Day 1 31st August 2017
London to Cambridge to Harwich
Finally I looked up at the evening sky above the ferry terminal and breathed a sigh of relief. After some weeks of feeling too anxious about this trip, with its ordinary anxiety piling on top of the problems with our building work, I realised that I had relaxed. I had stuff all over the place that I am used to being able to organise and gather and take on these trips but at this particular moment my touring stuff is off in store – somewhere – and the rest of it is spread between the garage in Cambridge, somewhere in our flat under a bed and deep within the tarpaulin construction in the back garden of our renovating house in Southwark along with some of our furniture.
There is something charmed about my rides to Harwich. It has never rained on me and today I was blessed with sunshine. I managed to pack everything including some last-minute decisions, a number of improvisations, wire up my helmet camera to the microphone I soldered onto it yesterday (second time worked) and head off with composure. It seemed strange to ride down East Road knowing that my end point was going to be Helsinki.
In the queue as ever are unexpectedly interesting people on motorcycles. I remember on my first trip on this ferry with a bike (2008) I met a music teacher, also riding a bike, who encouraged me by saying I would return a veteran of European travel. This evening a man with narrow mirror shades and grey pony tail, sitting on a Harley Davidson turned out to be an expert, from Norway, on European medieval cathedrals. He had just come back from a sponsored tour (Visit England) of parts of England and was going to spend two more weeks visiting medieval cathedrals in Germany. We seemed to be waiting for ever this evening getting colder under some inky clouds that threatened thunder but kindly left us alone.
(pictures later)
I’ve eaten another Morrisons dinner in my cabin with a pleasant Beaujolais Villages – why did I spend so much time in public on my first journeys on this route, even visiting the smoking room full of some dodgy characters?
On channel 5 here on the TV in my cabin they are showing the bridge cam. I can see they are still loading trucks. In fact there was an announcement that I could hardly hear saying that our departure had been delayed due to something about the cargo.
So, at last I feel organised. Tomorrow is a big day – 300 miles on motorways in an Easterly direction to just this side of Hamburg. My Norwegian friend suggested I take a different route, heading north in Holland and avoiding as much German motorway as I can because of road works. I forgot to check about road works on the German A1. I think I will probably risk taking my planned route. The route planner says it will take 5 hours.