Accidentally in the footsteps of Gavin Maxwell. (almost)

A few years ago I found myself on top of Mount Toubkal, the highest point in North Africa. It isn’t a difficult climb just requiring decent shoes and decent lungs. But it is ‘a highest spot’, and though I like to ramble and explore getting to the top of things is usually beyond what I do. So perhaps that is why, as I sat there looking out over the High Atlas range through air as clear as the day it was made, there arose the notion that I might travel over these ancient time shattered peaks all the way to the desert. And as it surfaced unbidden into my brain, I ruefully cursed, as it was immediately obvious that it was one of those ideas that must be nurtured and adapted to, like an unplanned child. To walk from this ‘highest spot’ on and over into the great, sprawling wilderness of the Sahara Desert was an offer from the gods which I could not turn down.

​But that was nearly ten years ago…​

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One of the things that has kept me going over the years is that a great idea and the action that must follow do not have to be contiguous – that it is OK to wait for an idea to swell and grow like a seed well planted. Of course, there is a danger here of procrastination and I have surely have been guilty of that, but part of the art of life surely is to recognise the right moment, when through time, and rain, and sun that the seed is ripe for harvesting.

So in the middle of last year I took up the idea again as I sensed parts of my life slowing and closing and towards the end of Autumn made a firm commitment.
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With my Berber friend 'Brahim, in May I am going to walk the old fashioned way with mules  from the highest point in North Africa into the desert, down from Toubkal through the Draa Valley to M'hamid around 400 km away. This is not an established trek or route and not an 'organised event ' and I have not so far been able to find anyone else who has done it. 

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