Czech and double Czech

I think that the last entry was written as we were departing Polska for Czech Republic.

Things were not going so well. Krakow was great, we had a great hostel close to the old town. On the day we left Og wanted to visit the castle first (speccy) and then call at the salt mines on tehe way out of town. The salt mines were far better than any marketing twerp could make a salt mine sound, but the tour took 3 hours. Thus is was almost 4.00PM before we started to head for Prague. No matter, Og has keyed it into the GPS. Prague is South West of Krakow, butwe're heading North West. Not only that, but we're on a rotten old roadthrough one village after another; this does not look like to way to Prague. We stop and discuss. Og has complete faith in the technology, but sees my argument. So we take to the paper map and cross country South, crossing into Czech Republic without drama. There is a freeway from the border to Prague...but the first 40km of it are in upheaval with roadworks. It comes good and we press on into the night, conscious of all of the warnings of how bad Czech roads and drivers are. After a few minutes of fine freeway running a massive lightning bolt splits the sky and lights up all. Time for the first motel! This turns out to be a good place, nice room, good food, secure garage parking.

Next morning it's a freeway blast to Prague. Or it would be if Og's bike wasn't drinking petrol at 150% the rate that mine does. And his charge light is coming on. So we stop and replace the engine temperature sensor and press on. Og is quite sad now, with his bike and GPS both amiss. We're a little bit lost on the edge of Prague and stop to discuss tactics. Decide that we need to find an internet cafe, google a Moto Guzzi service place and go from there, when a bloke on a scooter pulls up and flashes the "MotoGuzzi World Club" badge on his jacket. I tell him we have problems and he motions that we should follow. Across town and into a workshop, drive to theback wall and a door opens at the sound of the bikes. Are we to be mugged and robbed of all valuables?

Looking around we see that the place is full ofGuzzis. Our saviour pulls off his helmet and jacket, revealling a smiling faceand "Moto Guzzi" overalls. This is Juci, President of the Moto Guzzi Club-Bohemia, and head Guzzi mechanic for the distributors...Og has formally foregone any right to moan about bad luck EVER again.

So Juci fixed Og's bike, we had coffee and conversation in sign language, and agreed to meet in a bar not far from Juci's home later on. They also recommended a camp ground a tram ride from the bar. Decided that the prudent thing to do would be to find accommodation near the bar and walking distance to town, and stumbled on Pension Akat. The only room available was an apartment set up as a 10 bed dormitory, but since only two beds were made up, we could have it for the equivalent of A$60, breakfast and secure courtyard parking included.

And so to the bar. Soon Juci arrived with his wife and his brother and his photo albums. This was particularly clever, because we could all "talk"coherently in pictures. Several other MG Bohemia members came, we ate, we drank, we had a great night. This did put us a day behind schedule and we still had not seen Prague, so aftera quick investigative tour and discussion we decided on a second night and thus 1 full day for Prague. I am so glad that we did.

Prague is stunningly beautiful, and vast. From the old town with the castle on the hill to the new town acros the Karlos Bridge, cobbled streets, Wencleslas Square, and art nouveau architecture, it would be easy to spend days wandering. The new town was founded in the 14th Century, so is not that new, really. Amazingly, thereare no 1970s monstrosities anywhere, and the ambience of the place remarkable. I really liked it.

Czech drivers deserve a special mention. Despite all advice, they are polite,couteous, and follow the road rules. Very good. Where Poland only has roadsigns and markings as a sop to Eu, because no one pays them the slightest heed, in Czech they stop if you even look like using a pedestrian crossing. It was a very pleasant surprise. We left Prague yesterday morning, Wednesday, starting with a farewell call to Juci and the guys at their shop. The trip to the border was uneventful, dodging the rain storms reasonably well. Exiting from Czech was a cursory glance at our passports, but the entry to Austria (which I had expected to be, errr, Teutonic) was a glance at us, "Ciao" and a wave with the back of the hand.

So now we are in in Wein. We pulled up outside Michael and Nives' apartmentjust as the rain started, damned good timing. Unfortunately, 24 hours later and in Michael's office, it is still raining steadily. Hopefully it will stop by morning. Contrary to my expectations, the weather has grown progressively cooler as we'vecome further South. Scandinavia was warm, with Finland hot, but yesterday itwas only 14*C according to the roadside thermometers. Tomorrow we hit Croatia and the Adriatic coast, where it will have to be warmer. Two weeks today until we meet the girls in Rome, and we're both keen for that. Both of us are sick of sharing a room with the other because he snores so badly....

Krakow, by Massey

Another wet and gloomy morning. We're about 100km North of Warsaw and heading for Krakow, 400km away.

Travelling is slow, with road works and bad road sections. Miraculously, the drivers seem to be more sensible in the wet, or maybe we're adapting.... The rolling country side is pleasant but uninteresting.

We saw Warsaw at it's very worst. I fancy that it's not that attractive at it's best, but clothed in a thick grey foggy cloudbank through which probed the stark forms of endless soviet era blocks of flats, it was not pretty. Finally we found a cash machine and had a coffee.

After that the day improved. As the day improved, the driving deteriorated until the sun came out and it was plain lunatic. We've both had frights from cars either appearing from behind or flying past at warp speed that we both now spend more time on the mirrors than looking ahead. Quite scary.

Somewhere in the sunshine we stopped for fuel. A bike went by, I waved, they waved then turned in. It was a Polish couple on a heavily laden sports Suzuki, on their way to a rally about 80km from Krakow. They insisted we go with them, and if Krakow had looked like Riga, we would have. But Krakow did not, and we hearby apologise to our Polish friends.

Krakow old town is World Heritage listed, vast, and beautiful. It covers an area comparable to the Melbourne CBD, around a main square the size of one of Melbourne's main commercial blocks, Where Tallinn is a museum city of tourists, Krakow is a living city preserved, and the main voices are Polish. Poland in the last hundred years or so has been poor and there has been no development. Krakow escaped the war unscathed, a remarkable place.

Saturday, Krakow by Og

 Well here we are in Krakow, and worth the visit.  Amazing living city that deserves its World Heritage listing.  We managed to find a hostel almost by accident while looking for one mentioned in the Lonely Planet Guide, the Cinema Hostel http://cinemahostel.com/.  Complete with brand new bathrooms, just the 2 of us in a 6 bed room, and courtyard parking for the bikes, and only 60 zlots each and just 5 minutes walk to the old town.

I have been updating the blog, adding images and 2 recent posts from Massey as the hostel also has free Internet.  It is easy to get images off my Olympus, but Massey's Canon is always a problem.  I have little need to add anything regarding the unique driving styles here, just to say that we spend more time watching our mirrors than we do the road in front.  Some cars can appear next to you from nowhere.  There is a supposed 90kph limit on the roads, maybe the locals think that means miles per hour?

Sitting in the square last night, listening to the 2 guys on the accordians playing classical music, videoing the wedding party that was being videoed (and to video is a verb), finishing with the worst Georgian food I have ever eaten.  Maybe they don't expect their customers have been to Georgia.

So off to the Castle, then to the salt mines then we head to Prague.

Grutos Park

Our hotel in Vilnius was out of the way, really quiet and we slept very well. Another wet morning.

South East out of Vilnius for Druskininskia (??) and the Grutos Park of Soviet Statuary, nick-named "Stalin World".

It was an interesting ride. We'd been warned about Polish driving, but Lithuanian driving is something to behold. Not even out of Vilnius and a dirty great truck overtakes another on a hill, without reference to anyone else; the overtake-ee realises and moves right, the oncoming traffic does the same, and without slackening pace the road is now three lanes. The road seal extends out about 600mm past the edge line, and they use every bit. Don't tell Steve Bracks or there'll be more paint on Victorian roads. A while later we stopped to sort waterproofs. In the space of 3 or 4 minutes we saw two examples of overtaking over double lines, around a blind bend, in the wet. Everyone seems to just accept that someone might need to barge in at no notice. This sort of thing would be far better seen on TV than first hand on the bike.

Against that, Southern Lithuania was a pleasant ride through rolling hills and farms. Obviously poor; grazing animals are tethered rather than fenced, and the farms seem small.

The other excitement for the day was learning that we could get 180 miles out of a tank of fuel. 17L into Og's, 16L into mime, 20+ miles with the fuel light steady on. Must check the book for the tank capacity.

And so to Grutos Park. You enter past an old train with a cattle wagon of the type used to send people to the Gulags. Pay to get in, pay per camera in addition. Walk through an open grassed area lined with mounted newspaper cuttings and gradually you tune into the marshall muzak. Enter the park proper and you're at an outdoor theatre, bench seats, Lenin image, Lenin quotes etc, with a huge and brightly coloured children's playground in the background. Following the path you meander through a forest, puncuated at intervals with sculptures or bronzes, each captioned and explained in English. Nearly 200 in all. Throughout there is stirring marshall music and song, played through speakers on the guard towers.... A very strange experience, explaining the whole communist era in an emotionless way, bizarre without being irreverent or respectful.
And so to Poland. We knew what to expect; worst drivers, worst roads, people so poor that they steal the man hole covers to sell for scrap, a hazard in addition to the cavernous potholes. We haven't been to that bit of Poland yet. We've been riding across a pleasant rolling green countryside, on variable roads that are generally OK. Polish driving is highly imaginative; use your imagination, it is that bad. Lines on roads are open to any interpretation you like. I've been frightened a couple of times when lunatics have come roaring up on the wrong side so fast that I have not seen them coming. Traffic lights also warant special treatment. It seems that regardless of the colour, lights are for trucks. If the tucks are going the same way as you, then you do what the trucks do. If they're not going your way, then do the opposite.



We're safely ensconced before dark, in a lovely Soviet style hotel that smells of mildew. At least our room is OK, with en-suite and an open window. Cost is 80 zlotls per night, under A$40. Snag is that we only have 110 zlotls between us, and cards are not an option. So bread, cheese, smoked reindeer (a Finnish investment) and enough left over for 3 beers each at 3 zlotls.



Money is becoming an irritation. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland are all Eu members, but they don't have common currency. Dandy, we can all deal with this. But why do all four countries have near identical currency pieces, that ALL look like euro. So out of a pocketful of shrapnel, which you'd reckon to be just money, anyone in a shop inspects each coin and rejects any that aren't "theirs". So we think that we can afford one large and one small beer before bed time!

Via Baltica

 Via Baltica is the main drag from Tallinn to Riga, the main road artery. It's heavily trucked and would have been quite ugly a few years back. As it is now, there are enough sections where the bitumen has been worn into two troughs (from the combination of dual wheels and tandem B-double wheels) which are not nice to ride. You have the option of rut1 or rut 2, and if it was wet it would be horrible... but it wasn't. In truth, most of it has been rebuilt and is quite ok, however, an awful lot is still in construction. Traffic lights, contra-flows, detours on to temporary side roads: horrible, but all of it sealed and not so bad. It just seems worse waiting for those lights.

So we arrive in Riga, capitol of Latvia, a UNESCO listed World Heritage old town. Or it is at the moment. They are building tasteless glass walled monstrosities throughout and between the old buildings; a shambles. We went up the church tower for the view over the old town, and it looks surprisingly like any other city. Roamed around in the evening, had pizza for tea, and were generally unimpressed by most of it. Stayed in a cheapo hotel in the old town, bikes locked together in the street out front. There is no sense of threat or danger here and we have no qualms.

So from Riga to Vilnius, Lithuania. We're a bit lucky with the weather; it's raining in front of us, so for most of the day we're riding wet roads without being in the rain as such. Countryside is rolling green, broken with derelect Soviet factories. Two conspicuous features today, stork nests and Lituanian driving. Storks build their hests on top of power poles, a metre diameter block of sticks, up to half a metre thick. We even saw a stork in one of them.

The border crossing was again anti climactic; no queue, and no drama, almost disappointing. There is an obvious geographic difference across the border, from flat and boring to much more rolling countryside and a few pretty lakes. Not a patch on Finland though.

Lithuanian drivers are, errrrr, exciting. Remember that we're riding on the "wrong" (right) side so I sit just right of the centre line, asserting my right. In the mirror I see a red Honda car overtake Og, no indicators, over double lines on the crest of a hill. Mumble to myself inside my helmet. My practice has been to hold my road position until I'm content for the following pratt to pass, when I move hard to the right. Watching the red Honda approach, I prepare to move right......except the bloody Honda is there!!! Yep, he overtook me on the wrong side. Welcome to Eastern Europe.

And so to Vilnius. By now it is raining lightly. I baulk at the cost of a hotel on the edge of the old town, and agree to one on the edge of the main city. We walk into town. It's overcast, gloomy, but not technically raining until we've passed the point of no return to the jackets and brollies. The old town is pleasant enough, far more complete and interesting than Riga, but still not a patch on Tallinn. We manage to find some Lithuanian beer, agree that it is acceptable but need further testing, and so wander on in the rain. We find a great traditional Lithuanian joint in basements and settle there. Food is good, but stodgy (or mine was, at least) but we decided that the beer was good.

By the time we'd finished we had decided that we had seen enough of Vilnius. Tomorrow we're off to Stalin World, a soviet era them park near the Polish border. Sounds dreadfully tasteless, but so are we....

If it is Monday, then....

We must be in Estonia.

It has been a strange day, and at 3.30 is nowhere near over yet. Today we have ridden the amazing distance of 14 miles from Anita and Jussi place. The start was wet, bucketing down, although it quickly passed to oppressive humidity inside the waterproofs. I am typing this in an internet cafe as my phone does not have the internet connection in Estonia. It is an Estonian keyboard, and I cannot find the apostrophe key anywhere. I know that Og is sensitive to this, so please accept my apology in advance.

Fortunately, the opportunity to peel them off was presented half way down the freeway to Helsinki when Ogs bike had a failure to proceed due to an errant crankshaft position sensor. This is a known fault, and we fitted the spare in a few minutes, but that meant that we missed the 10.30 ferry. No matter, they run every 2 hours.

Getting out of Finland was our first real border\customs crossing where they wanted our papers. There was some consternation because my bike is not registered in my name, but we made it. There was more consternation for the same reason on entering Estonia. By the time the customs officer returned withour passports and papers everyone else was long gone. We had been first off the boat, too.

We have booked an apartment in old Tallinn with secure courtyard parking, and the GPS took us directly to it. Unfortunately, we cannot find the person with the keys.... Presently I am sitting in teh shelter of an old well outside the apartment. The rain has eased to heavy, but the thunder is still loud, and Og has gone back to find an internet cafe to try our only means of contacting the apartment people again.

Finally Gelli turned up with the key. The apartment is great, a double bed, a trundle bed, kitchen, newish and nice bathroom, clean, and ground floor overlooking the locked courtyard area. On top of that, we are all of 100m from the old town square, it is a great location. www.ites.ee, Ites Apartments, highly recommended.

Old Tallinn was a great walk in drizzling rain, through cobbled lanes between 18thC and medieval buildings. All very pleasant and quaint. Good views from the top of the walls and around the cathedral, but a puzzlingly large number of souvenir shops in the most unlikely little corners. As I finish this today (Tuesday, 22nd, my 25th Wedding Anniversary) I now know why: Tallinn in on the cruise ship route and positively seethes with tour groups, thousands of them, and that shatters the place. Oh, and we had deep fried pig's ears as a beer snack.

Aurora Borealis

Saturday in Helsinki. Our hosts Anita and Jussi are taking us into some Finnish culture.

We start at the Mannerheim Museum, in the embassy precinct of inner Helsinki. Mannerheim is the founder of modern Finland, the Field Marshall who ran independence from Sweden in the early 20th century and kept it from the Russians in 1945. The museum is his former home, much as he left it when he died. The tour is conducted, with informed and personalised commentary, which reflects the Finn pride in him.

Oops, a correction from Jussi:

Small corrections Oggi. Finland got its independence 1917 withouth a struggle and we separated then from Russia not Sweden. Russia had earlier won a war against Sweden in 1809 and Finland was then attached to Russia. In a civil war 1918-1919 Mannerheim was leading the troups of Whites against Reds.

From there into the country, to Tuusula, the lakeside home to the artistic set of the 1920s and 30s, specifically the homes of the painter Halonen and composer Sibelius, both national icons.

To acknowledge their kindness in looking after us so well we took Anita and Jussi to dinner, after which they took us to the rooftop bar of the "tower hotel". This is about 12 storeys, one of the tallest buildings downtown, with great views.

The outside area was small and crowded. We stood and took in the view, which included a greenish smudge that could have been a smoke plume, save that it was changing shape and growing rapidly; the Aurora Borealis, the Northern Lights, rarely seen in Helsinki, seldom ever seen in Summer. For ten minutes or so the whole bar crowd oohed and ahhed, and then it was gone; but we saw it!

South to Helsinki, Og's Contribution

Finally I get to add something to the blog other than John's emails to me. Most of the posts below are his as he has GPRS running on his phone so composes emails at night while I wrestle bears. We are now in Helsinki with Anita and Jussi; a big clothes wash, blog update and oil change are due. A quick visit to the Russian border en route, then past a 15km tailback of trucks waiting to clear customs.


A great trip South, with an amazing array of characters. Cabins in camping grounds for 2 nights, one with dancing on Saturdays as well but we missed that. Grilled bangers in the Sami tent for dinner, with a few cleansing ales. Interesting wind vane though.



Nordkapp, straight out blantant exploitation. I expected better from Norway, a country with not only very high taxes but all that oil money. 195 NOK for each person for entry into a theme park with no rides. At least we got to use the pass twice, we went back the next morning to post our postcards from the Northern-most post office with the Northern-most post person in the Northern-most... you get the idea. We were the 2 Northern-most Australians there as well. Stunning countryside.


Stayed with a colleague of Massey's in a summer cottage near Mikelli, fun night especially when we formed the quartet to play music. To our ears it sounded like music anyway, I knew playing the school drums when we marched into class would one day come in useful. No photos from the sauna.

The North

It has been yet another day of what my mate Dave refers to as "Lucky Man Moments", those times when you really appreciate the many and varied circumstances that have come together to allow us to be here. We are very, very lucky blokes.

First night in the "insurance" tent worked well. It's big enough for us to sleep in and has enough extra space for boots, helmets etc.

This morning we did the Alta Museum, built on and around a 6,000 year old rock art site and thus an important place from Og's itinerary. It was a fumbling start. We woke after 8, ambled off at 9, but nothing opens until 10; that's no thing at all, not even the tourist info. One exception is the museum. It opens at 7, which is no use at all if you can't find it. Eventually a smiling parking inspector told us how to get there.

The rock art is impressive, thousands of characters etched into the rock face in shallow relief. Most have been in-filled with red crayon. Whilst the purists, experts, and academics are rightly mortified by this sacrilege, duffers like me appreciate it because without that the markings are so subtle as to be invisible to mere mortals.

After several hours conjecturing on whether the carvings were rich symbols of an organised culture now gone, or doodlings on a sunny day after a big feed of reindeer, we headed North again. The day was quite pleasant, but it was damned cold riding. Climbing out from Alta we rolled onto vast plains, treeless, a moonscape of scrub little more than 18" high, dotted about with grazing reindeer. This is all Sami country, traditional custodians of all things reindeer.

Norwegian roads are all really great, and the ride from Alta via Honnigsvag to Nordkapp is a stunner. A glorious road that follows metres from the sea, sweeping, swooping between stunning ocean views. Cold, see your breath easily. Two long tunnels, one of which runs 6km and under sea to connect with the island of which Nordkapp is the attraction. Yes, I realise that this then makes a lie of the whole Nordkapp as the Northermost point of continental Europe thing, but I don't undertsand either. It does cost 68 kronor toll each way.

We've found a cabin in a camping ground, naturally the Northernmost camping ground in the world, with en suite, heater etc. 550 kronor = $110, but it's very cold outside....

Og has just called me outside. A herd of grazing reindeer have just wandered around the cabin. Quite surreal, until Og pointed out that it's simply the Northern equivalent of roaming kangaroos. Took the edge off it, that did.

Having booked our cabin and dumped some gear, we went to Nordkapp, one of the benchmarks (or waypoints if you're a surveyor) of our journey. Nordkapp is quite brilliant; I have never encountered a ripoff that comes close to it. The ride in is great, more swoops and sweeps, with spectacularly rugged wild coastal scenery until you draw up to the toll booth before Nordkapp proper. 195 kroner ($39) per person, just to get in to park! Outrage, but having come this far we paid it and we're going to recover the value in whinging about it. There's the obligatory cafes, souvenir shop, theatrette etc, but also a huge bar/restaurant/cinema set up facing the viewing window set into the cliff face; for watching the aurora borealis. We hung about in the warmth, stuck a "Moto Guzzi Club of Victoria" sticker on the globe sculpture pedestal, with all of the other bike club stickers, then left.

We also encountered the only other serious touring Guzzi thus far, an Italian couple from Lecco, also on a Cali.

Reindeer steak for tea tonight, sorry Santa.

Tomorrow is all downhill, with the sun in our faces.... to Finland.

Polett til dusj

This is a very important Norwegian phrase, which means "token for the shower", which is what you need in order to get HOT water. Ask me how I learned this? And why is the notice in the shower cubicle itself, where you don't see it until it is just too late to go to the kiosk......

Other than that, the first night of camping has gone very smoothly.

Sweden to Alta

It's been another big day; 900km up the spine of Sweden from Storuman.

This road is intensely boring. It's a bit like the Newell Highway in NSW, 2 lanes, one each way, bumpy, patched surface, through flat country with infrequent near-dead towns and monotonous scenery. Forests of pine and poplar, nothing more than 30' high.

The only thing to break this tedium was the prospect of reindeer. 150kg of lean meat, bone and antler controlled by a very small and dubious brain will do this. Over the course of the day we must have had 8 or so encounters. They stand on the road, fearless of the bikes, and run awkwardly... sometimes away, sometimes along the road, sometimes both!

Along the way we crossed the Arctic Circle. This isn't much more than a sign and a cafe, but we did stop for the obligatory photo.

We have also made 3 border crossings. For a bloke who carefully has all his requisite papers (and there are a lot) in a waterproof bag in his pocket, this was a real disappointment. Slow to 30kph, drive through. No officious guard, no tricky questions. Perhaps that will come later...

The highlight of the day was the descent into Alta, through a spectacular rocky gorge. Unfortunately we descended into an Alta that is chockers in anticipation of a big football carnival, so we're giving our new, Shetland bought, tent a try out.

More from Massey

The ferry arrived in Bergen at 11.00 local time, into perfect sunshine broken by a few fluffy clouds. We'd met a few other riders on the boat; Craig the Glaswegian nervous about how his still new Ducati would fare in Scandinavia and Europe, James the Lav rider, about which nothing more needs be said than he's a Lav rider, and a couple from out of Sydney on their NSW plated BMW. Extra points for that.

We roamed around old Bergen for a while and had coffee. The area is all old herring drying sheds from the 1700s and is world heritage listed. After another coffee with James the Lav we set the sat nav system and followed its directions out of town. Curiously, it took us off the main road (E39) in the suburbs, around and back onto it at a previous junction. Then it wanted us to do the same again. Back to the paper maps and we're away.

Norway is a stunning place, on a sunny day like this it is everything you ever imagined and more. Fjordland. Scenic beyond words, glorious roads, beautifully made....and an 80kph open road speed limit backed up with Victorian style speed policing. Along the E39 it felt like we were at walking pace, particularly after the UK roads where the speed limits are simply ignored. E39 screams to be taken at 120, and was hard work at 80, despite the magnificence of the engineering, the surroundings and the tunnels. Lots of tunnels, from 200m to 5km.

There is a ferry crossing over one fjord. On the ferry we decided to leave the E39 for the 607, a lesser road. What a great call that was. 607 is narrow, winding and stunning. Much of it is narrow, not really wide enough for two cars to pass other than at crawl speed, and even 80kph is ambitious. There are no straight sections, it is all curves. Every curve is blind, and around every one there is a post card worthy view; ocean, boats, villages, trees, lakes reflecting the mountains. One breathtaking view after another, simply amazing. Slarty Bartfast got it right first time.

Finally 607 rejoined E39 and we arrived in Forde, an industrial town. Found a great place to stay, Forde Pensjonat; 650NOK, about $140 for the two of us, about half the rate of anywhere else. Nothing here is cheap.

Against that, we've had one of the most spectacular days of riding possible.

The Shetlands Part A

The ferry crossing from Orkney is not flash, due to the anti-social timing. Departure at 11.30PM means a lot of time to kill without sitting in a pub, and the 7.30AM arrival is before anything opens. At least it was a very calm crossing, which made sleeping on the floor a passable option.

First impression of Shetland, through the morning mist is one of Highland Grey, but after a snooze (thank goodness for an early check in at the pub) the weather had cleared and the sun was struggling through. So we went for a ride.

Shetland is hilly, largely treeless, windwept valleys with cottages dotted about. There is more colour and diversity of architecture than Orkney, and the roads are made for motorcycles. Great surfaces, they dip and wind through spectacular scenery, never far from a wild coast. Many of the roads are strictly single track, just barely the width of a small car, but there isn't much traffic and there are plenty of passing places. There's not much in the way of fuel or food places, and as we came into Voe and saw the pub we decided to stop. This was a good call. The pub was full of Vikings; 10 - 15 men and an assortment of kids. All of the males wore a deep blue velvet smock thing with a deer hide over the top, knee length furry boots, and "Ogri" helmets. These were a steel skull cap with what looked like black feathered chook wings vertically on each side. There were several young girls, too, "Viking Princesses" we learned later, in tailored long dresses of the same blue velvet.

Having suitably fortified themselves in the pub, and eaten all of the fish pies, they headed off for the local agricultural show. So we followed. Our Vikings formed up with two other groups wearing different uniforms and marched as a column of 30 or 40 up to a low wooden platform. The princesses stood on that, the Vikings circled around them. They sang a stirring Viking anthem, had 3 cheers for something, 3 cheers for something else, then 3 cheers for the beer tent before retiring to it.

The rest of the show could have been an Australian country show, without cows or cattle. Sheep dog trials were good, all border collies and not a kelpie to be seen.

From Voe we ran a circuit of the North, and back to Lerwick. There aren't that many eating options in Lerwick on a Sunday night. We wound up listening to Shetland music in the Douglas Arms, with dinner in the paper from "The Happy Haddock". And beer....



Monday we headed South to Sumburgh, and to catch up with friends Liz & Ronnie. It's 25 miles, a speccy road with fantastic coastal views, culminating at Sumburgh airport where the road crosses the runway. For each aircraft movement a bloke comes out and closes a boom gate on each side.
Cups of tea and some local guidance and we're off to Sumburgh Head. Not only the Southernmost tip, an attractive lighthouse, spectacular scenery etc, it is also a Puffin colony and Og wants to see Puffins. So we did. Back to Lerwick for tea in one of the three Indian restaurants, then down to the ferry for a 8.30 sailing. Again it's a calm night coming up, so we're hoping for three out of three peaceful crossings.

Orkney Images

Some images from the Orkneys. The top is the Broch of Gurness (Iron Age), the other two are Skara Brae, a neolithic village on the coast. And a very nice beach, but no wettie so no swim.

A Highland Ride

Saturday, Kirkwall in the Orkneys. Killing time waiting for the midnight boat to the Shetlands, time to update the blog. While Massey was at his meeting at the airport in Dundee, I posted the useless bits of the tent back to St Albans. Sooo..., do we get a proper one or take our chances? Overnighted with friends of massey's at memsie, near Fraserburgh. James makes trailers, really big chilled ones, at 38 per week. Then a beautiful ride through the highlands via Altnaharra - stunning scenery. Overnighted at Bettyhill pub, then the 8.45 ferry to Stromness. Standing stones, winding roads, and eventually found a bed. Holidays and weddings, the place is full.

Collected my bike with it's new clutch promptly at 0930. An hour back to Hayling Island, packed, loaded and headed off at 1100. A quick visit in Ealing and I found Og at St Albans at 2.00PM. Finally we got away at 4.00.

Naturally we had to pose the departure video, bold adventurers heading into the unknown. Returned to collect the camera, and it was then that Og's charge light started to flicker. Soon it was steady on.

Somewhere North of Stevenage we stopped for fuel and a can of WD40. Gave the relays and fuses a liberal application, but to no effect. So we rang Mike the Oracle at Moto Corsa. He laughed a hollow laugh of disbelief; the voltage regulator had fried itself. So on Mike's advice we headed due West towards Baines Racing at Silverstone, the nearest likely stockist.

Near Milton Keynes we stopped before Og's battery died completely, in a dodgy sales rep motel. Next morning we left Og's bike at the motel, found Baines, bought the regulator and returned. Naturally it is different to the original, but at least we had wiring diagrams for both the unit and the bike. By 10.30 we were going again. Still only 40 miles from St Albans, but headed in the right direction.

The original plan had been a Tuesday departure, so we were now basically back to plan. A 90MPH blast up the M1 and M6 motorways, object Dundee was before us. As a Victorian used to an obsessive speed camera regime, this was a splendidly naughty thing to do.

Over lunch in a motorway caff we were both a bit relieved that the adventure had finally started. Og asked an innocent question; "Where is the other kidney belt?" Hmmm. This would be the kidney belt that I had delivered, along with the other cigarette light socket and loom, and (critically) the fly for the tent, in the previous week. Houston, we have a problem...

We made Dundee by about 6.30, found a nice little pub on the ouskirts and settled for the night. The kitchen was closed, it was raining steaqdily, so we had very good Indian takeaway delivered. In the morning I have an appointment at the airport, and Og is going shopping.

JFerg