It is looking grey out first thing. A bit like my feeling for Morocco. Will today be another awful day like yesterday. My brain is saying, can't wait to be back in Spain. Waking us in the tent of a morning having camped for free instead of the expense of an hotel.

There's sand over the shower floor from where I washed the evening before and clothes I've washed have easily dried overnight with the heat of the room as the air-con isn't working.

With the packed panniers in hand I leave the room carrying them downstairs to breakfast which I hope is better than the previous evening's dinner only consisting of beef with a few prunes and not much else.

When breakfast comes out, the bread is a little hard and unappetising, but there's a nice large glass of freshly squeezed orange juice; and, best of all a big jug of good coffee and smaller jug of milk.

The young man that checked me in yesterday evening and laid out breakfast this morning asks me is this my first time in Morocco and suggests things I should see. I shrug my shoulders trying to look interested out of politeness; not wanting to offend by saying I don't like the country.

Looking out from the balcony where I sit, the scene couldn't be more ugly. There's a plot of rubbish strew wasteland between the hotel and a row of unfinished breeze block houses with gapping square holes where windows have yet to be put in. Men work in the morning cool. Straight across by one of the said block houses, two men are shoveling soil into a barrow.

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I'm on the road at quarter to nine. A cool still morning which only lasts until eleven when the wind picks up. At a coffee stop I scrutinize the map as I think of turning into the mountains to escape the wind at a right turn in the town of Tinerhir just ahead. But on reaching the turnoff I take shelter behind a pallet of bricks and take another look at the map. The road goes up the Gorge du Dades to a village; beyond which, there's 11-4 marked meaning road closed from November to April, so most probably there's a lot of climbing from there on. This doesn't put me off as much as the long section of dotted line, meaning according to the key "difficult or dangerous road", before reaching the red national road at the far end.

I ride on through Tinerhir which is quite a big town. The main thoroughfare going on for many kilometres and the buildings giving a degree of shelter from the wind. Though where I stop for lunch, serviettes and empty mineral water bottles are blown off the table and the man has to run out and take down umbrellas as they are in danger of being blown away.

I find a small supermarket before riding on. There's a drinking water tap outside so I fill up the two and a half litres capacity of the bike's water bottles. I also buy a litre bottle of coke, the same of lemonade and a packet of crisps, then set off struggling into headwind. Though the wind is never exactly head on. It hits me mainly from the front left and becomes more crosswind as the road swings to the right. And a few kilometres out of town there's a barely noticeable incline with bare sandy mounds to the left which whirl up in a brown haze.

I've only done forty-five kilometres so far today and I console myself when the clock reaches seventy that I'll stop and have the crisps and coke. Something to look forward to. But the kilometres progress so slowly as I fight the wind which fights back turning the handlebars and pushing me over upon the gravel shoulder. In countering I swerve out into the road and am going as much sideways as forward.

It is a relentless road without any natural or manmade feature to take shelter from the wind and blowing sands. There are regular concrete ducts underneath the road where I duck down into for a water break, but down there the sand even gets blown in.

At the top of the barely noticeable incline the road swings to the left just as a gale brings with it a blinding hale of sand across the road forcing me onto the shoulder to a standstill with sharp sand raining on me. And behind me the sudden strong force brings a car in upon the shoulder to a halt too.

Coming up on sixty-eight kilometres I see trees ahead and think this is where I'll stop for that long awaited crisp and coke break. Then on getting as far see a group of teenage boys among the trees by the roadside and think better.

A little on I see the trees shroud a small village and I ride off and take a sheltered seat on the mosque steps. But no sooner do I open the bottle of coke and take a slug than four teenage boys have spotted me and approach. I continue drinking my coke with my head on my knees wanting to savoir the moment's reprieve in peace. And suddenly remember the Belgium cyclist who cycled from home to India and said he hated India when he got there as he couldn't even stop to eat a banana without an audience.

"Bonjour! Cest va?" God how I'm beginning to hate French.

They talk at me in French and I wish they'd go and leave me alone. They ask questions and I don't know what they are saying and when I can't respond the tone of their questioning becomes mocking. They then take it upon themselves to go ahead and fiddle with the gear-lever on the bike. I quickly don gloves, scarf and helmet and get the hell away.

It is only twenty kilometres more and I keep battling away into the wind and think, this time yesterday I was comfortable in the hotel. Today's distance is much the same but I'm stuck on the road as the sun is waning and a glance at the computer clock tells me it is six-thirty. There is only another hour of daylight.

I ride on as the wind eases somewhat; counting down the kilometres. Eventually the westfacing road is directly into blinding low sun sinking toward hills on the horizon and there is still twelve kilometres to Boumalne my gold for the day. Not able to see more than ten metres ahead and I must be a dark silhouette figure coming out of the sun's rays for cars and trucks approaching from behind. I'm glad when the day's final sunshine disappears and I can see the lights of the town ahead.

There's a sign for a four star hotel on the way in. Too expensive. Then one for a three star. Then I'm gladdened to see a sign: Camping 1300m, arrowed right.

It is now dark as I ride through a narrow busy street with more calls of Bonjour from the side. The broken surfaced asphalt goes gently uphill and reverts to a gravel travel finishing at a walled in camping complex.

There's only the one man working here in the kitchen preparing food which he breaks off doing to check me in and at the same time I ask for dinner once I get sorted out.

I put the tent up on a curbed in gravel square by dwarf palms to the right of the main reception door and sit down glad the day is over.