Nordkapp Reflections and Advice.

So you are thinking of going to the Nordkapp. Great. It’s a brilliant trip. When I was thinking of going, I tried to find some first hand information on what to expect but didn’t really have much luck on the “tinter web” so here’s a few thoughts on my experience to help you with your planning:


1. Don’t go without an engine. There were a lot of cyclists and frankly that looks like hard work to me, especially on the way home.

2. We didn’t experience any rescue services but I think fettling your kit to ensure reliability is a good move. Breaking down in the middle of nowhere would not be fun. RAC rescue or equivalent covers these countries so buy it!

3. The E6 through Norway is fantastic. There are however a lot of road works and due to the topography, you tend to get routed through the building site so take extra special care.

4. The roads we experienced through Norway are brilliant – challenging, loads of bends, great views etc. The roads through Finland were super dull but very quiet. Swedish roads were somewhere in between.

5. Some tunnels are modern. Some frankly are not. Beware of those. Don’t go screaming into dark tunnels. They have bends, poor lighting, bumping surfaces and are narrow.

6. Norwegian bend markers are different to UK’s but are consistent. Learn them early in your trip as you can rely on them later. Finnish signs seemed more hit and miss so take care. Bend markers in Sweden seemed to operate on the basis that at the speed limit, the bends aren’t an issue. Consequently some pretty tight bends were not marked. Take care.

7. The infamous issue of mosquitoes is sadly a reality. In Finland, we got savaged by them despite have repellent. We had no problem in Norway – maybe their mossies are friendlier. If you broke down or had a puncture in the Finnish north it would terrible. They surround you in seconds and seemed to be all starving. Personally, I would avoid the area in the heat of the summer and pick a different route next time.

8. Hotels or huts? Both are fine. Even in the peak season, places could be found even arriving in the evening. The huts are basic but fun although I am too soft to stay in one every night so mix it up with hotels. Hotel standards even at the lower price range are good. Be sure to have breakfast – it’s excellent and a million times better then your average UK cheapie hotel.

9. Speaking of money, don’t go to Norway if you are poor or if your credit card is max’d out. Its super expensive!! Actually, hotels aren't too bad but food and drink requires a second mortgage. Sweden, Denmark and Norway have their own individual kronor. Finland is euroland.

10. At the Nordkapp, there is a visitor’s centre with a café, shops, etc . Tee shirts were £20. Just 20 miles south they were £15. At the junction of the E6 and the road to Hammerfest about 60 miles south of the Nordkapp, they were £11. Do you get the idea? The Nordkapp is expensive.

11. Its £8 on the toll road in and another £8 out of the area per person. On top of that, it’s £26 per person to actually get onto the Nordkapp itself…..this doesn’t include a free tee shirt or a cup of tea.

12. Having paid all that, stay awhile and eat the sandwiches you made at breakfast as packing up! The weather is very changeable and if it’s bad when you get there, 30 minutes later it might be nice. Hang around a while and enjoy your sandwiches.

13. I have crossed the Arctic Circle in Sweden, Finland and Norway. The visitor’s centre on the E6 in Norway is the best. Don’t miss it.

14. Petrol is no problem but we tended to fill up regularly rather than wait until empty. Most are pay at the pump which is easy and fast. One chain however, (QF I think it was called) doesn’t take any credit cards and you have to be a member. Some are unmanned so practise early on using the pay at pumps which are in Norwegian but nevertheless easy.

15. In the summer its 24 hour day light. Remember to sleep. That sounds funny but it is weird how you can keep going. Take eye masks.

16. Some roads are pretty tight. Very big trucks use these roads. I suggest you treat them with the utmost respect and keep out of their way. Take care on the many blind bends on these narrow coastal roads. On right handers for example, forget your advanced biker training and keep tight to the right and adopt a reasonable speed. These truckers drive as if they are on a mission!

17. Reindeer spring out from everywhere. It’s no joke. Rudolf and his mates have no road sense and he has lots of mates. There are warning signs everywhere. Believe them. This is not like the health and safety mad culture in the UK. There really are suicidal reindeer out there!

18. And finally, remember to stop now and then. Enjoy. Chat to people. Savour the moment. You may not ever pass this way again.

"There's no place like home"

Nordkapp. Been there. Done it. Got the tee shirt!

We sailed home on the Rotterdam ferry and arrived in Hull about 0830 this morning. Perhaps there was a slight hint of a hangover after last night on the Pride of Rotterdam but now we just had a short ride home. Four lovely ladies from Dove House met us off the ferry which was nice especially as it was early on a Sunday morning. We took a few photos and then headed home. Tim came back to mine for a cuppa and we took one last "trip" photo!

What a two weeks! We thoroughly enjoyed it. We did some great roads, met some interesting people, and of course literally went to the top of Europe. If you are thinking of doing this trip, why are you just thinking about it? It's the ultimate road trip. We'll have great memories for ever.

Tim is planning to put his bike on display in the MKS showroom for a few days complete with 6 million dead bugs so you can pop in and see what 4529 miles does to a Transalp. Our little bikes performed perfectly and was indeed the perfect bike for the trip. The tyres still seem to have quite a bit of life left too which is a surprise.

Thanks to all the many people and organisations that have contributed to our fund raising for the Love U 2 appeal. It is much appreciated. As I said on this blog some months ago, I was always going to enjoy the trip anyway but I am very grateful for the donations 100% of which will go to the appeal. The charity giving website will of course stay open for a while yet just in case......

And now I am going to settle down and watch the World Cup final. In the next few days, I intend to due a final blog entry on tips for would be Nordkappers but for now, its Tim and I signing off. Cheers.

Verden to Rotterdam - one last day

Last night we had a good walk around Verden were I used to live. It has changed a lot and it took me a while to find my bearings. Eventually though ,we found the Hotel Holtje which I were I stayed quite a bit in 1986 and 1987. Fabulous hotel by the way and after Scandinavian prices, excellent value. In fact everything in Germany seemed inexpensive after Norway!!

We had dinner in the pedestrian zone and then had a beer in my old pub. It used to be called the Distiller and was THE place to go. Cool, typical German pub. What have they done to it?! I was shocked. It is now called Los Locos (the crazies in Spanish) and was genuinely rubbish. It felt like  the lowest of Benidorm except without Johnny Vegas. Fortunately the rest of Verden is still a lovely town and we found my old house and took some snaps.

It clearly has changed a lot as there is now a McDonald's (the nearest was 50km away when I lived there) and the headquarters of 1st Armoured Division of the British Force Germany is now a housing estate!! The pic below is the main shopping street in Verden. My kids will remember the horses!

In the morning it was baking hot again and heading north for the Iselmeer but stopped in Leer on the way for water and calories which for me meant apple pie and cream. Lovely. We pressed on and without Dutch / German maps and with a broken Sat Nav, we found the Iselmeer and stopped in the middle for a coffee. For those that don't know, it is a huge man made (Dutch-made) barrier many miles long to help keep the "low countries" from being underwater. We have stopped there many times at the monumnent and today was no exception. We thought of absent friends and drank a toast to our old friend Pete.

We dodged around the Amsterdam ring road and headed for Rotterdam and Europort. ( Note to self: Dutch road signs are rubbish so prepare well!) Arriving at Europort we headed straight for the little pub near the ferry terminal and had a beer. I asked a lady there to take our picture but after two attempts is was clear she was going to cut some off.....in both cases our legs and I didn't like to ask again! ha ha.

Anyway, checked in, though passport control, on to the ship and into our "premier" cabin. No slumming it for us - this is a gentlemens' tour! (On previous trip we have jammed four sweaty bikers into one cabin and made do but after the huts in Finland we think we have earned "premier class" ha ha.

In numbers, here roughly is the deal:
we rode 4517 miles between home and Rotterdam;
this took 15 days which is an average of 301.1 miles per day;
we each used about 570 litres of petrol;
the bikes used zero oil;
we ate 45,000 calories each;
we drank about 32 litres of beer each;
and Tim is still trying to work out how many gear changes we made!

Keep reading.....more later in the next few days. Thanks for following us - it's been a blast.

Heading for deck 12 now for yet another beer!

Into the German traffic...

....which frankly seemed odd after the north of Scandinavia where we might not see other vehicles for a while! We left Malmo this morning and crossed the bridge into Denmark then headed south for the ferry to Puttgarden in Germany. The pic below is us waiting for the ferry in about 45 deg heat (well it felt like it) and below that that is us warming up again by sunning ourselves on the deck. Mad dogs and Englishmen!!!

We made good time but there was so much holiday traffic that we didn't get on the next ferry and had to wait for the next. They are every 30 minutes so not too bad but it was baking hot and the vending machine at th terminal only took shrapnel. Fortunately a kind lady changed my 50 Danish note for me and bought some much needed water.

In fact, this was the theme for the day....drinking water. We both think this is the hottest conditions we have ever ridden in. It was unbelieveable and we had every unzipped possible (well almost). We even in the end gave up on wearing gloves which helped a little. We got to Hamburg and thought we had cracked the day and had one more push to Bremen. But oh no...worse was to come. The A1 autobahn is undergoing reconstruction between Hamburg and Bremen. The traffic was grim. We filtered a little but it was tricky due to our wide panniers. Eventually, we gave up and turned off the autobahn and headed across country for Verden am Aller.

I used to live here and figured it would be nice to go back as I hadn't since 1993. Amazingly though I bearly recognised anything. It has changed so much. Eventually I found the hotel which I stayed in when I first moved to Germany although even that had changed beyond recognition. We are going to have a walk aorund this evening and check the place out.

Incidentally, think of dinner, we had a lovely evening in Malmo last night with Arne and Dave. We were edging towards one beer to many when common sense prevailed but it was a gloriously warm evening and dinner was great. Afterwards I took Tim to the Bishops Arms pub for a pint of "Spitfire". That's him enjoying the one after "enough".

So one more day - one last push for Rotterdam. We have already done well over 4000 miles and did 320 miles today in a blast furnace! Time for a beer.

It's amazing what you stumbling across

We set off from Skovde heading inevitably south knowing we only had about 250 miles to do today. We decided to head off down minor roads and explore a little and perhaps even find some good roads. After a while, we were held up at road works and noticed an advert on the van in front of us for a Motorcycle museum. Perhaps the botanical gardens or the Viking burial ground was a stetch but Tim was definitely up for this.

It was a place called Falkoping and we found the museum by looking at a town info board. Ironically a few minutes later the van pulled in as it was in fact one of the owners of the place!

It is a fascinating hoard of bikes with the oldest dating back to 1904. Two of the four guys who own it were there and are pictured below with me, Lennart (right) and Goran. The were very hospitable and made us coffee and fed us sticky buns. The museum was on three floors and they had hundreds of old bikes. Lennart ( Magnusson) had been a speedway rider in his youth and there is quite a collection of speedway bikes. In the picture with Tim, he is showing him a photograph of him doing motorcross in 1954!

What a great day! They have a website at http://www.mcmuseet.se/

Reluctantly we left Falkoping and rode on. We decided to press on so that we could visit the ship musem in Malmo where there is a German WWII U-boat. I have driven past the U-boat a lot as I visit my company's HQ in Malmo but have never found time to visit. Unfortunately, we arrived at 1630 and the place had closed at 1600.  I will visit it one day!

Ok, so time for a beer in the main square before heading to our hotel. NB This is not a drink driving confession!

Going out to dinner in Malmo tonight and then tomorrow have a big day in terms of miles so repeat ten times " We will not go mad tonight...we will not go mad tonight....we will not go mad tonight......."

Cor blimey, it's warm

So glad I took my liners out of my trousers. It was hot today. We have only done about 250 miles as had quite a few stops. The road was a bit dull so we broke the journey up by stopping here and there. The first coffee stop was in place called Norberg. Nice enough and we met a couple of Swedish bikers one of whom had a very special VF750 from 1982. He and Tim are now best friends. Funny things about Norberg, it is a small place miles from anyway and was previously a mining town but all that has ended. Its top attraction is a reconstructed medival blast furnace. I couldn't persuade Tim to go and see it (or the library or the botantical gardens in the last town!). But Norberg had an info board for visitors which stated that it is was a nice place to live because of the accessibility of politicians (!) and because " it was conveniently located for communication with the rest of Sweden and indeed the world"....or whurled as Clarkson would say. Strange claim, don't you think?!

We rode on to Orebro which seemed like a good place to stop for lunch. Unfortunately, they were replacing most of the pavings in the central area so it looked like a building site but we found a nice restaurant and had  lunch on an older pavement! The outside cafe culture was good and there were plenty of course.

We found a spot to take a picture of the castle where you couldn't see the diggers and workmen and and here it is. Orebro on a lovely day.

Anyway, we pressed on and stopped for a break at a lovely place called Karlsborg between two lakes which had a short stretch of water between them over which the main E20 ran. The bridge seemed to open every 20 minutes (see pic above) for all manner of boats to pass through so we sat and watched the world go by for an hour and eat huge ice creams which melted in the sun and dripped all over the inside of Tim's jacket which he was sitting on. Messy! 

Remembering it's the second semi final, we pulled out of town and headed south to our hotel in Skovde but on the way came across a motorcross track. We stayed and watched for a while and took this picture of the entrance. Cracking sign, isn't it?!

Off to watch the footie now as its 2015h and 15mins to kick off. Cheers.

Another great night in a Swedish pub. With 10 minutes to kick off, we walked into "Harry's bar", ordered beer and burgers, and then sat down in front of a giant "flat screen". And to top that off, at half time at the bar near us, the were four blonde girls ordering beer from a blonde barmaid. If Carlsberg did bars.....ha ha ha.

Walking back to the hotel, the town square was alive (at 2300h on a Wednesday night) with a band playing and half the town doing the jitterbug. They had all been to the same classes and all danced pretty much the same - extremely well. Amazing to watch for a while - so different to England!

Morning campers! Hi de hi!

STOP PRESS from Galve, Sweden

Its over a 100 deg F in Baltimore which is in celsius...er....a lot....and it's hot in England. We are well equipped for Arctic weather but would you Adam and Eve it, it's boiling here. So here's the latest: I am not only taking the lining out of my jacket but, for the first time ever, I am taking the lining out of my trousers! It doesn't get more exciting than that!!!

More news on the legs tonight!

Have fun whatever you are doing today and remember.....you could have been with us!!