I caught the train from King’s Cross on Friday nite to Settle via Leeds. Met a girl Barbara on the Settle train who was also doing the mountain bike weekend. Andy the tour guide picked us up in the van and we then drove to the cabin near Ingleton. The stone walls along the way are spectacular. They are (dare I say it) better than those in the Cotswolds. The rolling hills (not a lot of trees around) reminded me of the highlands in Scotland.

This superb desert biking adventure focuses on the deep south of Morocco, a land of big skies and stark mountain ranges where mud-brick kasbahs appear to rise up out of the desert, sitting in tranquil palm oases and framed by dramatic backdrops of snowcapped mountains. We ride along Morocco’s dirt roads, taking us from Marrakech to the Tichka Pass, the highest in the High Atlas, and then southward, descending along the Draa Valley to the fringes of the Sahara Desert.