special attention, something that has happened a few times before on this mega tour.

Hurdle two finished, so then it was passport control and a huge room with eight layers of a meandering "snake" queue. At this stage there was an hour to go before take off, and remembering the two hours it took to get through border security upon arrival, we started to panic a bit.

To be fair, the queue moved pretty quickly and despite some of the border police being more interested in having conversations with their colleagues at times, we got through with thirty minutes to spare before departure.

Annoyingly, as soon as we headed towards the gates, another couple of policemen wanted to do another check of our passports to see if they really had been stamped. Really? Why was that necessary? Wind up merchants.

As we approached our gate, the furthest away in our section, the plane started boarding. Just enough time for a quick toilet visit and then we were on board at last.

The huge relief was soon replaced with that sinking feeling that something wasn't quite right. All the passengers were on board. The doors had been closed. They'd done the silly "this is how you fasten a buckle" thing and... then nothing.

Fifteen minutes passed before the captain gave us a message.

I dreaded this. It reminded me of a flight I'd been on years ago from Memphis to England when the flight officer announced there was a technical fault with the plane and we all had to get off. Luckily, this time it was "just fog" at Gatwick that had caused a delay, so we just had to wait.

Anyway, one hour after we were supposed to take off... we finally did.

We crossed the North African coast west of Casablanca just before noon and three hours later we were landing back in dear old blighty...