Sweden via Denmark 2012

Day 1:

8th September 2012 Another trip, something to be looked forward to and prepared for months ahead, though this time a mixture of work – 5 weeks at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense and 5 nights in Sweden camping plus whatever short travels I can fit in. I have packed a huge amount of stuff.

stuff

So with so much stuff- camping gear and proper clothes and text books - and two laptops the bike is really loaded down with a mountain of stuff as I pull away but its not that difficult to get used to in the end.

Getting ready to leave

Stopping at the first set of traffic lights at the end of Mill Road is the most wobbly part. The journey through three counties to Harwich is as enjoyable as ever, a nice 67 mile route through beautiful villages, and blessed with warm sunshine right into the evening as the boat sails off. There are only about 6 bikes on this crossing, a couple of beautiful red Ducati Multistrada among them, one with expensive panniers held closed with silver gaffer tape after its owner lost the key and had to break them open, a Kwak Ninja owner who told me he watched on CCTV footage his bike blowing over in the wind in his work carpark and suffering hundreds of pounds of damage. Its always the mixture of the rich with brand new bikes and expensive helmets and GPS and the old-timers with bikes with 100k on the clock and trusty old kit. I'm in transition from the former to the latter. Mind you, my Arai looks pretty shiny here.

helmet

ridingon

containers

sunset2

funnel

Riding on to the boat up the ramps is always fun but strapping the bikes down seems hit and miss. Some crews really help others not at all, no advice today so it’s a struggle to get their rusty old straps to work and we are there on the car deck long after the motorists have gone.

Harwich to Esbjerg ferry

The cabin is the same as usual and always my irrational fear that suddenly someone else will burst in and I find out I will have to share it - but they never do of course. Up on the sundeck as we pull out of Harwich slowly at first then gather speed and the boat leans over as we turn to the south coming out of the estuary and then east again as the boat points out to sea. With each of these changes of direction car alarms sound below, despite the many requests to turn them off. There are only a couple of dozen people here up on the deck. There’s an end of season feel. But the sky is beautiful as we look toward the sun as we leave the Suffolk coast behind. There is this lovely mixture of strong breeze and warm sun. I realise I’ve been looking out at the sea for 45 minutes. It takes these trips just to get into a slightly different kind of space. I think this is my seventh motorcycle trip. I feel a bit bemused about that. I was the one with reassuring information in the queue of bikers earlier, well at least to one person who had never done it before. Since I started all this, I have a bigger bike, innumerable gadgets and lots more grey hair.

Look, there I am bobbing about in the North Sea still with a phone signal:

google-maps

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