Clare and Ross taste Eastern Europe and Morocco

This is a hard one to write objectively. My feelings about the climb changed many times during the day. We started at 5.45am so that we could finish early afternoon as the mountain gets more treacherous later in the day. Mahomed led and one of the muleteers, Lasheed, brought up the rear. Thirty minutes in we lost one of our party when she decided it would be to hard and returned to camp assisted by Lasheed. To our amazement Lasheed caught up to us again about half and hour later. During the next hour I considered returning myself more than once. We crossed several snowfields that were frozen and so turned to rock hard ice. The slope was somewhere between 30 and 45 degrees and so a slip would send us sliding at least 100 metres to the rocks below. I held out no hope of stopping myself with my walking poles. Guess what! no one slipped!. The remaining walk was rocky and steep with many sections of loose scree where we had to walk sideways for maximum grip. Our climb was 900 metres f...

we were well supported by a Morrocan Berber guide, Mohamed, six muleteers and their mules and our cook, Ahmed. Three of the muleteers were also called Mohamed. Each day we started with a very full breakfast of (to much food) oats and fruit, flatbreads or local crumpets. tea coffee and juice,eggs and olives, and honey and apricot jam. We packed our dufflebag which then went on a mule and we walked with our daypack of about 4 kilos. We took, water, rain and cold gear as well as hot gear (hats and sunscreen), hand sanitiser and walking poles. There were only four of us as a 50 something couple from Melbourne left on Day 0 to return home to a sick father. Our companions were a 73 year old lady from the midlands in England and a 62 year old from Sydney's northern beaches. Both were exceptionally fit for their ages and so their was no one but me to slow us down. Clare fitted in beautifully. Mahomed, our guide, was an inspiring leader. He was about 30, from a remote village in the...

Apologies for our absence, there is no wifi in the High Atlas. We are back safely in Marrakesh, but I will start from the beginning. We are about to board a train to Fez (8 hrs) so during the trip I'll put some words to these pictures and tell you about our mamouth climb of  Mt Toubkal.

What a culture shock. We have just left tranquil Transylvania with not a bear, wolf or even fellow walker in site and we have landed in a bustling Arabic city. Weaving motor bikes, scurrying pedestrians and swerving cars are everywhere. The contrast is complete. Clare outside the Royal Mausoleum Everything in this city is the same colour and you cannot tell if a building is really old or just built. Clare looks pretty new though. Not a dry city but during Ramadan alcohol is prohibited for Moroccans. We walked miles to get my fix of beer for the trek. We have seven precious cans for the cool off at the end of each day. To gain entry to the bottle shop (the only one within 5kms of the old city) we had to show our foreign passports. Walls and ceiling of PM's offices built c1895 The city during Ramadan is a study in human nature. The dates move every year and so some years it (dawn to dusk) is a much shorter. This year the fasting is from about 5am till 7.30pm (a lo...

Our last day of walking started with a horse-drawn cart ride through the village. A very long village along two river valleys with very steep pastures on both sides. We then continued walking up the valley, entering bear territory again, before zig zaging up the mountainside. The view from the top,  of two mountain ranges, was spectacular. Having climbed about 400 metres we then walked along the ridge, slowly dropping, towards the village. Along the way we met an ancient woman minding her horses and cows. She talked to us and was surprised when we said we spoke English. Nevertheless she smiled and appeared to bless us as we left. The last 100 m descent was a steep goat track but well worth it for the beer at the village mini market. Train back to Bucharest tomorrow then a very early flight to Marrakesh Talk to you from Africa

I have walked in rain. You may well wonder why I might make that comment. The last time I donned wet weather gear was for the last 5 minutes of Day 1 of the Spanish Camino in 2013. Since then we have walked the Camino, climbed Kilaminjaro, circumnavigated Mont Blanc, walked the Likya Yolu (Lycian Way) in Turkey and the Via Francigena in Italy - WITHOUT ANY RAIN. Good for us but a bit scary for the planet. Yesterday we started from Ciocanu after a very hearty breakfast supplied by Maria, and walked in rain down secluded gullies with decaying farmhouses. The guidebook and map needed all our powers ( plus gps and compass) to interpret. We never did find the new white house and which wooden gate was it? The rain eased then stopped after a couple of hours and we started uphill through tiny communities with no sign of life save the cows and horses with there melodic, hypnotic bells. At about 1 we had a treat. We arrived at a little village on a main road. This meant we found an o...