(well proper day 1)
At Hollenstedter Hof Hotel

Last night, after my eating dinner courtesy of Morrisons (I just remembered that I had indigestion while eating it) I found it was already 11.45 so had a shower, shook out the duvet and went to bed. I didn’t even venture outside my cabin and declined the opportunity to smoke a cigarette out on deck. I had the bridge cam on the tv screen and trucks were still rolling on when I turned off and went to sleep. Usually I sleep lightly on the boat but this time I slept soundly, not even registering when we left Harwich, hardly waking till an announcement in the corridor at 6.30 woke me followed by the cabin announcement that we were due to dock in one hour. I had woken up with a splitting head – perhaps the half bottle of wine was not wise – so it took a while to climb out of bed and get dressed. With a little orange juice left from last night I didn’t even chance an overpriced breakfast on the ship. I am (was) avoiding coffee. But after packing up and going to the lounge on deck 9 obediently as instructed the smell of brewing coffee very nearly tempted me. Getting through passport control (a policeman gathered up the bikers and checked our passports with no one removing helmets) was easy as usual, then it was off in an easterly direction out on the usual route from Hook of Holland that I vaguely remember but never actually get to know. I took a couple of wrong turns on the journey – not bad. I started off in sunshine around 16 or so degrees. There was such heavy traffic, it was hard to do much more than 65 though for some reason it felt much faster. It is always a landmark to get into Germany. Suddenly the traffic changes. There is less of it but what there is goes much faster. I stopped a few times (see below). Once at a sign of the knife and fork but there was only a grim looking restaurant set back from an empty car park so I eat some more pork pie and bakewell tart by the bike and headed off again. The next stop, maybe a couple of hours later was out of desperation. The temperature had dropped to 14 degrees and it was wet. So I came to a shivering stop at another parking spot and put on more clothes and a scarf, drank some water and headed off again. I had also missed a major turning and wanted to see where I was. The third stop was for petrol, off the motorway a mile or so and involving another minor wrong turning but once I got back on the motorway better dressed and fuelled up the rain stopped and the temperature rose the couple of degrees necessary to make things comfortable. My morale rose. So the final stop was to at last buy something to eat. And have a lovely coffee that I was off yesterday but am on again today, sitting on the curb next to my bike in the now warm sunshine.
Gradually the 300 miles showing to my destination on the GPS changed to 199 then 75, then 20 or so until the turn off. The hotel is literally a mile from the motorway exit. I’m surprised you can’t hear the traffic from here. My entry and attempt to park neatly were not impressive but I made it to the familiar hotel that I stayed in about 5 years ago also on my way up to Denmark. I’ll be dining here tonight then I imagine will sleep well again. Interestingly I do feel fine. I am put in mind of my arrival at another German hotel probably a similar distance if not less from HvH on the first trip I took on a motorcycle. I remember I was exhausted and fell asleep lying on the bed once I got into the room. That was ten years ago and I think I do feel less wide-eyed about these trips – I mean in a good way. Also I am less daunted by the speedy German motorways. I wonder if that’s because I have a better bike that I can confidently drop into the fast lane when I need to. Or perhaps it just has better mirrors.

I have an arrival routine already – first plug everything in that needs charging for tomorrow (so much easier to do this in hotels than when camping), then shower and write. The bike is parked in the courtyard here not far from my front door.

66 miles 1 hour 24 minutes
96 miles 1 hour 30 minutes
3.5 miles 10 minutes
77 miles 1 hour 23 minutes
66 miles 1 hour 13 minutes

Total 308 miles 5 hours 40 minutes riding

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.

A showery day demands careful planning when it comes to riding and not riding. My Met Office app told me that it would rain in Cambridge from 11 am until 3pm. I arrived  – just before 11 – and got ready to ride out just when the heavens opened so lingered in East Road garages as an arriving lady told me she was parking there to avoid a couple who spend ‘half the year in Spain – and we all wish they spent all year there…’. By the time the strange anecdote had ended the sun had come out and I grasped the opportunity. I tend to head out not really having a destination in mind until I get going. After a familiar exit via the A10 toward Ely I decided to head over to BMW dealer Balderston’s in Peterborough where there would be a welcoming cup of tea waiting and some eye-candy shiny bikes to look at. For once my GPS took me on a meandering and indirect route via Ramsey and places without names, the last 15 minutes in steadily heavier rain. I should have remembered that my BMW Nav does not seem to like Balderstons and takes you on a loop that gets close then veers off, only to return you again in a strange circle – not very amusing when it is raining.

Once there and after a dripping entry I was offered the customary cup of tea which I eagerly accepted and tip-toed around the ground floor showroom. The 1200gs Adventures are lovely to behold but like beasts when you stand behind them or sit on them. The fuel tank is so huge. Highly desirable but a riding experience I gave up for my present practical, nimble but secretly a little boring machine – the ‘ordinary’ 1200gs.

I must have spent an hour in the showroom waiting for the rain to stop and trying to resist the temptation to spend any money – even on the low seat for my bike which I tried out there and decided it was not required. I resisted the now £130 BMW rainsuit and the hydrapack even though my jacket has a clever pocket on the back especially designed for it. I would prefer just to stop, have a break and a drink.

First the sun came out and then the rain thankfully stopped and I along with a number of other bikers left the store.

My ride back was via Coates where I collected my first ever bike and rode home nearly 10 years ago, and March – all in the beautiful sun.

Here are the traces of all the trips I have taken since I relocated the bike back to Cambridge to make way for heavy renovations in Southwark. I am highly tempted to keep the bike here over the summers and just keep it in London in winter.

Here’s more detail of the trip:
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Heavy showers led to indecisions and reversals in the pursuit of fruit in East Anglia.

I did come up with the plan of buying 3Kgs of blackcurrants and redcurrants to take home and make (more) jam. I had the coordinates of two pick your own farms ready but the weather eroded my decision. I thought it might be character-building to ride in the rain a bit. I fished out my old Heine Gerricke fabric jacket as a more practical alternative to my nice but relatively pocketless and tight fitting Hideout Leathers jacket for my next tour across northern Europe. It seemed to keep out the wind and rain – though ended up a little soggy hanging up in the garage. I plan to re-proof it and maybe upgrade the armour before my trip starting at the end of August.

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The concrete floor in my garage is 40cms thick. I know because the builders have drilled a trench the length of it out to the drain in the middle of the drive. This is just a reminder that the space is clearly off limits for now until the building work is finished, maybe at the end of September. I am looking forward to building a work bench and shelves and inhabit the kind of space I have wanted for the last twenty years. There will be electric sockets just where you’d want them and fantastic lighting. Tools will be ready to hand. But in the meantime…

Summer 2017 will be the summer of motorcycle rides from Cambridge out to the Norfolk and Suffolk coast. There is something slightly zombie-ish about my returnings to that city, my shock at the re-developed station and walk down past the house that I used to live in to my secret place where my motorcycle lives. It is like those dreams where you are in the house you moved out of. It feels so familiar but you know you don’t belong there. Interestingly an old neighbour from my 10 year visit to Stone Terrace hailed me and we talked for a while on the street about neighbourliness and house prices.

This Saturday was beautiful: sunny and around 23 degrees. I told the GPS to take me to lovely Long Melford and from there typed in Orford. I’ve never been there but had heard of Orfordness. Suffolk villages must be among the most beautiful in the country and its buildings, whether small cottages or large grand halls are stunning. So many times I was grateful to be riding behind slow moving cars to enjoy the view. Orford seems a bit more up market than Dunwich, but a small place with a view across the river there, with a cool breeze and a tea room that was a little too crowded to visit.

The way back involved 20 or 30 miles of beautiful gently curving roads before leading back to the A14 to get back to Cambridge.
I bought 10 litres of water from Tesco (£2.20) to wash off Belinda’s collection of dead insects.
I am using my brand new Conti Trail Attacks, fitted at the last (first) MOT:

Before I knew it, and a train ride later, I was back in the heart of EC1 where I am staying while the house it being done.

The ride was 150 miles.

More detail:
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