2017 Norway trip ("To Hejlle and back" / "Norway and how not to do it")

[Rynglieder]

We have made it back from this year's big trip on the bike.

This one did not go as well as I hoped, I'll do a bit of a write up in installments over the coming weeks but please bear with me as I seem to have a bit too much going on at the moment.....

Pete.

[GTRpilot]

Be interested to hear how it went?

[Rusty]

Pete ...Very much looking forward to reading your tales even if it didn't all go to plan ...  your very first picture shows how lovely it can be up there and I am looking to go in 2/3 years time. Some chaps from work were there last year and spent 2 weeks riding .. said it was stunning. We await your instalments.... good or not so good !

[Icefever]

Nearly went last year but pulled back on it....don't know why??? looking forward to reading up on your trip...

[StickyOne]

I've just come back from a fjord cruise.
Be warned that the cost of living in Norway is exceedingly high!

[ray1151]

Went as far as Bergen across Norway on my SV1000N solo, loved it so much went back with my wife along the coast from Kritiansands up as far as Narvik then cut across to Sweden thro the Abisko National Park and down the coast on the Gulf of Bothnia.
We both agreed it was an unbelievable place so now we are looking at going in at the top via Finland starting from Helsinki next year.
As said tho, bleedin expensive.

[Rynglieder]

The plan

Our two weeks on the bike had been deferred from the usual May / June slot for a variety of reasons and I started to look at what could be done for late August in addition to the week I had taken earlier in the year in the Mosel.

Two options were under consideration; the first was southern Spain and Portugal but this was dismissed as I feared it would be too hot at this time of year. The alternative was to look toward Scandinavia. I had always been attracted to touring Norway but had held off in the hope that a direct ferry route from Britain would be re-introduced. It is not looking as if this is going to happen anytime soon but I had the feeling that I should try and take the opportunity to have a crack at it somehow while I could, you don't know what life will bring and the chance may never come around again.

After several evenings planning I came up with a route built around my usual target of 200 miles per day. It was not going to take me as far north as I would have liked to have gone, but I was working with a two week holiday period from work (which I pushed my luck with by adding an extra day in front and running it through to the Bank Holiday weekend). It would however allow me to see some of the south of Norway and a little way up into the fjords.

The various routes were plotted out using Tyre and then exported to my much detested Garmin Zumo. I could see straight away that I was going to have problems with it again but I had also taken the precaution of buying paper maps. Take a look at the image below; Ribe to Hirshals - about 207 miles in Tyre or Google Maps including 3-4 way-points or 15,851km the way my Garmin wanted to go which seemed to include unexpected stops in Switzerland and Croatia.

As with previous trips all of my accommodation was booked in advance through Booking.com. I tried to work with my usual £75.00 per night budget for a double room and breakfast but failed miserably this year, partly because of the way the British Pound has fallen since the Brexit vote and partly because Norway is just plain expensive. Also, as per my usual routine I found some self-catering accommodation in the middle of the trip where we could base ourselves for four nights do a bit of washing ready for the return trip and perhaps relax a little more.

0.1 Zumo's plan

[Rynglieder]

Day 1 Stourbridge > Harwich (197 miles)

To take some of the mileage out of the trip and give us a head start I booked an overnight crossing in each direction from Harwich and Hook of Holland. As we had all day to reach Harwich we could afford a late start so did not rush to load the bike or get away. Whist preparing to go I remembered the problem I had had with the Garmin Zumo's power lead on the Satnav bracket and attempted to pull out the pin which appeared to be depressed into the housing. A very gentle tug with some small flat nosed pliers broke it completely, so that I thought, was the end of that. Fortunately the GTR has a 12v accessory socket and I had a USB unit that would plug into it so I would just have to manage.

Setting off around midday we struck out southeast from the midlands using the A14. There was time for a break from the bike in Newmarket and still plenty of time in hand to find something to eat when we arrived in Harwich. Although the sailing did not depart until 23:00 loading can take place much earlier so we made sure we were in the que ready as soon as the call was made. We were loaded at the same time as the pedal cyclists which was a complete pain as they were weaving in and out of the motorcyclist's front wheels without any regard for the fact we were on heavy bikes going over uneven surfaces.

Cabins have to be booked for overnight sailings and we were able to access it straight after boarding. I had booked a "comfort class" one which had ample room; a small double bed, a single and an ensuite WC / shower. It did not take long to make a mess of it by spreading our bike gear around before getting into some more comfortable clothes for a walk around the ship and get a beer or two from one of the bars. We headed back to our cabin and got our heads down pretty much as the ship sailed, it was going to be an early-ish start in the morning.

1.1   Stourbridge to Harwich
1.2   Boarding at Harwich

[StickyOne]

Enjoying the read so far.
I can tell there's lots of intrigue unfolding!

[Rusty]

Great stuff .... I am already hooked. Lots of detail, thats what I like. 

[shaggs147]

Thanks for the write up so far..... by the way, have you tried using base camp to plan your routes for the zumo, it might get rid a lot of your problems with it. Yes, it's a bit of a pain at first to learn how to use it, but when you get the hang of it, it works well with the Zumo.

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[Rynglieder]

Day 2 Hook of Holland [NL] > Bad Iburg [D] 235 miles

After getting the wake-up call from the ship's PA we had a quick coffee in the cabin before heading down to the vehicle deck and loading and unstrapping the GTR. Even allowing for disembarking and clearing the port it was still a fairly early start and we were onto the Dutch motorway network under very grey skies and intermittent light rain.
We headed for the first planned stop of the day which was the small town of Heusden. Although this was a bit off the direct route to our overnight stop the shape of the town had caught my eye when I was route planning. I know that may sound odd, but take a quick look at a map and you will see what I mean: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.7336088,5.1431343,1404m/data=!3m1!1e3

It was a good call and a really nice place to spend an hour walking round its ramparts after taking the obligatory GTR-and-Windmill shot. A shame that there was not a bit of sun on it, but never the less an attractive and well-kept little centre that provided a little bakery where we were able to have a coffee and cigarette at a table under an awning and out of the rain.
Next on the list was Arnhem, a town whose name is so well known due to its WWII history. I had picked a street near the once fiercely contested bridge over the Rhein and plotted it into the Zumo as a place to park up. To be fair it had a good go at getting us there but unfortunately it had been the subject of a major excavation for services work and we ended up squeezing the bike at the end of a cycle rack near the market place. If Arnhem has any architectural merit, I would have to say that I struggled to find it. Hardly surprising I suppose given the devastation the opposing sides wrought upon it during the war and there are not many buildings to see that are over 60 years old. We did spend some time though in the "Airborne At The Bridge" museum, taking in the exhibits and film recounting the story of the battles for this strategically important crossing.

The weather was not particularly improving and I made the decision to scrap the next two intermediate stops for the day. They were not particularly important but had been planned in to keep the bike on trunk roads rather than motorways. We had lingered longer than intended in Heusden and Arnhem and it now seemed sensible to push through the rain to our hotel for the night which was still several miles away over the border in Germany.

The Zumo was not going to make it easy for us though. It was very insistent that we should leave Arnhem by the excavated road and as we followed the temporary traffic flow within the city centre it gradually bought us back to where we started. I made sure that the closed road was not an active way-point and had another crack at it, this time being forced back over the Rhein before it gradually and cunningly brought us back to the closed road in the city centre. Back out again I pushed out further following the motorway signs and then when I thought it had grasped the idea began to follow its directions again – back over the bridge, into the city centre and to the closed road. There was a considerable amount of swearing going on inside my helmet as I stopped the bike, turned the unit off and got a proper map out. It must of taken about an hour to escape Arnhem and the history books could now show that the bridge was taken twice by the Allies, twice by the Wehrmacht and about six times by me'n'wifey.

It was then just a couple of hours on the Autobahn. We seemed to be riding at the front edge of the rain sometimes getting briefly ahead of it and at each of our brief breaks we found the motorway service areas full of people wearing T-shirts and surprised looks on their faces.

We parked up at the Felsenkeller Waldhotel at a reasonable hour and checked in to find a good sized room with a bit of a balcony overlooking fields and the edge of the surrounding woodland. I had my back to the window, rummaging around in my luggage when Carole shot from the back of the room, under-trousers intact but bike trousers around her ankles, waddling at high speed and trying to dive for her iPad (one of those moments that you would have had to be there to appreciate the hilarity of it) – behind my back the field had become populated with a herd of deer. We spent some time watching them before the rain came down again, this time really heavily and sending the deer running for cover. The rain put an end to any plans of an evening walk and beer in Bad Iburg town but we had a pleasant drink in the hotel bar and a chat with the hotel propriertor.

Not a bad first day on the continent on the whole.

[Rynglieder]

Day 3 Bad Iburg [D] > Lübeck [D] (240 miles)

The Zumo had been charged up overnight but when tried to call up the route I had planned I could see that it was going to be a waste of time. Although I had put three intermediate stops in (again, just to keep the route off the motorway) it had decided to add several hundred way-points and as I expected the screen would only display "approaching" or "ready to navigate" and no useful directions. I switched my plan to doing some Autobahn work for the morning and perhaps spending a bit more time off the bike later in the day. The Zumo was therefore switched off to conserve the battery for when we really needed it as it does seem to be able to cope with finding a single location.

I've said it before but the GTR is made for the autobahn, it is absolutely effortless at 80mph and the miles fly by. I do miss the top gear acceleration that the GSX gives me, 6th on the GTR is as it says really just an overdrive but given the speeds driven in the overtaking lanes on a German motorway I like to get an overtake done quickly so occasionally found myself shifting down one gear to pass something. We skirted Bremen but then took a little detour eastwards to the town of Lüneburg.

This old Hansiatic trading town has managed to keep a good number of its older buildings many with stepped gales some of which seem to be leaning inwards at an alarming angle. A late lunch was found as we walked around and we also came across some sort of classic car event for which a number of the central streets had been closed off. There was a surprising amount of British machinery running round including a Jaguar, MG and a Triumph as well as the German marques that you might expect.

Back on the Autobahn we eased around the outside of Hamburg and arrived early in the evening in Lübeck, the Zumo took us to within 5 minutes' walk of our hotel but it seemed to be trying a very circuitous approach and we were finally defeated by a one-way system and some bollards that it could not seem to handle. The night's accommodation was the Ringhotel Jensen which had a riverside location more or less opposite the historic Holstentor gate and salt warehouses. At least we had arrived on a warm dry evening and were able to spend a bit of time walking around, the place had that nice evening buzz to it with the street cafes and waterfront bars all enjoying good trade. I had a drink (or was it two?) at one of the bars near the hotel and then headed for bed.

There had not been much enjoyable riding today, too much time had been spent on the motorway, but both Lüneburg and Lübeck had been worth the visit.
 

[PaulB]

Ah, the joy of Zumo routes...

If you tell it you're on a bike it will try and take you on every possible twisty road possible, even between waypoints.

I now leave mine in "car" mode.

Cheers

Paul B.

PS: I did Nordkapp and back last year in 2 weeks, no ferries involved (other than the channel tunnel). We did mostly 400+ mile days and 1 day each way of over 500 miles. I didn't bother with a write-up as it was a long, hard, wet (mostly) motorway slog. The 80 kmh (50 mph) sections in rural Finland and Norway were a bit gruelling (long days).

[shaggs147]

+1 ..... if I'm not following a route that I've pre planned in base camp and I just need to get from A to B as quickly as possible I also use the car mode. I learnt this the hard way in France once, the Zumo taking me through
every small country lane between farmers fields that it could find.... with some very strange looks from the locals! No regrets though, I always look at it as an adventure and somewhere you would never have seen otherwise.

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