mcmiles.net Plymouth to Hanoi, the slow way round!

I’m calling this week zero because the miles per weekend idea hadn’t occured to us when we took this trip but in many ways the little germ seedling of inspiration was planted on this trip because we saw so much and had such an adventure. We suprised ourselves with what could be done in a weekend.

The bike was already in Copenhagen because I had been working there for the summer. I collected Jo from Københavns Lufthavne on Friday evening and despite her long trip and transfer stops in London and Amsterdam, she insisted we crack on. We reached Gothenberg in a cold wet mess but made ourselves comfortable with a hot meal and a warm bed at a fancy hotel on the river. The Swedes were charming and the bartender knew his trade. In the morning, they gave us access to the laundry room to dry all our wet gear and I ate plenty of the buffet bacon at breakfast to fuel up for the road.

Heading north out of Gothenberg, we passed the big Volvo plant and test tracks and found some very pleasant roads before rejoining the main highway system. Jo liked the consistency of warnings 200 meters before every speed trap but I wasn’t in any rush and hardly hit the limits at all.

The highway gradually brought us out of lowland agriculture and outcrops of granite stood sentinel over the fjords ahead. After a few rocky tunnels, the scenery became jagged and began to reveal Slarty Bartfast’s exemplary handiwork. By the time we reached the fjord port of x, we were drinking in the scenery like bedouins at an oasis. The ferry ticket to Sandiford came to something like 15 euros for the bike and the two of us and probably saved more fuel than that in the short hop to Norway. Sandifords fjord was even more spectacular than x had been with hundreds of pleasure craft soaking up the sunshine from sleepy moorings in front of pretty, colourful summer homes. Kids on jet skis took advantage of the ferry’s wake to get some air and show off their stunt talent on what was otherwise a very glassy smooth body of water.

In my naive imagination, Telemark existed as a specific point on the map. The site of heroic SAS exploits and the ruins of a German hard water plant. I was a little embarassed to learn from a clerk at a fuel stop that Telemark actually refers to an entire region which I was already in and this presented a difficulty for the clerk who did not know how to direct me to somewhere that I already was. In my vivid imagination, there was also a famous gothic castle that could serve as an objective for a touring motorcyclist. Not wanting to disappoint me, the clerk showed me a point on the map where an interesting gothic hotel could be seen. Satisfied with my imaginary castle and the all-important directional objective, our quest seemed righteous and we were rewarded with winding, hilly roads that even dipped into a town enjoying a food festival where we were treated to meaty delights.

Many visitors to Norway comment on the abundance of breathtaking scenery and how after countless hours of drinking it in, one grows a blaze sort of meh repsonse to cascades of sunset light bleeding through a spectacular gorge before falling in tragic beauty to the depths of a glassy fjord. It’s very hard to describe and impossible to understand without experiencing it but it is a very real phenomena. It isn’t as though one does not still appreciate the beauty, just that ones capacity for awe is simply overwhelmed.

We found small towns that give Norway it’s redneck reputation for monster pickups and these too had their charm. At some point, I found a Ducati to tail through a winding mountain pass but was only able to keep up for a little while before I realised I was at the limits of my abilities so I backed off to my pretty lovers relief. I could sense from her posture that she enjoyed a more leisurely pace. After some hours we realised that the temperature had dropped considerably and disproportionately to the falling light. It took us a moment to realise that we had climbed considerably in altitude and this explained the patches of snow and ice, though thankfully, not on the tarmac.

On reaching the hometown of my imagined castle, we found that the mildly interesting gothic hotel was closed to the public and inundated with VIP guests to a rich wedding. The concierge looked positively relieved when his two velcro armoured knights saddled back up on their doubt inducing old metal steed and got the hell off his lawn.

The only other beds in town were at a picturesque BnB where we were offered a choice of the royal suite at £170 or a clean and simple affair at £130. Since I’m more accustomed to spending £25 for a room and a full English we figured, what the hell and splashed out for the best in town. It was nice but after two days of hard riding, I probably would have slept just as well on a straw mat in a barn. The hot pressure washer in the bathroom was a nice touch though and well received by aching bodies.

In the morning, I tried, and maybe succeeded, in eating the price of the room in cold meats and cheeses at the buffet. We also discovered three other teams of bikers who had the same idea so there was a little competition for honey roast ham and chunks of butter but in the end, the proprietor understood what was happening and cheerfully restocked the tables with his family larder’s store of provisions for the coming winter. We ate that too. Armed with intel from the other bikers, we found mountain pass roads that can only be described as epic. Wrapping round cliff edges, sloping through forests, crossing rivers and opening the throttle on the shores of mountain lakes, it really was riding to inspire the soul and take your breath away.

Whenever we stopped, Jo would stand on her head in front of yet another Lord of the Rings landscape and try to talk me into doing some yoga. It would probably do me a lot of good, but I’m a very lazy bugger.

Eventually, we turned south and rode a high of of euphoria from all that scenery so that we hardly really noticed the long boring Swedish motorway back to Denmark. Here’s the pics.