Half way along the piste is the old French fort of Aorera. The one building on the left hand side photo contained four military guys (on lookout I guess) who were kind enough to have me as a lunch guest (best Tangine I had in Morocco as well).

They were all quite friendly and pleased to have a guest, apart from the grumpy old bastard in charge. He seemed to be suffering from a medical complaint so perhaps fair enough.

The fort is situated next to a large river mouth (no water) and on the other side are some fantastic dunes. I spent a while walking off lunch in them, but the constant wind didn't make it as pleasant as perhaps the photos suggest.

When I grew up in New Zealand the French government were busy testing Nuclear bombs a few hours flying from New Zealand on one of their Atolls/islands in the pacific.

As Greenpeace were actively protesting this, the french government blew up the Greenpeace boat the Rainbow Warrior with a bomb when it was moored in Auckland harbour.

So this might explain why I never learnt french at school?

Certainly it would have been good if I did as then I would have understood the military guys instructions better - wait until tomorrow morning for low tide and then go via the beach as the piste inland is too sandy now.

Only understanding half of the instructions I set off with the tide at mid point, so it was a long hard slog for 30kms (not 18km as the military guys said) along the high tide mark. Low box 2nd gear all the way. It was made slightly stressful because of the hundreds of smashed wooden crates full of nails scattered all over the beach.