A moment’s inattention on the narrow rocky tracks in the High Atlas can be costly as this picture from the Warn Adventure in Morocco from 1994 shows.

Manley (my brother) and I were guiding our Land Rover Series 2 through one of the special stages along the bed of the Todgha river near the mouth of Todgha Gorge when this Spanish Range Rover in a very sedate and gentle many slipped of the edge of the track to come to rest on its side not twenty feet away from where we were surging through a deep section of water.

Pandemonium ensued from the Moroccan spectators and Spanish organisation team, which after a few minutes settled down into a relatively organised recovery but with many “cooks” trying to sort it all out. My brother and I suggested that we use our Land Rover to blow up the airbags and with some excellent winching with snatch blocks the organisation and a competitor Ford Bronco gently pulled the Range Rover back up onto the track – amazingly the only damage was a broken door mirror, such was the gentleness of the slide down onto its side.