There are two big rivers that flow from the Atlas Mountains and into The Sahara in Morocco, not rivers of water as we would understand a river to be, but rivers of sand and rock that only after infrequent heavy rains become dangerous torrents for a few days.

A long time ago in the 1990’s I was travelling along the bed and flood plains of the Oued Ziz in this early Range Rover when after crossing a few kilometres of hard sand I could see ahead of me some softer sand, so I accelerated in 3rd Low to blast across. The tyres were too hard, had too much air inside so the tyres footprint was not big enough to allow the Impala Range Rover to make it all the way across – As the torque was drained inevitably away from the drive train I knew that we were not going to make it across. As the Range Rover sank into the soft sand I declutched so as to prevent us sinking further which would make it a “bit of a shovel” to get her out.

I got out onto the soft sand to do what I should have done before – lower the tyre pressures to 0.5 bar on the front and 1.0 bar at the rear. This I did, got back into the driving seat, selected 1st Low and committed the car to drive forwards. With a powerful shudder we rose back onto the surface of the sand and continued on our way for only a few yards before the soft sand turned into hard sand covered in smooth water sculptured rocks, which necessitated a stop to refill the tyres with air so that we could continue on our way towards the desert town of Rissani.