THE UNDERWATER BIKE TOUR OF SOUTH NORWAY
When I was about 15 I was given my first motorbike. The manufacturer of this Teutonic machine had, of course, a 3 character acronym and the bike was initially used off-road around my father’s farm and local lanes. This was not a BMW or even a KTM but of course an NSU Quickly. For those not acquainted with this model, it was all of 49cc, 2 gears and came with a power boost feature, i.e. you could use the pedals when you came to hills. The rest of my biking was on British and Japanese equipment. Well from my NSU experience I knew that German manufacturers made quality off-road and road bikes which were fast, powerful and reliable. So while working in Germany in the late ‘90s I looked to see if NSU were still in business and sadly found they were not, but there was another German manufacturer still in the game, BMW, so I ended up with an R1100R, my first bike fo some years. I used the R1100R to tour Italy 2 up, getting down to Pompey and Mount Vesuvius. This relationship with BMW led me on to an R1150R and once I threw my leg over a low suspension R1200GS I had bought it within an hour.
Since buying the R1200GS in 2008, I’ve done an international tour each year. In fact I believe it may have been written in the small print in the contract with the BMW dealer in selling the GS that “Thou must cross a border with this machine each year or the final drive will turn to cheese” or something like that. Equally it may have been that I wanted to reclaim my life after devoting all my waking hours to work and study for the previous 6 years. After joining the GSer forum on the net I put my name down for my first tour, an “open Invite trip” in summer of 2009, which resulted in 20 of us meeting up at a B&B in Dover and heading across Europe at a blistering pace, touching down in Germany, Italy, Croatia, Austria, Czech Republic and back home, all in 10 days. This trip was a bit of a gallop but we rode good roads, I made new friends and got to know and trust the bike and got used to riding it fully loaded. I had also caught the bug for long distance bike touring.
In the winter of 2009 I began, with GSEddie(from the Croatia tour), to consider options for a tour in 2010, and this time a tour with less people and at a slower pace. Morocco came up as destination but we thought that was for real Adventure riders, not normal guys like us. However after we did some research and concluded it may be possible we began planning and preparing for the trip. The result was that in late May 2010 we were in southern Morocco making fresh footprints in a sand dune on the edge of the Western Sahara. We had ridden down the middle of Morocco, crossing the Atlas mountains. My 1200 decided to get in the spirit of riding in Morocco and took a dive into the sand and threw me off, just to complete the experience. The Moroccan trip was great and if you would like to read about it you can look at the trip report here:-
http://www.ukgser.com/forums/showthread.php?t=238596&highlight=tagine
In 2011 we were back to Eastern Europe with a trip to Montenegro, including a couple of days in Bosnia and many passes over and back through the Alps.
So where would we go in 2012, however the title sort of given it away, but we were a bit undecided, maybe Morocco again, perhaps down to Dakhla in Western Sahara, but that idea went away. In the end Eddie suggested Norway and he did a bit of research that showed it could work in the time we had free. I had visited the cities in Scandinavia in the past for work but had not explored the countryside. Of course since reading the Hitch- Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, the award winning Norwegian Fjords, designed by Slartibartfast, were on my list of “must-sees before I die”.
This sort of scenery.
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and this...
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We then looked at route options and initially considered going via Calais and up through Holland, but when we added up the petrol, accommodation costs and the extra time it was not ideal. We concluded that the Harwich – Bergen ferry was a better faster option and the costs were similar. The Harwich ferry got us overnight into Denmark and we could ride through Denmark be in Sweden in a few hours later and later onward through Sweden by road to Norway. So we booked the ferry and began planning.
We were doing a shorter trip this time, only 13 days in Scandanavia and with the riding through Denmark and Sweden we would have around 10 days in Norway and about 7 days on the western coast exploring the fjords. This seemed a workable trip. We were planning to camp and Eddie was happy to take his medium size Tipi tent for both of us to share. I would partly compensate by taking most of the tools and spares. As we had traveled on a few trips together by now, and had the same bikes, the planning was not too complicated. I’ll discuss the equipment in more detail in a Technical section at the end for those interested. Suffice to say we both had BMW R1200GS, with metal luggage and a single carry bag on the passenger seat.
The Ferry.
The trip from Hampshire to Harwich was uneventful, even the M25 was flowing freely, but there was a portent of things to come as it began to rain while still on the M25. Arriving at Harwich we filled up in the petrol station just before the port and joined the motorbike queue for the ferry. There were quite a few BMW bikes there already, some GSs like ours but quite a few touring bikes, 1200RTs and a couple of the new 1600 6 cylinder models. In chatting to the other riders it became clear that they were part of a large party from the BMW Bike Club also traveling to Norway. As we waited the officious organiser of the BMW club trip came along with a clipboard checking in the members of his tour who had arrived. On seeing us he was a bit perplexed, but he quickly concluded we were not part of the party and to our amusement turned away saying, ”You are clearly not with us, your bikes are not clean enough”. This dismissal was a bit hard on Eddie as he keeps his bike clean, and is in fact a member of the BMW Club, but probably referred to my bike as it was a little less than sparkling. This exchange set things up well for good relations with our BMW Club traveling companions on the ferry trip ahead.
When boarding the ferry with a bike it is always fascinating to see how the crew handle the business of restraining the bike during the journey to avoid it falling over. On the Harwich Ferry the crew do not assist in tying the bikes down and leave it entirely to the riders, while pointing to some ratchet straps hanging up. We put the bikes on the side stand and began tying them down. For those not familiar with ratchet straps this was a bit of a puzzle but we managed and helped each other out. The bikes were tightly packed in a row and the process was also complicated by one gentleman in the BMW Club party who insisted on strapping his bike down on the centre stand, thus leaving almost no gap between the side stand bike beside him. As I have read stories of centre stands breaking on 1200GSs recently, I was happy not to subject the stand to the stresses of a sea voyage and used the side stand.
We were leaving Harwich at 17:00 and arriving in Denmark at 13:00 so we were required to take a cabin. I was expecting bunk beds in the shared room, as on the Portsmouth - Santander ferry, and was pleased to have 2 single beds with considerable room to hang wet bike clothes. The usual currency procedure operated where you could use money from either of the 2 serving countries, UK and Denmark and in fact Euro was also acceptable. The boat had a café and a restaurant and a large bar. The café served simple meals and we had the fish and chips in the café filled us up. For entertainment the bar had a guy playing a guitar and his colleague in the ships entertainment department was of course the pirate, more of him later. The prices were more than in UK with a pint(500cc) of beer costing about £5.50. Strangely I found that these pints seemed to last longer than the cheaper ones in England. The musician in the bar was a reasonable singer and had a good voice, but you could tell his heart was not always in it. He was not helped by the fact that the public free WiFi transmitter was located under the stage in the bar, so the bar was often filled with people looking at laptops and phones, not the ideal audience. However, his frustration was not just that his audience was not paying attention to his playing but he had noticed they were so focussed on their mobile devices they were not talking to each other either. In chatting to him later he found it sad that even families would come up to the bar and all sit looking at their phones but not speak to each other. So as well as hearing some old 60’s favourites and Irish folk songs the musician also gave us a commentary on modern society.
The BMW club of course dined in the restaurant and commandeered about 4 tables in the bar to preserve the unity of the trip. We felt excluded of course, but we knew our place and kept our distance.
The pirate I mentioned earlier was on board to amuse the children and based himself in the café. He was not the scary Long John Silver career Pirate but more the “I wanted a job in the international entertainment industry and this was all the job centre had to offer” variety. He fumbled through his act doing tricks very slowly and holding a quiz. He amused us for a while as we waited for the trick to fail or one of the kids to play him up. His offer to organise a trip to meet the captain and be shown the bridge was limited to the kids and we were disappointed and returned to the bar and the bored singer.
It was dry when we landed in Esbjerg and the fun of untying the bikes and loading our gear began. We were asked to wait on the ferry until the cars had been unloaded but our friend from the BMW Club with the centre stand was ploughing a lone furrow again. He moved his bike out of the bike bay before the cars had unloaded. The cars needed to do a U-turn near the bikes and our friend became the centre of the cars turning circle, causing much confusion. This was particularly so when a massive American car from the 60’s came along and could not do the U-turn and had to do a 5 point turn around our stranded 1200 rider. You always get one!
Denmark
The ride out of Esbjerg was slightly complicated by some closed roads but pretty soon we were on a Danish motorway heading east for Sweden. We planned to drive straight through Denmark and stuck to that plan, intending to camp that night in Sweden, north of Malmo. In riding to Sweden we had to cross 2 large toll bridges in Denmark, the first of these charged around £10 per bike and the next one about £20 per bike. The view from the bridges we passed over was supposed to be spectacular but to be honest we rode across in a downpour with a strong side wind and were mainly concentrating on keeping the bike upright.
Sweden
The 3rd bridge was the one allowing entry to Sweden and we pulled up at the tool booth ready to pay. The toll attendant smiled broadly at us, told us there was no charge for bikes on this bridge and welcomed us to Sweden.
We kept to the motorways and headed north around Malmo. I wanted to get as far as possible away from Malmo before stopping because I’d seen many episodes of Wallender on the TV and knew what a dangerous place Malmo was, and this adventure biker was not taking any chances, we continued north on the motorway. As evening drew on we began to get tired and I used the GPS to suggest a campsite near our route(a function I only recently discovered on my Zumo) and followed the directions which took us off the motorway and towards the sea. The campsite had a small tenting area, a shop and also a café, so it was fine. We had to buy a Camping Card for about £12 to get into the site but this proved useful in other campsites in Sweden and in Norway. A pizza and a soft drink in the camp café was about £10. The campsite shop was handy and a large can of beer there was about £2.50.
Next morning we joined the motorway heading north again. We had met a Swedish guy in Denmark and he recommended our next stop should be on the Swedish west coast, north of Gothenberg. Sweden has quite a small area of coastline facing the Atlantic, and is popular with tourists so this was our destination that evening. The bikes were purring along and we had to take care to observe the speed limits. The riding was easy, the locals were mostly driving at the speed limit of 110km, some about 10km above with the odd driver apparently ignoring the limit and driving fast.
Somewhere up the motorway I felt a little thirsty and felt from the mouthpiece of my drinking bag but it was not there. I then remembered the bag was last seen hanging on the tree back in the campsite, and was still there. Ah well, at least I was not in the Moroccan desert and I was unlikely to die of thirst in Scandanavia. I reflected that hanging a camouflage water bag in a tree was not the best place to put it, so I would notice it before we left camp.
After a couple of hours we came off the motorway to check the route and stopped near a private house. A guy came out of his house and pointed to his garage and waved us in. Inside the garage were 2 older BMW bikes. One was an R100RS from around 1985 in good condition but the other was much older. It was a single cylinder black model and the best I can identify it now was as an R27 from around 1960. The guy was working on the single at the time with spanners spread about and clearly enjoying the tinkering. We could both relate to this as Eddie and I have old BMW twins at home in our garages. Sadly we were not able to communicate with him as he only seemed to understand Swedish(well I suppose he was Swedish and we were in Sweden) and we did not. However, it was a nice meeting of BMW enthusiasts and spent some time admiring our respective mounts before we re-joined the motorway.
Further on we left the motorway again and the minor road from the motorway towards the campsite gave us our first experience of Swedish speed cameras. We had been warned about speeding in Scandinavia and told there would be a lot of speed checks and the fines would be high. This minor road had lots of speed cameras, perhaps 5 in a 10 Km stretch, however before each one there was a warning sign showing a picture of a camera, so we were able to ensure we were below the speed limit as we approached the camera, which was 70Km on this road. Again the GPS was leading us to a campsite and I heard for the first time the GPS direction, “board ferry”. We stopped in the ferry queue with over a hundred cars and were sure we would be there for a while before we got away. However the ferry came in and swallowed all of us up with some room to spare. This was our first ferry experience in Sweden/Norway and we had a lot to learn. One thing about this ferry is that it was free for cars and bikes(the only free one we came across). The campsite had a nice flat site for tents in view of the sea. It was a bit more expensive than the first at around £30 but we had a good large plot and quickly got up the tent with the bikes parked close by.
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This site also had a good shop and café but as it was a nice warm evening we decided to cook and got the stoves out. The meals we carried were ready meals in bags and these were quick to heat from (www.lookwhatwefound.co.uk). We dined sitting by the tent, admiring the view, in the evening sunshine. Later we checked the oil level on the bikes and had a look at Eddie’s radio connection as he was only able to transmit and not receive. The fault with the radio remained elusive and we agreed to look at it in more detail when we had another dry evening on a campsite but did not realise how long we would have to wait.
Breakfast next morning was fresh bread, cheese and jam. We boiled an extra kettle and made up flasks of coffee for mid-morning/lunch snack, and bought extra rolls. From experience on other trips we had noticed that we are not good at stopping in towns midday and prefer stopping out in the country where there is a good view and it is good to have coffee and a sandwich with us. Our destination today was Lillehammer in Norway, about half way to Trondheim our most northerly destination. As the weather was showery we chose to remain on the motorway initially and then branch off and use smaller roads. We created a route in the Garmin and headed off.
Norway
At the Norway border we were routed off the motorway through a large customs shed but were not stopped and quickly re-joined the motorway. After some time we left the motorway to use smaller roads to get a bit of a break from the motorway and where the riding would be more enjoyable. This smaller road proved to be less fun than we expected. The speed limits and cameras on these roads were a pain. We were doing 50 or 60Kms for most of the time. Then it began to rain, in fact pour, it was so bad we stopped at a McDonalds for coffee and a rest. I’m not a great McDonalds fan but sometimes they just hit the spot and this wet afternoon in Norway the big McD was a welcome sight. As the rain was still bucketing down we decided to let the Garmin guide us via a main road on to Lillehammer and we were soon back on the motorway and making good progress. Using the GPS again we let it lead us to a city campsite in Lillehammer and booked in as the rain was easing.
It was clear the campsite had a lot of rain already and the first allocated pitch had a big puddle in the middle and we moved to one a little less sodden. Once the tent was pitched we got cooking on the handy picnic table beside the tent. A German couple moved in beside us in a campervan and soon came over to chat, they brought a whiskey bottle and shared the contents. The campervan guy had an R100 at home and dreamed of taking a trip like this on his bike. His wife had very little English and I had to scrape the rust of my weak German to keep the chat and whisky flowing. They had been to Trondheim and were heading on west to Bergen. They mentioned it had rained once or twice in the previous week. It was a nice exchange.
Later that evening Eddie as the sun was setting Eddie and I admired the evening sky
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as we went for a walk into the centre of Lillehammer. Its not a large town and is dominated by the skijump from the 1994 Olympics. I believe “Eddie the Eagle” tried to qualify for these Winter Olympic games but failed, and looking at the height of this jump it may be a blessing. The centre of town was quiet with just a couple of open café’s and bars, but it had a nice relaxed feel. The main shopping street was pedestrianised and had the Olympic rings still displayed in the block paving. This was a nice reminder that the Olympics was in London this year and I was looking forward to taking my seat in the Olympic stadium in a few weeks time.
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Having a coffee we were amused to find the café sold Moose-burgers. They say travel broadens your view of the world and for sure they don’t have mooseburgers for sale back home in Basingstoke or Ringwood. As it happened this was the closest we got to a moose during the trip.
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Next day we left for Trondheim in moderate rain and thought it best because of the weather to take the main road and not play about on the small twisty roads. We let the Garmin choose a route, confident it would use the main E6 road, but somehow this idea was not conveying to the Garmin and although we started on the E6, it then took us off on to road 27 and 26 and up a mountain pass. We did realise this was happening and decided to go with it. I noticed the temperature dropping and we came across some nice bends and even a few hairpins. The temperature continued to drop as we climbed, 10C, then 8, then 5 degrees and it finally bottomed at 2.5C and my bike computer was telling me there was a danger of frost on the road. This probably explained why the rain had turned to sleet and the heated grips were on full. July in Norway!
At the head of the pass we saw a sign for a supermarket and café, and pulled in. This was one of the most welcoming supermarkets ever, as it firstly had a bit of shelter for the bikes, a brazier outside to warm your hands and it served free coffee inside. As well as supermarket food it had a great selection of gifts and hardware items. We browsed and bought some presents and the feeling returned to our fingers. The bikes each acquired a Moose mascot.
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Opposite the supermarket was a settlement of wooden houses with unusual roofing material, grass. These green roofs sprouted not only grass but other plants and in fact looked like a meadow.
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The road continued along a plateau with the temperature remaining around 2-3C but the road had good corners, despite the rain and cold for the first time since the trip began we felt we were riding properly. There were few cars, no cameras and we have not seen a policeman since we arrived in Norway. So our speed was only limited by the twists in the road and the sleet, it was not fast, but proper riding and enjoyable.
I had had made a few modifications to the bike before the trip, an engine fuelling change(remap) and improved suspension and these changes were working well. What did not show much improvement was the weather and the rest of the journey was mostly in rain, sometimes quite heavy. The scenery around us was beautiful, the best we had seen so far and the low hills were coated with a fresh dusting of snow to add to their beauty.
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We joked as we rode along in the rain that our campsite at Flakk, near Trondheim, would be basking in sun when we got there, in the meantime the rain continued. However just as we approached Trondheim we noticed a break in the cloud and to our great surprise the rain eased and we were delighted to find the sun had come out as we arrived at the campsite. We were now selecting campsites by a combination of a campsite list and map we found in the Lillehammer campsite and the campsites listed in the Garmin. If the chosen campsite is not listed Garmin, the book often had the GPS map coordinates for the site. It sounds lazy but at the end of a hard riding day it is good to be able just to follow a GPS route to a campsite and I believe reduces the risk of accidents at the tired end of the day. This site in Flakk was very cheap too at only 160Norway Kroner(about £17.50) in total. We had a great view out to sea and to a nearby island and the ferry port was next to the campsite.
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Do you have a shop, we asked. Yes, 4 km down the road but it closes in 30 minutes, suggesting we were too late… Perhaps she assumed we old guys ride our bikes slowly. After I returned from the shop, Eddie had put up the tent. As we now had provisions we cooked on site. As we cooked a couple with kids set up a tent beside us having arrived in a battered Saab 96. We chatted to them and found myself asking the guy where he came from. As the words of the question were coming out I looked at the guy properly with his sandy hair and a fair beard in fact just like the blond guy from ABBA. He could only be from one country, Sweden, and he was.
The ferry port café was a good place to sit down and plan the next part of our journey. Tomorrow our route would take us south and heading along the west coast, initially for the Atlantic Highway, in the hope of sunshine. It rained overnight and also as we broke camp in the morning. Waterproofs were on again on as we left Flakk and I resisted the temptation to ask if they had any jackets for sale in case the rain turned to hail!
We headed south and skirted the coast and left the rain behind for a while. The road was good and giving us glimpses of the sea every now and then when we rounded corners. Mid morning we came along to a point which offered a great view over a fjord. We stopped for a break and to take in the scenery.
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Soon after we took the helmets off we heard a sound, which would be noise to many but to us was like music, the melodious sound of a free revving engine being put through it’s paces and getting closer. We were not sure if it was a car or bike at first but the change in the engine note suggested something sporty and working its way up a twisty road. We were now interested in the road ahead as well as what was making the noise. Pretty soon it became clear it was 2 bikes and two locals turned up on their 750cc and 1000cc Laverdas pictured below.
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They had just come up the coast and were on their way to Trondheim, which we had just left, and we chatted about our routes. They suggested we take some care with the descent ahead as there were sharp hair-pins and damp patches on the road. Leaving the Laverdas we headed on down enjoying the corners. At the bottom the GPS sent us off to pass along the right hand side of the fjord and we quickly found ourselves on a loose gravel road. Not exactly off-road conditions but gave us a chance to stand on the foot-pegs for a while. This road led us to a bridge and so our island hopping began, on bridges, tunnels and ferries.
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The rain continued, and one memorable hour long wait for a ferry was particularly drenching. Somehow the rain is worse while standing around than while riding the bike.
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There were 2 memorable bridges on the route, one pictured.
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Maybe it was the rain but while the route was interesting and enjoyable it was not stunning and we were a bit underwhelmed. I would like to do it again in the dry before passing final judgement but this road did not live up to the hype for us on this visit. We had a campsite near Trollstigen as a destination but as the rain was still pouring we stopped before then at a sign advertising Hytte, the small wooden huts which are popular on campsites in Norway and Sweden. They had one free for 2 people and for 400NKr(£44) and we took it gladly. It had bunk beds, a cooker, most important a heater and furniture and(unlike a tent) did not need to be erected or put away in the morning, bliss. The hut did not have a toilet and we had to use the basic toilet facilities on site.
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We chatted to some Swedish fellow riders in another hut and got some recommendations on a route for the next day over a glass of our whisky, the travelling bikers lubricant. We were heading for the Trollstingen pass and they suggested continuing down to Geiranger fjord along a road which is only open 3 months of the year. This became a plan and we focussed on drying out our sodden clothes and Eddie did a very effective job of covering the floor of the hut with the soaking tent. I did a pretty hopeless job of avoiding stepping on the tent while moving around the hut. We cooked on site with what we had on board as the nearest shop was 12Km. Despite the rain we sat on the sheltered veranda and imagined what it would be like on a warm summers evening. Our Swedish friends appeared now and again, checking the waterproofs on their bikes. Eddie and I discussed how long it would take the guy to clean the chrome on the Harley when he got home. Our bikes just got wet, and the moose mascot got sodden.
It has rained all evening and during the night and we awoke to a predictable deluge. Full raingear on again as we left. We were getting used to riding in the rain and covered the distance to the beginning of the Trollstigen pass quite briskly, stopping for petrol and a visit to a Troll shop, well, we were in Norway. The road up the pass was great, some hairpins but not too tight but required a measured use of throttle on the wet roads.
The road snaking up the mountain to the Trollstigen pass.
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We longed for dry roads and no coaches but despite the difficulties it was fun. This was not planned to be a long riding so we stopped often to photograph and take in the scenery. Once on top of the pass it was a winter wonderland, with snow banks at the side of the road and snow covering the surrounding mountains.
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We continued along the road to Geirnager Fjord and this next pass was also a treat to ride, good corners and some hairpins and once we had dispatched a few spirited cars in front, we had an open road to ride as quick as we liked. This area was also very artic and some of the lakes still had large ice sheets which had not melted since winter, and it was late July.
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Looking at the 3 meters of snow at the side of the road and the ice on the lakes we could then appreciate why this road would be closed to traffic in September again. Further as we approached the Geiranger fjord, the view down to the water was spectacular, steep sides of the valley, the fjord below, leading to a town at one end and the other end curving off toward the sea.
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Some cruise ships were anchored and day trippers were being ferried ashore. We descended the steep road to the fjord carefully as there was a lot of traffic and tight bends. Once we had got past the tourist stuff we had some coffee from our flasks and headed off again, keen to get to our warm hut and begin drying out again.
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The route included lots of tunnels, one of them the most scary I have ridden. It was long, dark, the road surface uneven, and difficult to see the edge of the carriageway. All this made it hard when meeting traffic and getting out of the way of the approaching coach or truck. Generally we were surprised at the number of Tunnels in Norway. We probably went through a few hundred on the trip. Some were short but some were a few kilometres long and the lighting was varied. They needed to be taken with a bit of care. One of them had a roundabout in the middle which was unexpected. It was certainly an advantage to have auxiliary lights to help see clearly.
Another hazard we came across this day was sheep, not just wandering across the road but lying on it and not keen to move for motorbike or car.
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To be continued...
When I was about 15 I was given my first motorbike. The manufacturer of this Teutonic machine had, of course, a 3 character acronym and the bike was initially used off-road around my father’s farm and local lanes. This was not a BMW or even a KTM but of course an NSU Quickly. For those not acquainted with this model, it was all of 49cc, 2 gears and came with a power boost feature, i.e. you could use the pedals when you came to hills. The rest of my biking was on British and Japanese equipment. Well from my NSU experience I knew that German manufacturers made quality off-road and road bikes which were fast, powerful and reliable. So while working in Germany in the late ‘90s I looked to see if NSU were still in business and sadly found they were not, but there was another German manufacturer still in the game, BMW, so I ended up with an R1100R, my first bike fo some years. I used the R1100R to tour Italy 2 up, getting down to Pompey and Mount Vesuvius. This relationship with BMW led me on to an R1150R and once I threw my leg over a low suspension R1200GS I had bought it within an hour.
Since buying the R1200GS in 2008, I’ve done an international tour each year. In fact I believe it may have been written in the small print in the contract with the BMW dealer in selling the GS that “Thou must cross a border with this machine each year or the final drive will turn to cheese” or something like that. Equally it may have been that I wanted to reclaim my life after devoting all my waking hours to work and study for the previous 6 years. After joining the GSer forum on the net I put my name down for my first tour, an “open Invite trip” in summer of 2009, which resulted in 20 of us meeting up at a B&B in Dover and heading across Europe at a blistering pace, touching down in Germany, Italy, Croatia, Austria, Czech Republic and back home, all in 10 days. This trip was a bit of a gallop but we rode good roads, I made new friends and got to know and trust the bike and got used to riding it fully loaded. I had also caught the bug for long distance bike touring.
In the winter of 2009 I began, with GSEddie(from the Croatia tour), to consider options for a tour in 2010, and this time a tour with less people and at a slower pace. Morocco came up as destination but we thought that was for real Adventure riders, not normal guys like us. However after we did some research and concluded it may be possible we began planning and preparing for the trip. The result was that in late May 2010 we were in southern Morocco making fresh footprints in a sand dune on the edge of the Western Sahara. We had ridden down the middle of Morocco, crossing the Atlas mountains. My 1200 decided to get in the spirit of riding in Morocco and took a dive into the sand and threw me off, just to complete the experience. The Moroccan trip was great and if you would like to read about it you can look at the trip report here:-
http://www.ukgser.com/forums/showthread.php?t=238596&highlight=tagine
In 2011 we were back to Eastern Europe with a trip to Montenegro, including a couple of days in Bosnia and many passes over and back through the Alps.
So where would we go in 2012, however the title sort of given it away, but we were a bit undecided, maybe Morocco again, perhaps down to Dakhla in Western Sahara, but that idea went away. In the end Eddie suggested Norway and he did a bit of research that showed it could work in the time we had free. I had visited the cities in Scandinavia in the past for work but had not explored the countryside. Of course since reading the Hitch- Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, the award winning Norwegian Fjords, designed by Slartibartfast, were on my list of “must-sees before I die”.
This sort of scenery.
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and this...
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We then looked at route options and initially considered going via Calais and up through Holland, but when we added up the petrol, accommodation costs and the extra time it was not ideal. We concluded that the Harwich – Bergen ferry was a better faster option and the costs were similar. The Harwich ferry got us overnight into Denmark and we could ride through Denmark be in Sweden in a few hours later and later onward through Sweden by road to Norway. So we booked the ferry and began planning.
We were doing a shorter trip this time, only 13 days in Scandanavia and with the riding through Denmark and Sweden we would have around 10 days in Norway and about 7 days on the western coast exploring the fjords. This seemed a workable trip. We were planning to camp and Eddie was happy to take his medium size Tipi tent for both of us to share. I would partly compensate by taking most of the tools and spares. As we had traveled on a few trips together by now, and had the same bikes, the planning was not too complicated. I’ll discuss the equipment in more detail in a Technical section at the end for those interested. Suffice to say we both had BMW R1200GS, with metal luggage and a single carry bag on the passenger seat.
The Ferry.
The trip from Hampshire to Harwich was uneventful, even the M25 was flowing freely, but there was a portent of things to come as it began to rain while still on the M25. Arriving at Harwich we filled up in the petrol station just before the port and joined the motorbike queue for the ferry. There were quite a few BMW bikes there already, some GSs like ours but quite a few touring bikes, 1200RTs and a couple of the new 1600 6 cylinder models. In chatting to the other riders it became clear that they were part of a large party from the BMW Bike Club also traveling to Norway. As we waited the officious organiser of the BMW club trip came along with a clipboard checking in the members of his tour who had arrived. On seeing us he was a bit perplexed, but he quickly concluded we were not part of the party and to our amusement turned away saying, ”You are clearly not with us, your bikes are not clean enough”. This dismissal was a bit hard on Eddie as he keeps his bike clean, and is in fact a member of the BMW Club, but probably referred to my bike as it was a little less than sparkling. This exchange set things up well for good relations with our BMW Club traveling companions on the ferry trip ahead.
When boarding the ferry with a bike it is always fascinating to see how the crew handle the business of restraining the bike during the journey to avoid it falling over. On the Harwich Ferry the crew do not assist in tying the bikes down and leave it entirely to the riders, while pointing to some ratchet straps hanging up. We put the bikes on the side stand and began tying them down. For those not familiar with ratchet straps this was a bit of a puzzle but we managed and helped each other out. The bikes were tightly packed in a row and the process was also complicated by one gentleman in the BMW Club party who insisted on strapping his bike down on the centre stand, thus leaving almost no gap between the side stand bike beside him. As I have read stories of centre stands breaking on 1200GSs recently, I was happy not to subject the stand to the stresses of a sea voyage and used the side stand.
We were leaving Harwich at 17:00 and arriving in Denmark at 13:00 so we were required to take a cabin. I was expecting bunk beds in the shared room, as on the Portsmouth - Santander ferry, and was pleased to have 2 single beds with considerable room to hang wet bike clothes. The usual currency procedure operated where you could use money from either of the 2 serving countries, UK and Denmark and in fact Euro was also acceptable. The boat had a café and a restaurant and a large bar. The café served simple meals and we had the fish and chips in the café filled us up. For entertainment the bar had a guy playing a guitar and his colleague in the ships entertainment department was of course the pirate, more of him later. The prices were more than in UK with a pint(500cc) of beer costing about £5.50. Strangely I found that these pints seemed to last longer than the cheaper ones in England. The musician in the bar was a reasonable singer and had a good voice, but you could tell his heart was not always in it. He was not helped by the fact that the public free WiFi transmitter was located under the stage in the bar, so the bar was often filled with people looking at laptops and phones, not the ideal audience. However, his frustration was not just that his audience was not paying attention to his playing but he had noticed they were so focussed on their mobile devices they were not talking to each other either. In chatting to him later he found it sad that even families would come up to the bar and all sit looking at their phones but not speak to each other. So as well as hearing some old 60’s favourites and Irish folk songs the musician also gave us a commentary on modern society.
The BMW club of course dined in the restaurant and commandeered about 4 tables in the bar to preserve the unity of the trip. We felt excluded of course, but we knew our place and kept our distance.
The pirate I mentioned earlier was on board to amuse the children and based himself in the café. He was not the scary Long John Silver career Pirate but more the “I wanted a job in the international entertainment industry and this was all the job centre had to offer” variety. He fumbled through his act doing tricks very slowly and holding a quiz. He amused us for a while as we waited for the trick to fail or one of the kids to play him up. His offer to organise a trip to meet the captain and be shown the bridge was limited to the kids and we were disappointed and returned to the bar and the bored singer.
It was dry when we landed in Esbjerg and the fun of untying the bikes and loading our gear began. We were asked to wait on the ferry until the cars had been unloaded but our friend from the BMW Club with the centre stand was ploughing a lone furrow again. He moved his bike out of the bike bay before the cars had unloaded. The cars needed to do a U-turn near the bikes and our friend became the centre of the cars turning circle, causing much confusion. This was particularly so when a massive American car from the 60’s came along and could not do the U-turn and had to do a 5 point turn around our stranded 1200 rider. You always get one!
Denmark
The ride out of Esbjerg was slightly complicated by some closed roads but pretty soon we were on a Danish motorway heading east for Sweden. We planned to drive straight through Denmark and stuck to that plan, intending to camp that night in Sweden, north of Malmo. In riding to Sweden we had to cross 2 large toll bridges in Denmark, the first of these charged around £10 per bike and the next one about £20 per bike. The view from the bridges we passed over was supposed to be spectacular but to be honest we rode across in a downpour with a strong side wind and were mainly concentrating on keeping the bike upright.
Sweden
The 3rd bridge was the one allowing entry to Sweden and we pulled up at the tool booth ready to pay. The toll attendant smiled broadly at us, told us there was no charge for bikes on this bridge and welcomed us to Sweden.
We kept to the motorways and headed north around Malmo. I wanted to get as far as possible away from Malmo before stopping because I’d seen many episodes of Wallender on the TV and knew what a dangerous place Malmo was, and this adventure biker was not taking any chances, we continued north on the motorway. As evening drew on we began to get tired and I used the GPS to suggest a campsite near our route(a function I only recently discovered on my Zumo) and followed the directions which took us off the motorway and towards the sea. The campsite had a small tenting area, a shop and also a café, so it was fine. We had to buy a Camping Card for about £12 to get into the site but this proved useful in other campsites in Sweden and in Norway. A pizza and a soft drink in the camp café was about £10. The campsite shop was handy and a large can of beer there was about £2.50.
Next morning we joined the motorway heading north again. We had met a Swedish guy in Denmark and he recommended our next stop should be on the Swedish west coast, north of Gothenberg. Sweden has quite a small area of coastline facing the Atlantic, and is popular with tourists so this was our destination that evening. The bikes were purring along and we had to take care to observe the speed limits. The riding was easy, the locals were mostly driving at the speed limit of 110km, some about 10km above with the odd driver apparently ignoring the limit and driving fast.
Somewhere up the motorway I felt a little thirsty and felt from the mouthpiece of my drinking bag but it was not there. I then remembered the bag was last seen hanging on the tree back in the campsite, and was still there. Ah well, at least I was not in the Moroccan desert and I was unlikely to die of thirst in Scandanavia. I reflected that hanging a camouflage water bag in a tree was not the best place to put it, so I would notice it before we left camp.
After a couple of hours we came off the motorway to check the route and stopped near a private house. A guy came out of his house and pointed to his garage and waved us in. Inside the garage were 2 older BMW bikes. One was an R100RS from around 1985 in good condition but the other was much older. It was a single cylinder black model and the best I can identify it now was as an R27 from around 1960. The guy was working on the single at the time with spanners spread about and clearly enjoying the tinkering. We could both relate to this as Eddie and I have old BMW twins at home in our garages. Sadly we were not able to communicate with him as he only seemed to understand Swedish(well I suppose he was Swedish and we were in Sweden) and we did not. However, it was a nice meeting of BMW enthusiasts and spent some time admiring our respective mounts before we re-joined the motorway.
Further on we left the motorway again and the minor road from the motorway towards the campsite gave us our first experience of Swedish speed cameras. We had been warned about speeding in Scandinavia and told there would be a lot of speed checks and the fines would be high. This minor road had lots of speed cameras, perhaps 5 in a 10 Km stretch, however before each one there was a warning sign showing a picture of a camera, so we were able to ensure we were below the speed limit as we approached the camera, which was 70Km on this road. Again the GPS was leading us to a campsite and I heard for the first time the GPS direction, “board ferry”. We stopped in the ferry queue with over a hundred cars and were sure we would be there for a while before we got away. However the ferry came in and swallowed all of us up with some room to spare. This was our first ferry experience in Sweden/Norway and we had a lot to learn. One thing about this ferry is that it was free for cars and bikes(the only free one we came across). The campsite had a nice flat site for tents in view of the sea. It was a bit more expensive than the first at around £30 but we had a good large plot and quickly got up the tent with the bikes parked close by.
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This site also had a good shop and café but as it was a nice warm evening we decided to cook and got the stoves out. The meals we carried were ready meals in bags and these were quick to heat from (www.lookwhatwefound.co.uk). We dined sitting by the tent, admiring the view, in the evening sunshine. Later we checked the oil level on the bikes and had a look at Eddie’s radio connection as he was only able to transmit and not receive. The fault with the radio remained elusive and we agreed to look at it in more detail when we had another dry evening on a campsite but did not realise how long we would have to wait.
Breakfast next morning was fresh bread, cheese and jam. We boiled an extra kettle and made up flasks of coffee for mid-morning/lunch snack, and bought extra rolls. From experience on other trips we had noticed that we are not good at stopping in towns midday and prefer stopping out in the country where there is a good view and it is good to have coffee and a sandwich with us. Our destination today was Lillehammer in Norway, about half way to Trondheim our most northerly destination. As the weather was showery we chose to remain on the motorway initially and then branch off and use smaller roads. We created a route in the Garmin and headed off.
Norway
At the Norway border we were routed off the motorway through a large customs shed but were not stopped and quickly re-joined the motorway. After some time we left the motorway to use smaller roads to get a bit of a break from the motorway and where the riding would be more enjoyable. This smaller road proved to be less fun than we expected. The speed limits and cameras on these roads were a pain. We were doing 50 or 60Kms for most of the time. Then it began to rain, in fact pour, it was so bad we stopped at a McDonalds for coffee and a rest. I’m not a great McDonalds fan but sometimes they just hit the spot and this wet afternoon in Norway the big McD was a welcome sight. As the rain was still bucketing down we decided to let the Garmin guide us via a main road on to Lillehammer and we were soon back on the motorway and making good progress. Using the GPS again we let it lead us to a city campsite in Lillehammer and booked in as the rain was easing.
It was clear the campsite had a lot of rain already and the first allocated pitch had a big puddle in the middle and we moved to one a little less sodden. Once the tent was pitched we got cooking on the handy picnic table beside the tent. A German couple moved in beside us in a campervan and soon came over to chat, they brought a whiskey bottle and shared the contents. The campervan guy had an R100 at home and dreamed of taking a trip like this on his bike. His wife had very little English and I had to scrape the rust of my weak German to keep the chat and whisky flowing. They had been to Trondheim and were heading on west to Bergen. They mentioned it had rained once or twice in the previous week. It was a nice exchange.
Later that evening Eddie as the sun was setting Eddie and I admired the evening sky
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as we went for a walk into the centre of Lillehammer. Its not a large town and is dominated by the skijump from the 1994 Olympics. I believe “Eddie the Eagle” tried to qualify for these Winter Olympic games but failed, and looking at the height of this jump it may be a blessing. The centre of town was quiet with just a couple of open café’s and bars, but it had a nice relaxed feel. The main shopping street was pedestrianised and had the Olympic rings still displayed in the block paving. This was a nice reminder that the Olympics was in London this year and I was looking forward to taking my seat in the Olympic stadium in a few weeks time.
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Having a coffee we were amused to find the café sold Moose-burgers. They say travel broadens your view of the world and for sure they don’t have mooseburgers for sale back home in Basingstoke or Ringwood. As it happened this was the closest we got to a moose during the trip.
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Next day we left for Trondheim in moderate rain and thought it best because of the weather to take the main road and not play about on the small twisty roads. We let the Garmin choose a route, confident it would use the main E6 road, but somehow this idea was not conveying to the Garmin and although we started on the E6, it then took us off on to road 27 and 26 and up a mountain pass. We did realise this was happening and decided to go with it. I noticed the temperature dropping and we came across some nice bends and even a few hairpins. The temperature continued to drop as we climbed, 10C, then 8, then 5 degrees and it finally bottomed at 2.5C and my bike computer was telling me there was a danger of frost on the road. This probably explained why the rain had turned to sleet and the heated grips were on full. July in Norway!
At the head of the pass we saw a sign for a supermarket and café, and pulled in. This was one of the most welcoming supermarkets ever, as it firstly had a bit of shelter for the bikes, a brazier outside to warm your hands and it served free coffee inside. As well as supermarket food it had a great selection of gifts and hardware items. We browsed and bought some presents and the feeling returned to our fingers. The bikes each acquired a Moose mascot.
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Opposite the supermarket was a settlement of wooden houses with unusual roofing material, grass. These green roofs sprouted not only grass but other plants and in fact looked like a meadow.
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The road continued along a plateau with the temperature remaining around 2-3C but the road had good corners, despite the rain and cold for the first time since the trip began we felt we were riding properly. There were few cars, no cameras and we have not seen a policeman since we arrived in Norway. So our speed was only limited by the twists in the road and the sleet, it was not fast, but proper riding and enjoyable.
I had had made a few modifications to the bike before the trip, an engine fuelling change(remap) and improved suspension and these changes were working well. What did not show much improvement was the weather and the rest of the journey was mostly in rain, sometimes quite heavy. The scenery around us was beautiful, the best we had seen so far and the low hills were coated with a fresh dusting of snow to add to their beauty.
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We joked as we rode along in the rain that our campsite at Flakk, near Trondheim, would be basking in sun when we got there, in the meantime the rain continued. However just as we approached Trondheim we noticed a break in the cloud and to our great surprise the rain eased and we were delighted to find the sun had come out as we arrived at the campsite. We were now selecting campsites by a combination of a campsite list and map we found in the Lillehammer campsite and the campsites listed in the Garmin. If the chosen campsite is not listed Garmin, the book often had the GPS map coordinates for the site. It sounds lazy but at the end of a hard riding day it is good to be able just to follow a GPS route to a campsite and I believe reduces the risk of accidents at the tired end of the day. This site in Flakk was very cheap too at only 160Norway Kroner(about £17.50) in total. We had a great view out to sea and to a nearby island and the ferry port was next to the campsite.
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Do you have a shop, we asked. Yes, 4 km down the road but it closes in 30 minutes, suggesting we were too late… Perhaps she assumed we old guys ride our bikes slowly. After I returned from the shop, Eddie had put up the tent. As we now had provisions we cooked on site. As we cooked a couple with kids set up a tent beside us having arrived in a battered Saab 96. We chatted to them and found myself asking the guy where he came from. As the words of the question were coming out I looked at the guy properly with his sandy hair and a fair beard in fact just like the blond guy from ABBA. He could only be from one country, Sweden, and he was.
The ferry port café was a good place to sit down and plan the next part of our journey. Tomorrow our route would take us south and heading along the west coast, initially for the Atlantic Highway, in the hope of sunshine. It rained overnight and also as we broke camp in the morning. Waterproofs were on again on as we left Flakk and I resisted the temptation to ask if they had any jackets for sale in case the rain turned to hail!
We headed south and skirted the coast and left the rain behind for a while. The road was good and giving us glimpses of the sea every now and then when we rounded corners. Mid morning we came along to a point which offered a great view over a fjord. We stopped for a break and to take in the scenery.
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Soon after we took the helmets off we heard a sound, which would be noise to many but to us was like music, the melodious sound of a free revving engine being put through it’s paces and getting closer. We were not sure if it was a car or bike at first but the change in the engine note suggested something sporty and working its way up a twisty road. We were now interested in the road ahead as well as what was making the noise. Pretty soon it became clear it was 2 bikes and two locals turned up on their 750cc and 1000cc Laverdas pictured below.
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They had just come up the coast and were on their way to Trondheim, which we had just left, and we chatted about our routes. They suggested we take some care with the descent ahead as there were sharp hair-pins and damp patches on the road. Leaving the Laverdas we headed on down enjoying the corners. At the bottom the GPS sent us off to pass along the right hand side of the fjord and we quickly found ourselves on a loose gravel road. Not exactly off-road conditions but gave us a chance to stand on the foot-pegs for a while. This road led us to a bridge and so our island hopping began, on bridges, tunnels and ferries.
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The rain continued, and one memorable hour long wait for a ferry was particularly drenching. Somehow the rain is worse while standing around than while riding the bike.
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There were 2 memorable bridges on the route, one pictured.
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Maybe it was the rain but while the route was interesting and enjoyable it was not stunning and we were a bit underwhelmed. I would like to do it again in the dry before passing final judgement but this road did not live up to the hype for us on this visit. We had a campsite near Trollstigen as a destination but as the rain was still pouring we stopped before then at a sign advertising Hytte, the small wooden huts which are popular on campsites in Norway and Sweden. They had one free for 2 people and for 400NKr(£44) and we took it gladly. It had bunk beds, a cooker, most important a heater and furniture and(unlike a tent) did not need to be erected or put away in the morning, bliss. The hut did not have a toilet and we had to use the basic toilet facilities on site.
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We chatted to some Swedish fellow riders in another hut and got some recommendations on a route for the next day over a glass of our whisky, the travelling bikers lubricant. We were heading for the Trollstingen pass and they suggested continuing down to Geiranger fjord along a road which is only open 3 months of the year. This became a plan and we focussed on drying out our sodden clothes and Eddie did a very effective job of covering the floor of the hut with the soaking tent. I did a pretty hopeless job of avoiding stepping on the tent while moving around the hut. We cooked on site with what we had on board as the nearest shop was 12Km. Despite the rain we sat on the sheltered veranda and imagined what it would be like on a warm summers evening. Our Swedish friends appeared now and again, checking the waterproofs on their bikes. Eddie and I discussed how long it would take the guy to clean the chrome on the Harley when he got home. Our bikes just got wet, and the moose mascot got sodden.
It has rained all evening and during the night and we awoke to a predictable deluge. Full raingear on again as we left. We were getting used to riding in the rain and covered the distance to the beginning of the Trollstigen pass quite briskly, stopping for petrol and a visit to a Troll shop, well, we were in Norway. The road up the pass was great, some hairpins but not too tight but required a measured use of throttle on the wet roads.
The road snaking up the mountain to the Trollstigen pass.
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We longed for dry roads and no coaches but despite the difficulties it was fun. This was not planned to be a long riding so we stopped often to photograph and take in the scenery. Once on top of the pass it was a winter wonderland, with snow banks at the side of the road and snow covering the surrounding mountains.
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We continued along the road to Geirnager Fjord and this next pass was also a treat to ride, good corners and some hairpins and once we had dispatched a few spirited cars in front, we had an open road to ride as quick as we liked. This area was also very artic and some of the lakes still had large ice sheets which had not melted since winter, and it was late July.
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Looking at the 3 meters of snow at the side of the road and the ice on the lakes we could then appreciate why this road would be closed to traffic in September again. Further as we approached the Geiranger fjord, the view down to the water was spectacular, steep sides of the valley, the fjord below, leading to a town at one end and the other end curving off toward the sea.
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Some cruise ships were anchored and day trippers were being ferried ashore. We descended the steep road to the fjord carefully as there was a lot of traffic and tight bends. Once we had got past the tourist stuff we had some coffee from our flasks and headed off again, keen to get to our warm hut and begin drying out again.
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The route included lots of tunnels, one of them the most scary I have ridden. It was long, dark, the road surface uneven, and difficult to see the edge of the carriageway. All this made it hard when meeting traffic and getting out of the way of the approaching coach or truck. Generally we were surprised at the number of Tunnels in Norway. We probably went through a few hundred on the trip. Some were short but some were a few kilometres long and the lighting was varied. They needed to be taken with a bit of care. One of them had a roundabout in the middle which was unexpected. It was certainly an advantage to have auxiliary lights to help see clearly.
Another hazard we came across this day was sheep, not just wandering across the road but lying on it and not keen to move for motorbike or car.
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To be continued...
keep it coming
