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May 12th heading back south

12th May. After a rest day I spent reading The Devils (its complicated but engrossing) I set off this morning with heavy skies. I got an early start as the campsite was closing for a harmonica festival which was going to take it over for a week. i am not making this up. I got a good start down to a town called Odda still on the same fjord as Kinsarvik, had a quick stroll round then pressed on. The road climbed upwards and it started to rain, a kind of wet rain. Somewhere I pulled off and performed the bizarre getting into a rainsuit wearing enormous enduro boots kind of dance while it is pissing down and while everything is getting wet. Once attired i headed off with rain on my visor and really going slower because I can’t see that much with the raindrops and steam. The road got higher and soon there is snow everywhere, of a dirty kind, then ice turning slightly green and beginning to melt – rain, snow and ice and the occasional waterfall throwing spray into the road- there was no shortage of water today. But as I realised here, you just need to move to the other side of some mountains and the weather changes. My route joined the road called Rv9 (and of course I starting singing ‘Highway Nine’ or whatever the country and western song is called). Things changed. Its a long road that goes south down all the way to Kristiansand and I could have just kept going but that would leave me with a problem for tomorrow which is my last day here. My choices were the ‘funny’ road to Lysebotn described in loving detail by a Norweigian biker ‘the funniest part is at the end’ or to head down for a campsite near the Rv9. I plugged in Lysebotn into the GPS and zoomed in on the road – just as I thought a tangle of blood vessels of hairpins that folded over on themselves countlessly, lovely for some riders but really scary for me, the rider who has not done a U turn since his test and whose heart is in his mouth on the haripins on ‘ordinary’ roads – let alone the narrow ‘funny’ roads. I thought it was going to be a tough choice whether to rise to the challenge or bottle out but in the end there was no way I was going to put myself through it. I pressed on down the 9. By now I am feeling a little used to the beauty that is everywhere here. ‘Even’ the 9 is stunning, its whole length by a beautiful lake, with pine trees rising on the other side to high mountains, the occasional tunnel (how I like tunnels though damp and smelling like the cellar of the house I grew up in, it does not rain in them). The first campsite whose co ordinates I put into the GPS seemed to have vanished (did I mention that the list of all Norwegian campsite coordinates that I imported seemed to have become deranged – they all have been relocated to the Indian Ocean. Honestly. So now I am sitting in the humid sunshine of the first four star campsite I have visited. I wait to see how much it costs in the morning as the people running it only seem to put in a brief appearance between 10 and 11am. Its also by a lake and has swish washing and washing up facilities and is large and generally populated with white campervans but there is enough space not to feel surrounded and again a lovely view over a slightly more domesticated lake. I’ve chosen some routes from the MC maps so will cruise my way down and by indirections find directions out to Kristiansand where I will bite the bullet and camp in the 4 star site apparently in the middle of town or at least very close to the ferry terminal where I need to be at least by 7.30am on saturday.

Though not quite finished it has been an interesting time. To think I bought the first three maps of Norway taking you up to Tromso. I’ve not moved out of the area covered by the first and been amazed at the scenery, the quality of the roads and their emptiness. I’ve had the whole width of the 9 nearly the whole time I have been on it. Perhaps Norway is another country, like Slovakia, that I think about coming back to some day and ‘doing properly’. Here it would mean having a definite plan and timetable to reach the top, to much visited Nordkap. The trouble is, to get here you either drive 500 miles just to arrive at the bottom of the country via Germany and Denmark or you pay over #300 to take the ferry to Esbjerg and still need to ride for a couple of hundred miles then take the ferry up to Kristiansand. Its quite a expedition but one worth thinking about. But like other major trips I think about, it would be ideal to do it in a small group. Its hard to keep up morale when you get caught up in your own thoughts and doubts about the trip. Hmmm. Something to think about.

4th to 11th May

May 9th finally I get to sit down on a bench and write. I’m in a campsite called Lone camping which is about 15 miles north east of Bergen. Its my third campsite in Norway. They are mixed events. There is usually one view which is stunning (the one that gets into the camping book) but invariably another which is the back of a petrol station – as here. Look one way and I see Bertha with a mountain, the snow melting behind her. Look the other and its huge trucks refuelling and pumping up their tyres and a fast main road.

But enough of this criticism. A kind Norwegian man gave me some recommendations in terms of routes from where I stayed on the first night here, at Flekkefjord, which was a couple of hours from Kristiansand where the ferry docked up to tavanger. He said ‘Perhaps theere are too many mountains, even for an Englishman’. And he was right, there were deep blue lakes, hairpin bends both the going up and going down variety, tunnels and amazing views over the sea. Driving here is effortlessly stunning. And the Norwegians must know it. There are lay byes exactly where you would want to pull off and admire the view. (A voice was asking me, as usual, ‘why is this a beautiful view? Is it because you recognize it from a stock of catalogue views?’ What is beauty?. This is the usual voice that comes with me on every trip, asking me why on earth I would want to do this.) (I wish the fat man on the sit on lawnmower would go away). Some things are perfect. The weather for example. So far beautiful blue skies with a temperature of about 18 during the day, dropping down to about 12 – 14 in the evening. The roads, and the bike is performing well. Now for the bad and good news. Journeying up the coast involves taking ferries, two so far. On the first from just north of Stavanger to Skudenshaven, I left Bertha unsecured. There were no usual straps and I thought this is only a short trip so perhaps they don’t tie down the bikes. As we proceeded the sea got rougher and the boat dived and rose. Up on the sun deck I thought, well if Bertha falls there will be plenty of people on hand to help. Then when we arrived i went down to the car deck and breathed a sigh of relief to see her still upright. But when I got close to her I could see that she’d been damaged and someone had set her straight again. I started her up, checked the indicators and lights and all seemed well but something on the handlebars did not look right, but I started off, then I realised that a mirror was missing. I went back and found it lying on the floor under a bulwark. I remonstrated with one man and then another but they continually told it it was my responsibility to look after her. ‘Hey, bad luck, man’ the manager said in parting. A campsite was nearby and it was about 6pm on Sunday. Unlike most European campsites, no one seems to be ready to greet you here. On Sunday there was just a number to ring posted up on reception. On ringing it a small girl gave me another number to call, eventually summoning a woman who took my money and toldd me about a mechanics, just 200 metres up the road that I could visit in the morning to see if they could fix my mirror. This was number two campsite. Just me and a couple of guys in a mobile home, and a petrol station. I was fuming at Norway. My argument about the bike was gong through my head over and over again. Added to that there was a fierce wind, so it was impossible just to sit and unwind. In the morning I headed off to the mechanics. I talked to one man then another who spoke quietly and with an effortless can-do approach. He went off and welded the broken part, commenting that the mirror was fixed with a left handed thread. He brought back the perfectly welded part and fixed it back on – perfectly. We spoke quietly about riding bikes and ‘Norwegian miles’ which are 10 kilometres apparently. ‘So how much do I owe you?’ I asked. A brief conversation – ‘its nothing’. It was fixed for free and in a way the net effect of the whole event was positive. I went back to the campsite and made another coffee, ate my lovely Danish marzipans and headed off. Lovely roads including a fantastic long a dark tunnel, amazing bridges and beautiful views, including the first snow-capped mountains. I just made a ferry up to Bergen and drove straight on. This time I parked up right against a rail and used the ropes they casually leave there. But this time you could stay with your vehicle so I sat glued to Bertha this time, but the journey was calm. And now, after missing my turning, I am at this campsite. I feel there is something cynical about running it from the petrol station with two young rather uninterested boys selling petrol and telling you where you can’t park or put up a tent (anywhere that is remotely nice) but not bothering to tell you that you need to buy tokens if you want to use the showers. With some lateral thinking I’ve found an ok spot. The sun is still warm and the breeze has dropped. There are a coulple of tents over the way but I have defied possibility and parked near to where I have put up my tent. There is even a picnic bench right next to the tent, where I am sitting in comfort at last, typing up my diary. I dropped in at Spar over the other side of the main road before arriving and bought some steak, onions, mushrooms and olive oil. I’m a little tired of my dehydrated food. I’ve also got a couple of beers at a not too exorbitant price for all that. The sun will set early tonight as it disappears behind the mountain over to the west. There are some ominous clouds up here. Its time to start chopping and frying.

May 11th Wednesday
The night of my meat feast it rained and rained keeping me awake most of the night. I felt rather gloomy yesterday morning but remembered the advice of a Norwegian biker to travel East, away from the coast, to avoid the rains which, as I saw on a satellite film, do come in from the south west. After taking a coffee and delicious cake in the cafe near the campsite, I rolled up my wet tent and packed up. In fact by the time I did pack up it had stopped raining though the sky was extremely heavy and the waitress said that it would stay wet all day. I wore my hi visibility vest- with its Salvation Army price tag still on but didnt’ put on wet weather gear that makes you feel like Mr Balloon man. It was a lovely 40 miles or so, some of it next to the train track, up to Voss, quite a pretty town where I had another coffee and another pastry, not quite so nice this time. Norwegians seem to be relaxed, quiet, with nothing to prove, helpful when need be. I took a closer look at the welding the mechanic had done on my mirror fixing and am amazed at the neat job. After many lovely long tunnels and a very short ferry trip from Brusevik over the fjord (I sat on Bertha all the way) I rode down to Kinsarvik where, after a moment of panic thinking I had a flat tyre after riding the gravelly road at some raodworks (and the previous panic about the engine smelling really hot when I stopped), I parked up. I had noticed two campsites next to eachother just out of town and was determined to stay somewhere good this time. I walked passed the first four star establishment with its archery targets and cabins going up to a much humbler place with space for about 10 caravans or tents. A builder told me the man in charge was down in his cabin. I walked down and knocked on the door getting no reply, then again where a bearded rather elderly man welcomed me enthusiastically and engaged me in german conversation. At last this was the kind of hospitality I had been hoping for, and the site is a gem, albeit a slightly unkempt one. My tent is about 6 feet from a beautiful Sorfjorden, that does actually connect to the North Sea as some Norwegians also staying here told me when I asked where all the fast flowing water goes to. I walked back, picked up dinner (more meat vegetables and beer) and rode back down here. Later in the evening the manager (he is not the owner who lives in Oslo) invited me into their cabin for tea with his wife. She was rather formal like my German grandmother but he was enthusiastic, telling me how frustrating it was that he could not speak English. We burbled away. He told me he used to own three BMW motorbikes, but stopped as the bikes started to get too big. They spend just 6 weeks here if I understood right and are from Osnabruck in northern Germany. Needless to say, I’m staying here one more night. I plan to stay at Lillehamer which looks to be half way back to Kristiansand and the last night, Friday, I will stay in what seems to be a campsite right in the town, almost within view of the ferry terminal where my boat back to the top of Denmark leaves at 8 on Saturday morning – but I am wishing my time away. Even though the weather was beautiful (till it rained – but even that was only at night – I have never ridden in the rain) its only here that I have got in to the spot I was hoping for. Its as if someone is standing behind my shoulder all the time, someone extremely critical, asking me, sneeringly why I am participating in something so dreadful. Well, here, this critical person has become quiet for the moment and my buoyancy defeats it. The simple pleasures – this morning I had a hot shower and washed my clothes from which steam arose in the cold morning air on the line here. I’ve had one lovely coffee and marzipan cake from Odense (I have one left). The ferry boat goes back and forth all day up the fjord and back to just around the corner from here where you can’t see it dock. I have the feeling I will take a day off from riding. The weather is perfect again.

Day 2

3rd May Phew today was tiring as expected. Just over 300 miles from the Hoek to here, about 25 miles south of Hamburg. I arrived at about 3.30 or so. These ‘biker hotels’ are an enigma. They market themselves in this way, and even have some bike mags around but everyone is so unbikerish and uninterested in my travels or in putting Bertha away for the night that I genuinely began to think I had turned up at the wrong hotel. After fussing about for a while in this strangely shaped room in a hotel that looks beautiful from the front but inside looks and smells as if nearly a hundred years of continuous smoking are being disguised by doses of air freshener, I crawled under the contienental pancake duvet and fell asleep, feeling a bit feverish but perhaps its just tiredness. Last night I slept poorly, I wwoke with my heart pounding in panic that the ship would capsize, the sea seemed rough and horizontal with my eyes closed I could feel every movement, both the regular ones and the sudden shocks. Once asleep I dreamed that I waas constantly battling to keep people out of my room. A stream of young people wanted to come in first to sleep and then as the dream wore on to use my room as an art resource room. I swore at them viciously but they took no notice. At 6.30 the Ddutch woman woke us all up and I got vertical and made my way on the still rolling ship to one of the bars where I paid about #7 for two coffees and a dried croissant with 5 mls of disgusting jelly passing for jam. Preparing my bike to go once on the car deck a man came out of nowhere and asked me where I was going. Norway – eventually I replied. Wow, he said, I feel jealous. These are the nicest moments.

The ride for the first few hours was freezing and I was shivering on the bike and eventually pulled into a service station and had a strange bacon and egg and cheeze and mustard roll and a hot coffee. I put on more layers and soldiered on. Eventually I crossed into Germany which seemed to take an age this time. The ride on the A1 (the aah einz) was uneventful apart from seeing the results of a huge two lorry crash o the other carriage way with the fire brigde in attendance and a long and quickly growing tailback. I
m so glad it wasn’t my side.

So now I am here, showered and with my socks washed, plucking up courage to go down and sample the food. This place markets itself as quite a restaurant with an impressive wine cellar and home to lovely beers, so lets see if it really is.

On asking the apron clad waitress for a table for one I was responded to with wide eyed and speechless shock as if the last thing she expected was someone wanting to dine here. I notice she has a plaster over a vein in her forearm and conclude that doctors have been taking blood trying to work out why she is so stupid. However the rest of the meal went well and I was served a tasty schnitzel washed down with two glasses of refreshing beer, followed by more gifts from Mien host who inquired about my journey to Norway which he must have remembered from my booking. I ended the evening in the car park, now crowded with the smart cars of the well heeled and middle aged diners, smoking a cigarette leaning against Bertha who is waiting for me to continue north tomorrow via Hamburg to Odense. I am so tired despite my earlier sleep and my muscles in my forearms are already beginning to ache.

May 2nd Day 1 of my trip to Norway

2nd May in my cabin on the stenna Hollandica, the multi-million new ship built only last year for this route from Harwich to Hoek van Holland and back. I managed to take a wrong turn even before I left Cambridge and then got bizarre messages from my GPS. Nevertheless I know the way here well by now. Its such a beautiful twisty route to Harwich from Cambridge and I always seem to take it on sunny late afternoons on the way to catch this ferry. I arrived among the first dozen vehicles and got chatting to a German woman from Hamburg travelling with her husband. I like the way that these trips open up brief conversations with strangers. Then a couple of cyclists ask us where they can buy tickets. Its sunny but so windy and I retreat into the strange cabin staffed by a few machines only where I buy tea for #1.40 and eat the first of my stash of muesli bars and shelter from the wind. A fellow with a bicycle asks for my help putting the wheel back on and later we ask eachother to take pictures of ourselves next to our various two-wheeled modes of transport. Two Polish guys on big bikes arrive but dont seem to want to talk much though they offer to shake hands with me. They are riding all the way back to Poland tomorrow. I can’t believe it. After waiting for hours in the cold, so cold I wait with my helmet on, e ride up the spiral ramp to the boat. When we get level with the boat I look up and the enormous mouth that takes us in. I wish I had been able to film this enormous entry. We tie down the bikes praying they are still upright at the end of the journey and jostle my way up the elevator to my deck and stagger into my room and drop my bags and helmet on the floor. I look in the mirror and smile. So far so good, no self-doubt, no boredom. This will be a new kind of trip for me. Lets see whether Norway’s wild camping and beautiful sites offers something that the crowded, mobile home filled sites of Germany and southern Europe don’t. Tomorrow is a bit of a ride though, but not that daunting if I break it into two 2 hour slots with another hour on the end. I will be tired by the end of it for sure but intrigued by the Hollenstedter Hof hotel. I’ve stayed in two so called biker hotels in Germany. One I found awful (the dinner was ghastly) and the other was very pleasant.

Its already ten past ten UK time that’s 10 past 11 tomorrow’s time. so Suddenly its time to prepare to get my head down.

the boat had two coaches with Czech plates full of Asians. ‘Will all the Indian people who have not yet eaten, please go to the restaurant’ – that’s what thee Dutch lady announced.

Bike magazine April issue

The latest issue of Bike magazine features a nice looking article on well known adventure bikers Dan Walsh, Nick Sanders and Charley Boorman in a bar- in Barnes – talking about, not surprisingly, biking off around the world. If you read it, however, you have the strange sense that the three are not actually in the same room. Either this is the way it is edited or the three just did not get on with eachother. Boorman is articulate, for example, I learnt for the first time that he describes himself as a failed actor who was doing painting and decorating work to pay the mortgage before the popularity of the Long Way Round series gave him a new career and, presumably, a significant boost in income. But the others are perhaps better at gritty determination than at chatting to journalists in a pub in leafy Barnes. Nick Sanders is particularly uninteresting! From watching one of his free videos I wasn’t entirely surprised. On that vid you can see him totally un-understanding about the life of a solitary barman that he comes across in a lonely bar in some desert country and apparently completely uncurious about him. It seems that its the physical and personal challenge of covering vast distances on a bike that is the centre of his activity – which is one version of travel I suppose. I wonder if he drove around Staines a huge number of times whether it would have the same effect.
(Disclaimer: I’ve barely taken my beloved motorcycle off the end of a tarmac road so I take my hat off to this trio in the courage and energy department).
An taster of the interview is on the Bike website at http://www.motorcyclenews.com/Bike/latest-issue/