Day 2 - Norway Tour 2011

Ijmuiden, Netherlands to Thomsdorff, Germany

Distance: 375 miles / 600km

Song for today:  A Million Miles Away, Rory Gallagher

Today was a really, really long day. Although we had made the decision to get as far as possible when we were relatively fresh, it was still exhausting. Made more so since much of our route through northern Germany took us over long stretches of roadworks, which was frustrating for the time it lost us.

That said, the conditions were pretty good, with more bright sunshine and little in the way of a wind. It was also much hotter than we'd anticipated, but it did give us an excuse to dig out the sunglasses for the first time. We broke the trip down into 90-mile sections, stopping for fuel and a bit of a rest each time, before pushing on.

It should be noted that while there are now speed limits on most German motorways, they obviously forgot to tell the Germans. They drive excessively fast, and far too close to the vehicle in front. It's all a bit tense on something as small as the bikes we were riding, and makes for fraught overtaking. One minute your mirrors are clear of traffic and then, just as you're about to move out, someone in a big Audi or the like goes horsing past at Warp Factor 9. Scary!

I'm afraid that we didn’t see much of anything but the motorway and a number of service stations today, it was all about putting in the miles. The only thing that did strike me was the huge number of wind turbines along our route through the Netherlands and Germany. They seemed to be everywhere. A definite blot on the landscape.

We eventually found our hotel, Hotel Lindenkrug. Located in a small, quiet village it was just what we needed after our hectic day. When the owner found out from Gareth how far we'd come he went away and came back with extra cushions for us to sit on. Very understanding of him.

A couple of beers, a bite to eat, and then an early night. We had more of the same to do tomorrow.

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Day 1 - Norway Tour 2011

Musselburgh, Scotland to North Shields, England
Distance: 120 miles / 192 km
Song for today: On the Road Again, Canned Heat

After all the planning and anticipation, the day had finally arrived and, as a bonus, it dawned bright and sunny for a change. A short hop to North Shields and we'd be on our way. The bike itself was as ready as I could make it, and everything was packed ready for the off.

  

As you can see from the picture, I had managed to fit pretty much everything I was taking inside the hard luggage, with little left outside to tempt thieves or to simply fall off. The tank bag can't be removed without removing the seat, so it and it's contents were as secure as I could make them, and I usually removed stuff like my camera when I parked up.

We weren't leaving until 5pm, so I had a leisurely trip down to the ferry terminal, where I met up with Gareth and his Kawasaki KLE500 at a nearby restaurant. We talked over what we hoped to do once in Norway and had something to eat before booking in.

While I was waiting for him to arrive a bunch of Harley boys pulled up next to me. All open pipes, open-face helmets and sunglasses. You know, the usual uniform. They had to pass me to get inside, but managed to not only completely ignore me, but make sure I knew that they were completely ignoring me. Why do so many HD owners (and funnily enough, BMW owners, too) feel the need to do this?

Anyway, once on board we secured the bikes and headed for our cabin to get changed and settle in for the voyage. Next stop, foreign shores.

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Prologue

I reckon that a single entry detailing the whole trip in full would be far too long to wade through, so I've decided to do it more like individual diary entries, one for each day of the journey. That's how my notes are arranged, so I think that it makes sense to do it that way, with possibly a couple of the 200+ photos that I took to illustrate things. The rest of the photos may make an appearance in due course.

Just before I left I had been reading "Oz: Around Australia on a Triumph", a book by Geoff Hill & Colin O'Carroll, and the authors had tried to come up with a song to best express how their day had went. I thought that it might be amusing to have a soundtrack to my own travels.

When you ride a bike you've often got too much time in your own head. I often find myself singing old songs (badly) to pass the time. Sometimes they're just something that I've heard on the radio and find difficult to dislodge, other times the scenery or weather or the like suggest a particular tune.

I've added a different song for each day of the trip, and they're really a mix of both. If you're not familiar with the tunes mentioned, you can try looking them up on YouTube. 

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Norway Update

Finally got back from Norway yesterday. It was a very long trip, but worth it. Had a fantastic time. 

Apologies for the lack of updates on the road, but internet access wasn't as readily available as I thought that it would be, and using my iphone for the updates would have been prohibitively expensive. So, you'll have to wait until I finish writing up my notes for more details.

Quite surreal to land in Copenhagen on Friday and have people going on about how terrible everything is in Norway. 

Been on the boat for 16 hours and can’t quite understand what they’re going on about.

Norway was way cool. It was wonderfully sunny and laid back and we had a great time. What the hell are you talking about?

But what about all the bombs and killing and such? 

Huh? What the hell are you talking about?

I saw the front covers of the newspapers in petrol stations all across Denmark, Germany and Holland showing carnage, somewhere. However, as I don’t speak any of these languages it all passed me by. 

Bit of a shock to get home and see the news and finally work out what everyone was going on about.

Anyway, I’ll post some stuff during the upcoming week. I took over 200 photos, so there’s bound to be some worth sharing.

On The Road

Well, we made it. However, this is the first chance that I've had to post anything as most campsites don't have computer access.

Several long days trawling through northern Europe saw us arrive in Oslo, which we then proceeded to leave immediately to head north for the polar circle.

We're now back down south and planning on the Trollstiggen roadway tomorrow morning - or possibly the Atlantic Bridge road (which has nothing to do with the Rod Stewart album of the same name) which a helpful Swede suggested we give a try.

Anyway, loads more with photos once I get back.

Norway

I have been making noises about going to Norway on the bike for some time now. While at Gairloch last year for the MZRC Scottish Rally my mate Gareth called my bluff and said that he'd always wanted to go as well, so why didn't we go together? I said that that was a great idea (alcohol is a terrible thing, it should be banned!), and we agreed that we'd go in the summer of 2011. That's now here, and we should be heading off tomorrow.

The Trip

The main problem with getting to Norway is that there is no direct ferry link from the UK any more, and certainly not from where we are in Scotland. So, getting there is difficult in itself and can seriously eat into your holiday time. Half of our trip will be spent just getting there and back.

It is possible to catch a ferry to Copenhagen in Denmark from Harwich on the south coast of England, but that would involve a trip of at least one day, and possibly two, at the beginning and end of the trip covering the length of mainland Britain. Neither of us wanted to do this.

It made more sense, we felt, to start in Newcastle (1), which is only a couple of hours away for both of us, take the ferry to Amsterdam (2) in the Netherlands, and then ride through northern Germany to Copenhagen (3). From there we will catch the second main ferry to Oslo (4) in southern Norway. Actually, just writing that has made me tired!

So that's what we're going to do. We've booked return ferries from Newcastle (South Shields) to Amsterdam (Ijmudjen) and from Copenhagen to Oslo. On the way out we have a hotel stop in Germany, with another on the return trip. 

The time taken to do this is about the same as travelling from Harwich, except we will mostly be travelling on foreign shores and on arriving back on the last day all we have ahead of us is a journey of a couple of hours rather than days. 

The Plan

Well, actually, here I've got to admit that there isn't much of one as neither one of us is too wedded to the idea that every waking second must be planned in advance and every eventuality anticipated. The only really fixed parts of the trip so far are the ferries we need to catch and a couple of hotel stops in Germany. Other than that, we mostly intend on making it up as we go along.

Once we reach Norway proper, the intention is to ride in a big anti-clockwise loop through the southern part of the country. Starting in Oslo we will be riding north to just above the arctic circle (5) so that Gareth can say he's camped there (masochist), and we may spend a day or so there before heading south and west, down the coast with its mountains and fjords to ride the spectacular Trollstiggen roadway (The Troll’s Ladder) in the picture above (6), before finally looping back to Oslo once more to catch the ferry home. 

We have decided to give Nordcap a miss, even though this seems to be the big destination for bikers, we won't be going that far north. Norway is, after all, a pretty big country, and I don't plan on spending the entire trip riding two or three hundred miles a day just to say that I've been to an expensive visitor centre at the tip of the back of beyond (think Lands’ End or John O'Groats and you've an idea of what I mean). 

Everything else will be in the lap of the gods.

Blog

I'm hoping that, with access to modern technology it will be possible to send photos and updates back home. So I might be able to post some stuff while we’re away. On the other hand, I might not. Only time will tell. Regardless of what happens, do expect the odd blurry photo and inane ramblings about Vikings and fjords to appear here once we’re back.

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Never a Truer Word