The first few (day 1-5)
Day 1-5 (13-17th Aug)
1,062 miles
Derby to Copenhagen
I'm writing this 5 days in now, which is probably a good thing.
I woke up and stuffed the car into the garage where it can sleep for a few months, then took the view in looking down my sunny street one last time (pic), saddled up and headed to the parents for a farewell breakfast. I had forgotten what it felt like to ride a bike so heavily laden, she's a big girl now! I've ridden two up with luggage before so its not new, but it had been a while and the wallowy disconnect from anything resembling a reaction time will take a little getting used to. Had a lovely lawn breakfast with Mum & Pa then set off for the 200 miles to the channel tunnel. It was a largely uneventful queue down the M1 through average speed management but survived the 29 degrees M25, in time to check in for an earlier crossing. I was impressed with the ability of the Klim Badlands gear to keep me from melting with all the vents open, so long as I kept moving. I pulled up behind a Super Tenere and met Eric, a frenchman returning from a week at a festival near Birmingham. We were shuffled on last onto Le Shuttle, and had a carriage to ourselves for the 35 min crossing, with water handed to us by the driver of an adjacent train because it was hot which was very kind! Through discussion of our trips Eric told me he was involved in building the cables for the suspension bridge onto Copenhagen Island, the largest in the world at the time, so I would witness his handiwork in a few days.
First act in forgeign lands was to find some fuel and cash, I'd done 266 miles by Dunkirk and although confident in being able to read mid-300s, I wanted to verify! I still had 13 litres left in the tank which would suggest a 400 mile range fully laden doing 70 mph to conserve rubber and fuel, so I'll only hunt for fuel after 300 miles whilst in the 1st world I think. I had spotted a little campsite in The Netherlands (through Google) and was aiming for that, but come 18:30 I was still 2 hours away and hadn't eaten, and arriving that late felt a bit much. I stopped at a services and got some junk food, then found a spot 30 mins away north of Ghent just into The Netherlands. It was a little spit of land, between river and canal, with industrial barges (pic) chugging away day and night with ambiguous legitimacy, shall we say. If I'd remembered how I felt in 2006 on the first few days in NZ solo travelling, I would have done something different. Nothing makes you feel like you've done the wrong thing like being on the fringes of society with an uncertainty of whether you'll have a confrontation or straight up mugging before morning. Still - it is what it is, I spent about an hour longer than I should have, faffing around with a hammock tarp combo in the dark trying to avoid drawing attention, and went to bed hot and uncomfortable in the worst camp I've made for a long time.
When I remembered where I was I woke pretty quickly, the bike was still there, and the gear beneath me hadn't been picked through, but there were far more people beside me than I was comfortable with. Got up and took the tarp and hammock (pic) down but no one was paying me any attention, spoke to a friend from home for an hour or so about something they wanted help with and realised the logic applied to me too - I needed to surround myself with similar folk, not dockyard ne'erdowells. Headed to Lidl for some breakfast and met a dutch chap drawn in by the tyres, then spent 15 mins talking about the mass movement of dutch older guys buying up brit bikes, character filled machines that require some ability to start run and maintain compared to modern bikes, before he was reprimanded for taking so long to get from door to car with their weekly shop.
A few hours down the motorway and I was ready for another break, hacking along bland countryside on straight boring roads would make anyone question their life choice I think. The day was largely juggling the discomfort of 26 deg rain in a black suit, you either get sweaty or rained on, but by mid-afternoon the sun won, the vents stayed open and everything felt easier. I stopped for fuel and opted to leave the motorway and 2.3EUR per litre premium, found a town price of 1.73, so saved £15 and spent that on the campsite at Hodorf.
After my 3rd or 4th middle aged gent drawn in by tyres strapped to the bike, and their wonder at the audacity of where I hope to go, it started to feel like this trip has more life to it.
A slow start the next day (15th Aug) as I wanted to go for a run and sort some kit out on the bike, refining where things live. I packed up and loaded the bike and gave Mum a bell to check in, then set off at 14:00 toward Copenhagen. More motorway hacking up through Hamburg, wondering how fast I was being overtaken whilst sitting pretty at 70mph and made to look stationary by the monster BMWs and Audi in the fast lane. Toward the end of the day the scenery started to change, become more green and hilly, the weather was good all afternoon on my bike so I just plodded along with music through the helmet and pulled in to Flensburg for dinner in the harbour. Most cities and towns have rules about parking, and pedestrian areas, which will make complete sense to the locals, general road users and people that can read the signs, but I prefer to see the bike wheverever I am as everything I need for 4 months is strapped to it so I gently nudged my way up to the cafe door and hopped off. There is a generally welcoming feeling toward bikers - I've been doing that for decades and never had any agro with it so long as you're considerate with where it gets abandoned - and it was the source of attraction for 10-15 people as I sat watching the boats and people (pic) in the evening with a schnitzl and coffee. After a quick google I found a campsite just over the boarder in Denmark and headed there at dusk, to be greeted by a perfect wild camping spot, sheltered tables, bonfire/BBQ and open tent area with no one around. If this existed in the UK I can't help but feel it would last a week before someone nudged the BBQ grill over, scratched their girlfriend's name into the tables and set fire to the tables to stay warm whilst leaving tins of carlsberg on the floor to make sure their presence was noted.
As a quick aside from the flow of travel description - I am very happy with my Hilleberg Nammatj 3 GT! I've been amassing kit for this trip for years, and was conscious of the cost of it with the justification that it would be home for months as the excuse I gave myself. It has loads of sleeping and storage space, is fast to pitch and is completely water proof, so no "buyers remorse" which is a relief! Anyway..
After 3 days of motorway droning I wanted to do something different and not just blast through Denmark so I waited for a weather window under the shelter of the camp just listening to the rain and birds for an hour then packed up the final bits and headed to Ribe for lunch. Every village and town I rode through felt so well organised, clean, neat, tidy. The boundaries between fields and houses was minimal, maybe a few posts and some wire for livestock, or nothing if it was just grain/maize but the result is that everything feels very open and welcoming. I wonder whether its because there is a lot of prosperity in the area, or that people are law abiding, or that they are particularly strict with heavy reprecussions, I don't know - I'd be interested in understanding why countries have such different cultural backgrounds which give a particular feeling to the area. I rode past a few farms and they seemed too neat and tidy, there was no evidence of old machinery or abandoned tractor tyres, or piles of stuff the farmer will get to when they get the chance (I don't think farmers ever have the luxury of time to do the jobs that aren't immediate), if this is the truman show, they should put more rubbish in the forecourts of the farms to make it more realistic.
Ribe is a lovely little town with cobbled streets and a huge church/cathedral in the middle, I hadn't researched or planned it so I've probably done it an entire injustice missing the primary points of it, but I got a decent lunch and planned where to aim for in Copenhagen that evening. After 3 hours of riding, some country lanes (smooth, sweeping, open, easy, only complaint was the lack of middle-distance scenery to distract me), then back to motorway and finally onto the suspension bridge Eric had been involved in building - 4.2 miles long with a free span mile in the middle. I got to Bellahoj camping north west of the city centre (4 miles) and planned to stay two nights to see the city and to do park run in the morning. Just after getting off the bike I met Peter, an 18 yr old German with impeccable english, who is between school and life, doing a cycling tour to Stockholm and Trondheim, starting in Copenhagen. He was open fairly early about the impact of solo travelling, having landed 24 hours ago himself and being unsure of multiple things, but wanting to make the most of the opportunity presented to him. We ended up eating together then talking into the evening about loads of topics. He is far more wise and knowledgeable than I had thought possible at 18, interested and open minded, with a kind character - he will go far. Most importantly, he guessed I was mid to late 20s which is absolutely spot on well done Peter!
I got up and said goodbye as he was about to set off for the first few kms of his trip, and I was running the 5km to Faelledparken for park run. When I got back I did a clothes wash (shoved all the clothes in a dry bag with some travel wash) then hung it out and headed into Copenhagen to look around the old town, sit in cafes and get some sandals. I realised when getting off a bike to make camp, flipflops aren't great because you can't wear them with socks, and your feet slide off them anyway. If this was a week or a few weeks I'd just make do, but robust slip-on sandals will make things easier for the next 4 months and they go with the unkept look anyway.
Tomorrow I'll head over to Sweden and turn north, probably end up between Gothenberg and Oslo somewhere. My rear tyre is starting to look like it should have been changed yesterday, but I think the blocks should be joined in the middle before it gets binned. A few times I've managed to drift the back end out in the rain, but I think thats testament to the power rather than the lack of tread! I'll need to look into how to dispose of tyres whereever I end up doing it, so that might define where I change it anyway if it's particularly tricky in Norway.
NB: The photos might follow a day or two behind this, I've had a few fights with the IT so need to find a better way to do it and as you can imagine, arguing with a website is not how I actually want to spend the evening!
