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Recommend a fastish estate

kebabking said:
Doable, but 7 hours+ driving a day - that's a lots of driving....
Click to expand...
Doing distance I generally break it down to 3.5 hours in a stint then have a proper break with walk around, food, sleep admin etc. a couple of hours rather than 20 minutes

Then I break down the last leg with more short breaks as I get closer

The main issue is having a break and forgetting which side of the road you are on. That’s where a co-pilot comes in handy

I’m kind of expecting the road through Spain to be motorway most the way which is good for eating distance but shit for concentrating

Morocco driving is likely to be a weapons free, survival of the fittest around the built up areas 🤣
 
bellaozzydog said:
Doing distance I generally break it down to 3.5 hours in a stint then have a proper break with walk around, food, sleep admin etc. a couple of hours rather than 20 minutes

Then I break down the last leg with more short breaks as I get closer

The main issue is having a break and forgetting which side of the road you are on. That’s where a co-pilot comes in handy

I’m kind of expecting the road through Spain to be motorway most the way which is good for eating distance but shit for concentrating

Morocco driving is likely to be a weapons free, survival of the fittest around the built up areas 🤣
Click to expand...
That road through Spain is motorway, I’ve regularly driven it as far as the southern coast, when I lived there, some is toll road. Get a Bip&Drive, it’s a little box that fits on your screen to pay tolls. Fees are applicable only for the the months you use it, plus toll of course, depending on plan chosen. It’ll save a lot of hold ups, you just drive through the telepeage lane. I had one for Spain, Portugal and France, it was invaluable.

www.bipdrive.com

Via-T - Bip&Drive

Via T Bip&Drive, the new Via-T offering some exclusive and special discounts. Discover the new ViaT Bip&Drive.
www.bipdrive.com www.bipdrive.com
 
dessiato said:
That road through Spain is motorway, I’ve regularly driven it as far as the southern coast, when I lived there, some is toll road. Get a Bip&Drive, it’s a little box that fits on your screen to pay tolls. Fees are applicable only for the the months you use it, plus toll of course, depending on plan chosen. It’ll save a lot of hold ups, you just drive through the telepeage lane. I had one for Spain, Portugal and France, it was invaluable.

www.bipdrive.com

Via-T - Bip&Drive

Via T Bip&Drive, the new Via-T offering some exclusive and special discounts. Discover the new ViaT Bip&Drive.
www.bipdrive.com www.bipdrive.com
Click to expand...


The challenge is to see how fast you can steam through the Telepeage lane and still have the barrier raise before you crash in to it :cool:
 
I'm surprised they haven't gone ANPR by now. The tech is pretty mature since it debuted (Hwy.407 in Ontario) 25 years ago. The freedom of just driving on and off like any normal road was wonderful. Though I know the French have a thing about not being able to legally eliminate the jobs.
 
bellaozzydog said:
I’ve got three and a half days from landing in Santander to picking a mate up at the airport in Agadir



Doable ?

The captain is in for a full service, getting the blower regulator swapped out and an air con service this week.
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IMO it is technically doable banking on no hiccups, but not ideal on such tight timetable if it’s just you travelling. If you are looking for a Grand Tour-style adventure (which I would totally approve of), then yes, go for it. But as a solo driver your main concern might to remain with it if you are really going to have to drive that many hours per day on your own.

You can easily make it to Madrid, the halfway point of the Iberian peninsula, in 6-7 hours. But you should really desist from travelling further on day one. One hour south of Madrid at best.

Another 5-6 hours of day 2 will be used to get to Tarifa or wherever you are crossing. By the time you’ve rested and got you and your car on the ferry and landed on Morocco, you’ll be knackered to travel much further.

Leaving you 1.5 days to your final destination. Never been to Morocco but probably worth accounting for subpar roads, compared with Europe at least.

Seems like a proper Top Gear challenge, but I love the idea on principle. If your friend is able and happy to wait for you an extra day to account for any eventualities, I’d say go for it. If the arrival date is immovable, I’d suggest don’t do it because if there are any delays you’re going to be driving stressed and possibly even faster than you would normally do, which is not what you want to do.
 
bellaozzydog said:
I’ve got three and a half days from landing in Santander to picking a mate up at the airport in Agadir



Doable ?

The captain is in for a full service, getting the blower regulator swapped out and an air con service this week.
Click to expand...


I've done 940km from Bilbao to Huelva overnight with one piss/coffee stop in 9h 50m. I went the western route via Santander to avoid Madrid and did it in my 2006 745d which was the long distance weapon nonpareil.
 
DownwardDog said:
I've done 940km from Bilbao to Huelva overnight with one piss/coffee stop in 9h 50m. I went the western route via Santander to avoid Madrid and did it in my 2006 745d which was the long distance weapon nonpareil.
Click to expand...

TLDR . Back in Spain. Morocco Road trip lessons learned, hope the car gets me to Santander in a 5 days for ferry home


just on the ferry from Tangiers Ville to Tarifa after a reasonably successful month away.

Santander -Tarifa. Started really well, blasted down to Carceres with a brief over night car sleep. On the outskirts of Carceres my alternator went at 0630 in the dark morning. Car properly died leaving me on the dual carriage way in the dark, I got the car over to the hard shoulder deployed the hazard warning triangle and it started to piss down.

I donned my poncho grabbed my chair, my admin file and my jet boil, got comfy on the other side of the barrier. Made a cuppa tea, phoned the AA and strobed my car with my torch every time traffic appeared over the hill.

AA local rescue turned up, with a face like I’d shat in his trifle. It’s the start of bank holiday the only service I get is the car dropped in a compound and AA will sort it out on Monday.

I booked a central hotel. And hunkered down for the duration.

5 days later the car was ready to pick up with new alternator.

In the 5 days lying on a hotel bed watching breaking bad from start to finish I managed to put my back out and ended up on IV diazepam (nice) and decent analgesia in hospital.

Rest of the journey down flashed by. Toll roads in morocco are as fast as Spanish motor way and I got to destination ina day and a half.

Lessons learnt: you can smash the distances but eventually it sends you bonkers and you probably aren’t safe to drive the last three hours. (Need a trustworthy copilot)

Night driving is ok on dual carriage ways but eventually you start seeing things and any diversion onto single lanes roads in the middle of the night gets scary quick

Car camping is handy but it’s not like a full 8 hours in your own bed and the effects are cumulative and driving performance drops quicker each day .

I’m on the way home I broke it into three sections with two nights in hotels. Driving no more than four hours a day. This as a much more satisfactory way of doing it.

Landing in an hour and got till 7th Dec to get to Santander.

Hopefully the car won’t shit itself (there is some light bearing noise going on)

AA paid for breakdown in Spain but then cancelled my return journey cover because “I wasn’t in the U.K. at the start of the cover”

When I booked the two legs of the AA cover I was in the U.K. pre journey. Apparently that doesn’t count for the return trip

They honoured the breakdown and hotel but refunded me the second leg cover price. (Guessing if I had booked the whole trip as cover rather than 4 days either side I would still be covered…. ) how that would cost (30 days) versus 2 x 4 days who knows. But I went on the various compare websites and it looks like I can no longer get any cover with anyone ….

How much did petrol cost: no idea yet
Is it worth driving down: yes if you are staying a while: yes if you are in a self sufficient camper:

Ferries/petrol/hotels/tolls = just get a cheap flight and hire a car and a surf board next time

onwards and upwards

 
DownwardDog said:
I've done 940km from Bilbao to Huelva overnight with one piss/coffee stop in 9h 50m. I went the western route via Santander to avoid Madrid and did it in my 2006 745d which was the long distance weapon nonpareil.
Click to expand...
You can go ten hours without a piss? :eek:
 
Bahnhof Strasse said:
Ryanair, BA and EasyJet fly to Agadir daily in just over three hours for fifty quid.


You fucking twat.
Click to expand...
Well spotted you must be the clever one.

Ferries/petrol/hotels/tolls = just get a cheap flight and hire a car and a surf board next time

That how I normally go. However I’ve been promising myself I’d drive it since 2006.

Sometimes it’s about the journey you pissflap
 
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