travel

Going to any length to avoid duff campsites

From Cabuerniga to Arbon at EveryTrail

I headed off late morning after the age that it takes to pack everything up and move everything that got damp in the night into the shifting sunshine to dry off, and after 15 miles of small roads was spewed out onto the motorway A8 heading west. It was great to be riding at speed even though it could be thought of as a boring road.
North coast Spain
I’d got a campsite from Alan Rogers guide that seemed to promise something special, close to the coast, and small it said. I ended up needing to stop for petrol at a ghastly service station with no shade so made a quick snack of it by the bike, my carton of milk bought from the campsite, still drinkable, and some nice fresh bread, followed by chocolate just starting to melt on my fingers. About an hour later I arrived at the suburb where the campsite should be. There was something odd in the guidebook, it seemed the site had two different names and true enough at a small junction in the town there were two sites. I headed to where the GPS wanted me to go but found a rather nasty ASCI approved (i.e. full of Dutch in motorhomes) place with a grand entrance so turned around feeling smug heading for the other site. When I got there, it looked worse. The woman in the glass reception booth told me to park the bike and follow her but by the time I had, she was nowhere to be seen. I walked down to where a few tents were but the place was like a cross between a loud public swimming pool, a busy bar and a caravan site. This was no good, so in the car park I leafed through the guidebook (which I am beginning not to trust so much) and tried a few different ways to tell the GPS where I thought looked safe to go to, about 35 or so miles further west. I jumped on and enjoyed zooming off. But with so much road building here the GPS was hopelessly confused and took me on some lovely twisty roads believing that I was actually a couple of hundred feet above on the new motorway whose great concrete stilts I rode under, from one side to the other. As ever the route to a campsite gets more and more remote and you need trust to believe that it really knows where it is going. Close to where it should be I slowed down looking out for signs and noticed a queue of traffic just behind me. I darted off to the side of the road to let them pass and lurched to an undignified halt. Round the next few bends was the entrance, down a rocky track that Bertha laughs at.

So I am here. In some ways little different to the others – but subtly nicer – and I feel comfortable which is the point. The owner chain smokes roll ups and has Diablo tattooed on his forearm for a start, and explained (something) about the beer I just bought. I found a shady corner just flat enough to stand Bertha and I camped under orange trees. I just ate one that I saw fall to earth. They smell beautiful and fresh.

The guide book says they have a great restarant here. I’m enjoying a cool beer as I write this but I’m not sure I’m up for sitting alone to eat surrounded by the happy families here. I think I will stay a couple of nights all being well and perhaps Sunday will have emptied out. Tomorrow is 1st September and perhaps everywhere will be quieter from now. I want to get to the West coast.

First proper day in Spain

From campsite up to the El Sopleo caves at EveryTrail

So, my philosophy is to take it easy. My last visit to Spain on the bike was the cause of some anxiety and a baptism of fire of tight steep hairpins. I went out, after mid day looking for medieval Potes but the road I was looking for wasn’t there. Kindly at breakfast two teachers from Portugal gave me some in depth – cave-orientated advice about what to see around here. Luckily the El Sopleo (it means breath or breeze I think) caves were part of their recommended itinerary so I made a sharp right and then a further right up a steeper road (there were cows with horns wandering on it on the way back). Some tightish hairpins today but only one gave some anxiety . There is a stunning view from the site and you can pay €12 for a guided tour of the caves which you start in a rattly old mine train something like the Waterloo and City line used to be – but open carriages. Once inside the show starts. A light show and loud synthesised atmospheric music, reminding me of Almodovar. At this point I remembered that I’d left my expensive movie camera on my bike. Annoying but I am burdened with too many gadgets anyway. The cave was cavishly amazing. At the final  part they played opera, loud and beautiful. Some families started to hug eachother and kiss. The guide said, I think, ‘Music and lights stimulate the frontal cortex’. Then we rattled back up the train back into the daylight. Photography was banned which was a relief. We have to concentrate and rely on memory. A potato salad and Fanta celebrated the safety of my camera.

Tomorrow I will try to find Potes. This holiday is going to be measured though the Portuguese did tell me Galicia is beautiful, though it rains there.

The weather is perfect. The 7pm sun on the roof tiles and bricks where I am sitting now are so warming. There are tourists – all Spanish – but nowhere is crowded and no one drove behind me today making me think I should ride faster than I want to. On my return I realised I’d lost one of my Zig bottles from the back of the bike (the one with vodka in it). I was fond of it.

Another journey tomorrow

Today is the end of the last public holiday here until Christmas. The evenings are already drawing in – its nearly dark now at 8.30 – and the Proms are running, marking the end of high summer. But tomorrow I head off on another motorcycle trip, my eighth. Every year since learning to ride I’ve taken one or more trips with a tent and other equipment strapped to the back, apart from the first where I braved German youth hostels for four nights with just a pair of crocks and a hazard triangle.

This year I’m heading back to Spain, on the ferry from Portsmouth down to Santander. Its the second time I’ve taken this ferry though the first time was an early morning sailing and I stayed in Travelodge Portsmouth the night before. ViaMichelin says it will take 2 and 1/2 hours to get down there, though I always leave in plenty of time. I’d far sooner hang around than feel worried about missing the boat. Each trip is an attempt to solve the problems that the previous trip opened up – avoiding rain, avoiding that alienating feeling of being surrounded by huge motorhomes where I camp, running out of good books, having too few gadgets, having too many gadgets.

The plan is to investigate northern Spain, no huge mileage to make this time, and being prepared to stay in one place, if its agreeable, for a while. I have a few new bits of equipment to test out, all bought with the aim of cutting down on space.

Trip to Kerteminde

A recommendation took me on a gentle trip up to Kerteminde to see the house of Danish artist Johannes Larsen and the marina there then on up to the tip of land with a huge wind blowing. The trip was about 100 miles.

Kerteminde Johannes Larsen Museum, Kerteminde Kerteminde

The return journey to Esbjerg, Harwich and home

20th October, 2012 At Esbjerg With Bertha neatly packed and Niels there to see me off from W B Winslows Vej, I rode away from the building that had been my home for the last six weeks with scarcely a wobble. A hundred yards down the road I noticed that the headlamp that had refused to light a couple of hours ago had come on which was a treat given Bertha’s rather dilapidated state at the moment, with bent bits and a liberal splattering of bloody flies.

The ride to Esbjerg is easy. Strangely there were so many German plate cars on the road and in the picnic area I stopped at. I suspect they were all going home from half term (they called it potato picking holiday in Odense) breaks in Denmark. (I watched Iron Sky the other night about the Nazis hiding on the dark side of the moon.) They would not have had much good weather – the Germans on holiday in Denmark, I mean – not the Nazis on the dark side of the moon. As usual I arrive in Dokvej a good two hours before they start boarding at 16.15. The weather is cold and damp and I’m glad now I put so many layers on. Also as usual there are exotic cars in the queue. I am not the first here. I’m third. And behind a cream coloured mid-1970s Rolls Royce Corniche. I go off to the kiosk around the corner for hot chocolate. I’ve had this here before and I watch the little ferry leave for Fano the small island just off the coast. But the warm kiosk is out of sight of Bertha and all the luggage with my computer and other things just strapped to her so I stroll back. By now another vintage sports car is behind me.

Waiting at Esbjerg Leaving Esbjerg My view before we leave Leaving Esbjerg Containers

It feels like it will rain at any time. With motorcycle travel there is just no shelter from the weather and there is no shelter here at all. Just a tiny toilet and a bench. We go through check in and then queue again. In this last queue I talk to a man driving a van who tells me he has a house and life in UK in Oxford and another in the north of Denmark. He says he is a builder, 67, and can’t manage to retire. He collects vintage cars and watches. He is one of the Rolling Stones generation, with earrings, trendy outlaw clothes, a cap worn backwards, stubble and John Lennon shades. The sky gets gloomier as we wait for boarding. Finally I get into my cabin. I’m the only bike on board (well, obviously I’m not a bike), I ought to be proud of that. On the car deck a couple of guys get out of a big red van come over and tell me, with big smiles, they are going to make a documentary about the Dakar Rally. They admire my approach to packing the bike (well, that’s a first). I tell them that the bottles on the back are for vodka, which is partially true. They say I have the bike for the Dakar, I ought to do it. They obviously don’t know much about the Dakar yet if they think a heavy old 1200GS is a Dakar bike. In the cabin I immediately uncork my very drinkable wine. There’s a blast from the funnel. I’ve never travelled on this boat so late in the year. Its starting to get dark already. We start to pull out of the harbour and stirring music plays on the PA. (see the video – its true)

I’m on the same deck as Bertha again, as with a previous voyage from Esbjerg, this is the closest I’ve got to sleeping with her. I get up on the sun deck as quickly as I can to mark the event of leaving Denmark (though there is not a hint of sunlight). I watch the lights on the harbour and of passing ships come and go and I stay long after everyone else has gone and watch the lights on the coast recede. The ship changes course twice as it moves through the red and green buoys and again at each major twitch the car alarms sound. I am in a more sober mood than when I sailed out six weeks ago, partly because I am coming home and going back to work partly to do with the disappointing adventure aspect of the short trip to Sweden. I won’t dwell on that. Captain Larsen says there will be gentle breezes ‘from various directions’ that promise a calm crossing.

Today’s journey: 86.1 miles: 1 hour 42 minutes: Average speed 50 mph

Sunday:

Finally, I ride back From Harwich through a drizzly Sunday morning back to Cambridge, unload and take Bertha to her garage.

Bertha at home

Some lessons for the next trip:

Chose campsites far more carefully, use the Cool Campsites Europe book. Forget about the ACSI book. Its aimed at Dutch people in big white motorhomes:

Give myself a break – head for somewhere sunny for once – France, Southern Germany, Spain.

Don’t surrender to eating dehydrated food. Make finding shops to buy decent local food part of the day’s objective before settling on a campsite. Cooking meat or fish outdoors is one of the pleasures of camping.

Consider buying a bigger tent so that it is not so meager crouching over all the gear, particularly when it does rain

Travel lighter; fit everything into the three metal boxes (so maybe don’t get a bigger tent) Don’t take so many electronics

Take a good book that will last the whole trip

Escape and the south coast Solvesborg: Norvikkens down to Solvesborg

Dodgy Diner in Sweden
After the rain the the cold weather and my not quite right stomach I made the decision to go back to my small flat in Denmark earlier than I planned. When I left the awful campsite I had every intention of having a quick look at that corner of Sweden then heading back across on the same ferry I had come on to Denmark, but the sun came out, some pale blue sky appeared, and my mood lifted. I even started to get in tune with riding in Sweden – straight roads with pine trees on either side, but with patches of blue sky and some flickering sunshine. So, instead of an hour or two riding, I changed direction and headed down toward the south coast. I knew rain was forecast for the next days so I had no great ambitions. I stopped for some lunch at this place:



The best that can be said about this strange roadside diner on the way is that it was not part of a chain. One entire wall was decorated with local press clippings presumably of moments of local fame. The food consisted of bizarre help yourself salads in a fridge each covered in cling film. But the tea was hot and it was good to take stock. Apart from a family that came in, I was the only customer. I was starting to enjoy the ride (though I knew it could start raining at any time again) so I continued toward the south coast and looked through the fence at one campsite which reminded me of the previous one – lots of caravans – and decided to give it a miss and travel 20 miles further to look at another one in or near Solvesborg. Now this is choice! Why has it taken me so long to exercise it and to realise that if I am careful, I may not need to stay in these campsites that feel like a suburb of a small Dutch town? Half an hour later I arrived at somewhere very different. This was much nicer and felt like I had a genuine welcome from the man in charge. In fact it was their last night open for the season. This site was spread for about a mile along the sandy coast and had lots of pine trees and a view of the sea from nearly everywhere, accompanied by a strong wind.

Strange looking place here
Denmark and Sweden Denmark and Sweden
The lights are on



Perhaps because it was the end of the season it was pretty empty. My nearest neighbour in a caravan was about 100 yards away. It was dry but pretty chilly but a much more relaxing environment. I could almost have been tempted to stay but I had finished my book and the site was closing and in the morning it was cold and overcast, so I packed up and headed home.

On the way I stopped to have a look at Lund (Sweden’s version of Cambridge according to the guidebook) and it was a really nice, small town, where English seems to be spoken on the street, leaflets are in English and I had a great cappuccino and scone in a little cafe.

I wonder who she is


Then I headed back, not before some elderly Swedish man sucking on a pipe asked me, looking at my bike whether I had just returned from a round the world trip. No I said just Sweden and Denmark. Ah so its just the image you are after then, he replied. Ho ho. Riding over the Oresund bridge and tunnel was great fun and windy (and costs 23 Euro) and there is an even longer bridge between two of the Danish islands. As soon as I emerged in Denmark I noticed the sun was out and the temperature rose 5 degrees.

Overcast over the bridge


So I made it back to my lodging in Odense by 4pm. My first priority is to go and buy some real food (I’m ashamed to say I ate Travelunch dried meals in the evenings) and cook a proper supper here. With a bottle of nice wine. Ah home comforts.

In Sweden

Tolls somewhere en route

I made it over the water to Sweden on the ferry from Helinsor to Helinsborg (I think I have that the right way round) after having a look around Denmark’s modern art and architecture gallery Louisiana. Its Scandinavian and Nordic buildings prepared me for moving over into a subtly different country.

On the boat to Sweden

On the boat was a wiry old German riding a GS100 which he said had taken him from the northern most tip of Norway to the very south of Sicily with over 100,000 k on the clock. He said he was attached to it and I can see why. He admired my rather newer and more shiny bike but I suddenly felt a bit ashamed of all the gizmos attached in the face of his highly appropriate workhorse. He said that he wasn’t strong enough any more to pick his bike up if he were to drop it. He was a real sweetie, off to stay with a friend in a cottage somewhere in Sweden. I don’t spend a lot of time with motorcyclists but these moments are gems.

My new friend for 20 minutes



The campsite I chose is just over the road from the sea and while the sun is still shining it is beautiful but there are some heavy clouds and they say tomorrow it will rain. My entry here did not get off to a good start. The helpful young guy opened the barrier to let me in but it is not set up for motorcycles and came crashing down on the back of my bike knocking me and the bike into an extremely solid and unfortunately placed metal signboard, sending me flying and bending the bar at the front of the bike that the windscreen is screwed to. A couple of Swedes came over and helped me, asking me if I was OK. They were joined by a few parsnips and a potato (sorry I couldn’t resist that terrible joke…). It was very sweet and offering to lend me tools to fix it. After putting up the tent I got my trusty tool kit out and tried to straighten things up but to no avail. It should get me through the next few days. Luckily nothing more expensive was damaged. Someone staying here told me that the same thing nearly happened to a woman on a motorcycle yesterday but she just made it through.

My tent in the dusk


This campsite has great wifi – which is some solace. It started raining that night and rained with possibly only a couple of short breaks for the whole next day and most of the next night. I felt forced to stay put and pay for an extra day. Despite not liking the site much (when will I learn to avoid these places that are crammed full of retired people in big white caravans and mobile homes?) I spent the day reading Hisham Matar’s Anatomy of a Disappearance in the kitchen, the only warm place around. I must say the weather, the event with the barrier and the demographic of the site (not to mention an upset stomach) meant that my morale drained through my boots.