17th June: This is the morning of the 17th of June in my cabin, so, last night, I slept like a log, better than I normally do at home. The whistling Dutchman comes on the cabin speakers at half past five, which may be half past six local time but is still half past five as far as my body is concerned. The coffee and croissant was better than I remember from years gone by; the coffee was hotter and stronger. And the croissant was slightly bigger. Even the jam was slightly thicker than I remember on a previous journey. So, one extra layer today but it could be hot. It could be the same as England was here in the Netherlands. One of the other guys on a bike told me he was going to take a route around the north coast of the country. So I’ve decided to do that because you can’t – the ferry company say don’t get to the ferry terminal before two o’clock, so we dock at eight this morning. It should be a leisurely no hurry kind of ride. But I always seem to hurry. I don’t know why. So maybe this time I’ll just try and take it easy – whatever that means. It’s a pretty early start on this trip. I know that, but once you’re up and going then it should be fine.
Note: On this trip I recorded my thoughts on a Dictaphone and these are transcriptions. They have a different feel to writing. Its an experiment.
16th of June. From my cabin on the Stenna ship to Hook of Holland. Well, it seems that the last couple of trips, we’ve had a kind of disaster in the first 100 miles of getting from home to the ferry even last year, it was a motorbike malfunctioned in a very strange way. This time, leaving London, the traffic was so, so heavy at every point, and there were some brief moments of respite when you can actually go to proper speed but, but very quickly, you’d end up just in queued traffic again, whether it was accidents, or just the volume of traffic. Maybe Friday evening, leaving London wasn’t the best timing. But that was more than that. So having got the three quarters of the way to here, I just stopped for petrol, which I needed. And when I got off the bike, I could see that the bag that I’d put all this food in: the delicious apricot tart that my partner lovingly made and freshly made loaf of sourdough bread and the beautiful cheese and the bottle of water in a really nice bag just dropped off the bike at some point. Got no idea when. And it was really all the effort that had gone into making that little, that little feast. Really, really sad.
I arrived via the crowded A12 much later than I normally would.
So arriving at Harwich there’s usually other people on bikes. And that always actually really nice people that you chat to. Bikers on mass I kind of have a kind of aversion to but when you actually meet individual people, you know, they’re just nice people interested in travel and all ages. So in the cabin, I’ve eaten my snack, my dinner which is from Morrison’s in Harwich. With a little bit of some Italian beer. And I’m seeing whether I’ve got the energy to get out of the cabin to find someplace with a signal for the phone just to send a text back to my partner. I’ve been frantically charging everything.
My aim was to visit the Arctic Circle relatively directly and then journey back to the south, where the ferry arrives and leaves from, in a slightly more relaxed way, down the west coast through tunnels and many short ferry trips.
The trip was 2,812 miles in total. I went out through Holland close to the north coast, which I thought might be more scenic (it wasn’t) and came back a more direct (though much busier) way. The main ferries were Stenna’s line from my old favourite Harwich to Hook of Holland and the new HNL, Holland Norway Line from the port of Emden just over the border into Germany to Kristiansand at the southern tip of Norway. Both are overnight journeys. Stenna cost £360 and HNL £714. I’m really supportive of a new venture in this complicated and costly sector. HNL’s offices at Emden were a series of tents.
This is looking down from the boat when everyone had boarded and the customs and other people were packing up and going home. But Stenna have a much more oiled operation and their boat and the cabins are noticeably nicer. HNL kindly changed my cabin when I complained that I was just under the performers on the sundeck.
I’m just back from this trip. Before I transcribe my notes during the trip and post some photographs, here’s a summary of the accommodation and costs. Norway doesn’t have to be an expensive destination.
16 Jun 2023 Friday Catch ferry from Harwich 17 Jun 2023 Saturday arrive Hoek van Holland 17 Jun 2023 catch ferry from Emden, Germany 18 Jun 2023 Sunday Arrive Kristiansand 10am Take E18 toward Oslo then left to E16 toward Honnefos and Lillehammer 18 Jun 2023 Sunday Camping near Honnefos Utvika Camping 19 Jun 2023 Monday Camping south of Trondheim St Ren Camping Stoeren 20 Jun 2023 Tuesday Hotel in Fru Haugans Hotel Mosjeen 21 Jun 2023 Wednesday Cabin in Haugen Camping Trofors (off E6) visited arctic circle 22 Jun 2023 Thursday Cabin in Orkanger SW of Trondheim Hogkjolen Fjel Fannrem 23 Jun 2023 Friday Camping in Alesund at Volsdalen (V busy and noisy) 24 Jun 2023 Saturday Cabin at Botnen Camping cabin with sink
25 Jun 2023 at 18:00 – 19:00 Sunday Camping at Austre Bokn windy by road embankment 26 Jun 2023 at 18:00 – 19:00 Monday Cabin at Ogna camping night 1 27 Jun 2023 at 18:00 – 19:00 Tuesday Cabin at Ogna camping night 2 28 Jun 2023 at 1700 (Check-in from 1300) Wednesday Kristiansand ferry to Emden leaves 29 Jun 2023 at 10:00 Thursday arrive Emden 29 Jun 2023 at 2200hrs Catch ferry from Hoek van Holland 30 Jun 2023 at 07:00 Friday Arrive Harwich – home
£
25 13 114 29 43 14 51
36 36
Total accommodation
£361
Fuel (approx.)
£220
Ferries from Harwich and Emden
£1133
Ferries in Norway
£30
TOTAL excl. food
£1744
I put together my route from Missenden Flyer’s publishing of Motorrad Tour’s Arctic circle tour. Motorrad tours charged £4500 which I presume included the ferries and hotels and TMF estimated he spent an additional £1500 in petrol and other costs, making a total of £6000. My approach was more down to earth which suited me better. I discovered Cabins on campsites and preferable to my ‘light is right’ but very small tent as well as hugely cheaper to hotels. I’ll write about these in a separate post.
The last ride but one – wearing the Nexx Viljord flip front/modular helmet – convinced me beyond all doubt that it had to go. It was too tight around the jaw, the ears and, probably worst of all, on the top of my head – where it really hurt. I couldn’t deny it any longer. It was the kind of torture that meant that after about an hour, maybe less, I just wanted to stop riding. And added to the physical pain was the realisation that I had wasted a large sum of money on this. So a week ago I took the train down to Motolegends just outside Guildford, walked from the station down to the shop and told them the story – that I’d tried on a Schuberth E2 large and extra large at the MCN show and that L was far too small and XL a little, I thought, too big. But after measuring my head they started me out with a large and gave the fitting proper attention, changing the cheek pads and neck roll, repeatedly checking for fit, until we were satisfied that this was the right fit. As the guy said about my experience at the MCN show, its not rocket science to fit a helmet properly and Schuberth’s selling point is that people can adapt the padding to get the fit right for them. But of course at a trade show, there’s no way someone on a large stall with hundreds of customers is going to take the time and trouble to do this. I was sceptical about trade shows to start with and I am even more now – at least if you are there for some shopping that needs careful attention. (Or getting fitted for custom earbuds – which was fine because I knew exactly what I wanted from UltimateEar.)
An hour later, I walked out of the shop with a big orange and white and box and my bank account £560 lighter. I tried it on at home and it felt just right. I spent some time trying to clamp on my new Senna EVO20S but in the end gave up and used the glue mount – heating up the helmet first for a good seal and with a neat tethering cord hooked inside the helmet just in case. It turned out easy to swap out the speakers that are already fitted (for the ridiculously expensive kit that they offer) and replace it with the Sennas (they are probably the same speakers). The boom mike is a little short but I doubt I will use it. Slightly more challenging was fitting a helmet cam. There was just no way to mount my Sony so I bought three attempts at the right mount for my GoPro and after studying how a couple of Vloggers have mounted theirs on a flip front, more or less copied the approach, also heating everything up before gluing and installing a tether from the camera to a discretely mounted spot inside the chin bar. Its a little heavy but all feels sound.
I rode from Cambridge up to the land in Suffolk and back again, with the GoPro filming and all seems well.
I am happy with the Schuberth and can see its beautifully made, just one thing though: Next to lids like the Arai Tour X or the Nexx XD, it does look like a huge germanic spherical thing with a peak stuck to it. You wouldn’t exactly call it aggressively styled. But this was definitely a function-over-style decision. I’m not complaining.
1st April 2023 was the start of a new part of life and to draw a line of sorts under the routine that went before, I decided to ride up to our land (half an acre of land with an old barn without services) and spend a few nights camping (instead of sitting at my desk). It would also be a testing ground for my trip to Norway later in the year, a chance to try some new devices too.
It wasn’t a huge trip. Here’s the overall map.
Just under 200 miles in total.
First, thoughts about the weather and the impact that had. This Spring has been cold and wet here, slow to come. I was lucky in a way for my few days in that the days were sunny and, if you were in the sun and out of the wind, warm. In fact just warm enough on Tuesday to mow the whole field without a shirt – it takes most of the day to do. But as soon as it started to get dark, the temperature fell and the nights were (forecast to be) 2 degrees c. The grass, and my tent, had frost on it in the morning. That’s a first for me.
I have two sleeping bags. I think of them as a southern and a northern European version. I packed by Rab Ascent 900 (I think) which is a down bag and super toasty, though it takes up a lot of room in a pack – 3 or even 4 times the volume of my Mont Bel lighter bag – so its quite a commitment to pack for a journey. So at 9pm I crawled into it with long johns, thermal socks, three layers including a Patagonia quilted jacket – and fell asleep. I awoke during the night of course and was over heated and removed layer after layer and was still too warm. But I noticed that the outside of my sleeping bag was wet with condensation and so was the inside of the tent. In the morning I discovered that the foot of the bag where it rubbed up against the tent was very wet. I felt confident that all would dry out in the warm sun the next day but wondered whether this would trouble my camping in Norway where the next day may well be wet. (Mo I Rana is 9 degrees high and 4 low – that’s the furthest north and other cities seem to go no lower than 10 or 12 degrees coldest, though rain is frequent). I need to decide whether I need to take this large bag….
For the second night I slept in the barn on a makeshift bed, next to my bike.
I’ve been gathering some new kit and gadgets over the winter for my trip. Here’s a summary of what worked well and what didn’t and what problems I need to sort out before June 12th:
The helmet – Nexx Viljord flip front
Occasionally it was totally comfortable and at times really so uncomfortable you want the ride to end. Nice in the city to ride with the lid open. Riding at speed with the lid up is possible but not for long. Moving it around the head helps and opening it for a spell then closing again also helps. Needs wearing in big time. At times I thought this just will not work and I need to swallow the fact I’ve wasted £350 and try the Schuberth again and get some proper fitting advice.
Sena 20s Evo bluetooth headset
Works well clear and loud. No crackling or distortion. Which way turns it up and can the radio be got to work? A good buy though I didn’t use the earbuds that I had made (£180) as I didn’t need to because the sound was loud enough but also the helmet was too tight.
Trangia stove
Is heavy and takes up valuable space but the adjustment of the flame is superb. Lights easily. I used the frying pan and the useful kettle but not the saucepan that I took. It’s a different experience to the lightweight stove I had before. It’s an end to perching and instability. I don’t think I’m going to go back.
GoPro Hero 11 camera
Easy to use and nice to see what I’m filming which you can’t do with the Sony. The 1/4” adapter mount is useless because it doesn’t tighten enough so if not level to start with, it slowly tilts back till headshots from the handlebar mount end up as sky shots. I will use the ball mount instead. That might be better made.
Sony action cam – its not new just newly mounted
The waterproof container got locked somehow so buttons didn’t work and I failed to record some things. Also the remote refused to find the camera as it often does and turning it on by hand is uncertain, even when unlocked. I need to sort this so that I know when it is turned on. Not knowing is not good enough.
Rollei travel tripod
this is a new piece of kit. Is easy to use, quite small and light to pack. I set it up when I arrived and kept it around and used it a lot. Is a game changer for self filming. Would I use it on campsites or by the roadside? Maybe not. Looks good. Versatile as all my cameras have a thread and the GoPro adapter doesn’t slip on that because you tend to use it level.
Hario Coffee filter dripper for One
Again, it takes up more room than the GSI dripper that folds completely flat – but that had design faults. This delivers a much nice and more predictable cup of coffee and does not sag, bend or get stuck on top of the cup. This is a keeper – and only cost a tenner.
