Ride up to the Artic Circle

Laid everything for the trip out next to the bike on tuesday so I could load and tie everything with time to spare for the off thursday 7.30am. Finished loading the bike 7.45am thursday: Just goes to show, best intentions can't beat habits of a lifetime
The news weather totty informed of gales and heavy rain all over England, 500 miles to Jedburgh: loverly - not.
Outside into heavy rain at 7.50am. Realised within 100m I had loaded far too much for the trip, the bike felt slow and lardy: so this is what it feels like to ride an 1150gs?

Made Jedburgh for 4.30pm. I have wanted to visit the town for a while as it is apparently the area my desendants left from around 1700 to move to the west country. Checked the cemetery, war memorial and phonebook but no one with my surname. No need to visit Jedburgh again then.
Left for Newcastle and the ferry at 9.30, more gales and rain (probably need to tax us some more to combat global warming). Stopped at the Angel of the North: what a nice piece of art. I avoid most modern art nowadays as it seems to be either a con or a joke on the public, but I liked the angel of the north even in the pouring rain.
Filling the bike up just down the road, a stocky shaven headed Geordy guy came over. He had ridden up from cornwall the day before me in similar weather on his GS and was off on a 400 mile run on saturday for the air ambulance. He is an active member of the GS club and suggested the Prince Town meet in september. I keep bumping into GS club members: I met Judge and Spanish Bob last september on Dartmoor, I will have to try to get to one of their meets one day.

Ferry was 1 1/2 late loading and 20 odd bikers were kept waiting last in heavy rain to get on the boat. Without doubt the worst effort I have ever seen to load a ferry. Everyone was cheesed off. I chatted the time away with a couple of Glaswegians on their way to Hammerfest. I had a few beers with them in the night and they invited me to join them on the ride north.
The weather in Stavanger was sunnish and warm and we departed the ferry at 10am and rode through fantastic scenary until 8pm when we got a room in Fauernes. Had a few beers and a bottle of red hearing tales of growing up in Glasgow: the various familys and characters

Sunday 17th June: Father's day, I had not realised the date when I booked this trip . rang home and spoke to the kids.
We set off at 9.30am The speed limit is 80kph much less in built up areas: think slow to get anywhere. It is tedious. After 3 hours of plodding the 3 of us agreed to stick to the speed limits in built up areas but go up to 20kph over on the open road and except the fine if caught by the plod. This made travel much better. We made Grong (120 miles north of Trondheim) at 9.30pm. The 2 Scots lads took a hotel but I went up the road to hire a cabin where I stayed 5 years ago: much better and even comes with your own tree growing out the roof.
The owner informed me the fishing on the river Namsen behind the cabins was terrible. 6 guys had hired this beat for £14,000 for the week but were fishing elsewhere. It seemed a waste so I spent from midnight until 1am fishing the water. No fish but it was nice to think how much my hours fishing was worth. Being this far north it didn't get dark.

I had intended to stay at Grong and fish but I was enjoying the company of the 2 Scots lads. I decided to ride up to the polar circle with them. They came over to the cabin at 9am and we headed north in the sunshine again. Apparently, the Grong farmers were desperate for rain: there was plenty in Blighty according to Mrs Devon when I phoned home.
We stopped at the place which marks the polar circle and took some pictures and said our goodbyes. The 2 Scots guys had led eventful lives and had plenty of things to share, they were good company: It's what travel is all about really. I hope to travel with them again sometime.
I set off back to Grong and made it to the cabin at 1am next morning.
You might notice I have slightly altered the photo of the 2 Scots lads so as not to reveal their identity: they invited me to join them on their travels not post pictures of them on the interweb

The Artic Circle

Hey Ho, family committments call. I will post up the fishing bit of my trip and hopefully, some useful info on Norway later.

So after getting back to Grong at 1am I went straight to sleep: too knackered even for free salmon fishing. Woke up at 8am. Text Mrs Devon 'happy anniversary' as it was 13 years to the day we had our first date.
Packed and made my way into Grong. A fishing permit from the tourist office is about £18.00. The fishing lodge I had booked into was a 10 min ride. When I got there it turned out my room was double booked so I had to wait until 5pm for the owner to sort the booking out. I unpacked my fishing gear and spent the afternoon fishing the mighty Namsen. The summers this far north are short and intense. The birdlife is spectacular. Two cuckoos called to each other in the woods on the other bank all the time I was by the river. It is many years since I have heard them at home dispite living 200m from woods.
Amongst the greenery some trees stood out like ghost trees in a Scooby Doo cartoon. The caterpillars seemed to take the tree over completely, I have no idea what they were.

Got my room sorted and unloaded the bike. Outside I got talking to German Hans. He came to Norway for 2 months every year and had done so for the last 15 years. He took one look at my puny fishing rod and pointed out that any fish over 4kg would smash it to bits. He went and got his spare rod and reel and insisted I fish with that. He also changed all the hooks on my lures for stronger ones. I spent the evening having a beer with and listening to German Hans on the best places to fish and what to use. I had only just met him but his generosity and free advice were given with nothing expected in return, other than he would liked to have seen me catch a fish.
I got up at 5am on the wednesday and fished for 5 hours. No one was catching much but another fisherman said a reasonsble fish had been taken that morning. Back at the lodge for breakfast I found out it was German Hans who had caught the fish: 13.6kg (ozs off 30lb) He retrieved the fish from the lodge deep freeze so I could take a photo. It had taken him 45 min to land the fish.
I spent the rest of the day fishing but with no luck. Apparently, the mouth of the Namsen blocked with nets which are removed at weekends to allow Salmon into the river: these fresh run fish start arriving at Grong late wednesday and throughout thursday.

The Namsen again and Hans with his fish

Set my alarm for 5am on the thursday to fish the river for a few more hours. Woke up to brilliant sunshine. Made some coffee and decided I was fished out and would start riding south instead. I left German Hans a couple of new lures as a Thank You for the loan of his fishing rod and advice.
Left Grong at 8am and got to Geilo for 8pm. Covering distance in Norway is painful. I reckon to allow 1 hour to cover 50 miles in Blighty, the same hour covers 60 miles on motorways. In Norway I managed 30 miles for every hour travelling allowing for fuel and coffee: 300 miles = 10 hours on the road.
scenary makes up for it though.

Great stuff Andy, keep it coming

Good job you took your fishing rod

My cabin in Geilo included breakfast in the morning. There was only one other couple in the breakfast room. I got talking to them, he was half English and half Dutch. His wife was German. They had been visiting a Norwegian friend he had served in Israel with in the UN many years ago. His view was that Israel was not a country but an asylum. He said the Holocaust had traumatised the Jews to the extent the were all mad. Add the hatred of the neirbouring countries and he concluded the place was a hopelessly lost cause.
I left Geilo at 9.30 and made Kristansand at 6pm for the ferry. It poured all the way except the last hour and the ride was miserable and the roads were awful.
Norway is great. Downsides: beer is about £6 a pint (and is usually horrible) I love a drink and found the best thing is to buy a bottle of wine (a red from Chile for £6 or so) from the booze stores only found in bigger towns.
Food in Norway is awful. Probably the worst in the world and very expensive: £10 for a burger that might as well be cardboard stuffed with grass cuttings and horrible chips. Most older Norwegians stuck me as slim and fit but some youngsters seem to have an appetite for the congealed gloop that passes as fast food: it can only be a matter of time until one of these youngsters is out swimming and gets harpooned by a passing Norwegian Whaler.
The speed limits are tedious: but then there are very few places on the roads I would want to have an off: choose between rockface, barrier posts or a tree
The people are great, a little reserved; shy even. Of course there are exceptions, Hi Liv.

I got the ferry to Denmark that departed at 7pm and arrived at midnight before another 3 1/2 hours to my friends in Lemvig. They had stayed up until 3.30am waiting for my arrival: Ova passed the time drinking (not that he needs an excuse to stay up half the night drinking) and we stayed up until 6.30am getting drunk and catching up on things.
Saturday I caught up with Danish Hans who I met 20 years ago in Portugal when we were all on m/cs and have stayed great friends ever since. In the evening we had a midsummer party with loads of good food, beer and great company

Danish Hans has just got back on 2 wheels after a few years: £16,000 for a seven year old 1100RT ( thats after paying 60% income tax )

I rode home in the rain via Germany, Holland, France, then the Cherbourg to poole ferry to avoid the biggest carpark in Europe (the M25). 12 days and 4060 miles: R1200GS

Danish Hans and his partner Hannah with their 1100RT. I have altered the image slightly to hide their identity

Andy great write up and sounds like you had a fantastic time.

Great pictures and write up, is that the Lemvig by the LimFjord - The only 'mountain pass' (OK a twisty down hill road) in DK and a great big lake at the bottom?

We are about 12 miles North of Lemvig in a fortnight

made good reading and great pictures.

Enjoyed that v muchly.Cracking good read and sound pickies, thanx.

ovenpaa said:

Great pictures and write up, is that the Lemvig by the LimFjord - The only 'mountain pass' (OK a twisty down hill road) in DK and a great big lake at the bottom?

We are about 12 miles North of Lemvig in a fortnight

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Yep, that's the place. I am back up there with my lot for 2 weeks from the 21st. My mate Ova's 50 so I am expecting a bit of a party
We are 5 miles south of Lemvig in the countrside. Look out for a silver renault traffic