Trip report to Finland Rally 2008 In 2007 I went to the Swedish international rally with 10 others from centre 4. I had a fantastic time and even though I have been in Europe a lot when I was in the army this was the first motorbike trip on foreign soil ! I was bitten by the travel bug in a big way ! When I got home I started to think about the 2008 rally to Finland. So that was really when the planning started ! I had decided that I would make the trip on my own (hence the “Billy no mates”). Months of planning, what route, where to stop, camp or hotel, how many miles per day, how long for the trip and what was I going to take with me? The overall plan was to take 15 days holiday, 6 days to get to Finland, 2 days at the rally and 6 days for the return leg. I used the bank holiday run to Scotland to try out all my new gear (all except the tent). The gear included silky drawers (easy to wash and quick to dry), also provided Tony Clark with much amusement because when I had my long pants which could turn into shorts…. They were slightly to big and fell down in front of Tony !! so I added a belt to the list of equipment needed ! other new additions to “Will’s QM stores included a smaller foldable aluminium table and PICO fold up chair.
this is what all my kit looked like laid out before setting off. Its better to do it this way because you make a list of all the things you need and then tick it off when you have packed it on the bike.
and this is what it looked like all packed onto the bike (note the Venture star hard bags bought of ebay and mounted onto custom made racks) well after all my bike is a Suzuki ! the sheepskin was my daughters rug in her bedroom, now provides me with nice comfortable padding for my butt. Sunday 8th June DAY 1 Got to the ferry with loads of time to spare, just as well because as I was booking in I realised that I had left all my bike docs sitting on my kitchen table ( I did have photo copies in my tank bag). So a quick run back home, I’m sure my neighbours thought I had just done the quickest bike trip in history and back to the ferry with the niggling thought of “have I left anything else behind ?” Once on the ferry I made my way to the top deck to wave to Julie and her daughter Megan who had come to see me off
Once the ferry got on its way I settled into my book on the back deck. After reading for a while I soon realised that I had read 5 chapters and I had only brought 2 books with me so I stopped reading ! so I sat there thinking about what laid ahead of me in the next coming weeks.
As I sat watching the sun going down I started to get very nervous about the trip, so I headed for the bar and a few pints later was feeling better ! Monday 9 June DAY 2 Off the ferry without any hassles and guided by my trusty tomtom I made my way roughly up to Bremen, I say roughly because I didn’t really have any plan. The only thing set in stone was that I had to be at Stockholm for Thursday night for the overnight ferry to Finland. The day went without any hitches, I soon got used to riding on the wrong side of the road and the miles started to fly by. I decided to stick to the autobahns in order to get some distance in. Then I hit a traffic jam, apparently a car was on fire on the hard shoulder and the tailbacks were 10 miles long. Now we all like to filter or lane split, that’s one of the reasons we ride bikes, however filtering is illegal in Germany ! I had filtered for about 5 miles without any hitches (there was the occasional German who tried to run me off the road!) then I spotted a police van, so I slowly drew level with the German policeman and in my best German asked if I could carry on, he looked at me in a strange way and said “I don’t know”, so I sat there in the heat, me getting hot and bothered, the bike getting hotter and finally decided to say in my best German, goodbye to the policeman and carry on filtering. I figured there was no way he was going to catch me, after all he was stuck in a traffic jam! A couple of hours later I was just outside of Bremen and found a lovely little camp site.
Now here is a top tip ! When staying on a camp site always check the toilets have toilet roll in them, don’t ask me how I know that one but it did involve an early morning trip to the loos doing a very strange walk! Tuesday 10th June DAY 3 I was up and packed and on the road for 11, early start for me then ! ahead lay the ferry from Putsgarden to Rodby to take me into Denmark. Once in Denmark I decided to push on over the tunnel/bridge into Sweden. This turned out to be a bad move, as it was getting towards 8 o’clock and I hadn’t found a campsite. At 8 o’clock I found a campsite but no one was at the reception. I started to panic ! I was very tired and very hungry, the wind was blowing like a mad thing and all I wanted to do was get my head down and sleep. Luckily I found a couple who were camping and they showed me where to put my tent up. Once I got my tent up I decided to tie it to the bike because I thought it might take off like a hand glider with me inside it !
I don’t think this photo does justice to just how windy it was !!!! Wednesday 11th June DAY 4 Well I survived the night and the tent was still in one piece, I did have a few tent pegs pulled out though. After cooking bacon and egg sarnies for breakfast I headed off for the south coast of Sweden making my way to Stockholm. I had only been going for 10 minutes when the heavens opened (and with that my spirits had sunk to rock bottom !). a quick stop in a bus shelter, rain gear on, looking to the north east I could see better weather so I decided to take a more direct route to Stockholm planning to stop at Granna. Now your starting to see my “no rigid plan trip” ? The journey to Granna was plain sailing, the weather started to dry and the sun even decided to show its self thru the clouds. The E4 road runs in a very straight line, happily I had my I-river to listen to and even jiggled my butt to the music ( or maybe it was because my butt kept going to sleep !). Arriving at Granna about 4 o’clock I was quickly set up and headed into town for essential supplies ie BEER. Decided to do some washing as the sun was shining, so washing hanging between bike and tent I settled down to cook and chill out. The sun wasn’t out for long and it soon started to rain. So I moved all my washing into my tent. This resulted in the tent looking like a Chinese laundry !
can you spot the silky drawers ??? Thursday 12th June DAY 5 Normal routine of up, shower, sh*te and get the cooker on the go for …. Bacon and egg sarnie’s ! While eating my breakfast and generally taking in all the beautiful scenery 2 guys from centre 6 appeared. They were all packed and ready to set off. “are you not ready”? they asked. Were hitting the road now, Stockholm is a long way and we have a ferry to catch. So I wave them off and think about what laid ahead, 180 miles and an evening ferry, so why are they rushing, do they know something I don’t ? so as I waved them off I started to think about what monsters may lay ahead and slow me down, panic set in as I thought of this so ran round like a mad man and packed up in double quick time. I was on the road for 10 ( I think my earliest start this trip). So once more I hit the E4, the long boring and very straight road, more butt wriggling, more nodding my head to the music and quite a few coffee and smoke breaks, in fact I even stopped for a McDonalds ! And guess what ? I arrive in Stockholm for just after 3 in the afternoon ! so much for listening to other people ! never mind I thought, the ferry is in, I will just get on and chill with a beer and my book. Well there is a small problem, the ferry I’m getting on is not my ferry and I must come back at 8 o’clock ! so there im sat in Stockholm with enough Swedish money for say 2 coffees and looking at a 5 hour wait. No problem for a man with no rigid plan, I will just sit at the ferry terminal and read my book. After the 3rd or 4th gypsy looking person come up to me and asked if I had any spare fags I decided to go and find somewhere quieter.
and this is what I found ! a lovely little café. Sitting quietly with coffee and book I noticed people arriving without dogs and leaving with dogs and visa versa. Curiosity got the better of me and I went to look at where these dogs were coming andgoing and found this dog crèche !
I head back to the ferry Where I decided to get my seat out and read for another 2 hours till they let me on. It was here that I met up with Danish and Dutch guys heading for the rally. Got myself a lovely little cabin (very cheap at £40 for an overnight ferry). Showered and refreshed I took the decks and was quite happy watching the world go by me
Here is me, looking very chilled out and relaxed. The ferry was your average overnight ferry, warm ish food and expensive beer ! the only thing I couldn’t get my head round was watching some guy on the karaoke singing Elvis in Finnish ! it really does do your head in ! So I headed down stairs for a good nights sleep, only that didn’t happen. In the middle of the night I thought the ship was sinking, lots of noise and sideward movements of the ship. Anyway I survived, turns out that there’s a group of island on the way to Finland and they pick up passengers at about 3 in the morning ! Friday 13th June DAY 6 Look at the date ! Friday the thirteenth ! how scary ! it was at this point where I thought there’s safety in numbers and tagged onto the back of the danes/dutch group and made my way to the rally.
a picture of my safety in numbers tag along group ! One by one centre 4 guys started to appear, I cant tell you how good it felt to be amongst friends again ( I’m sure I must talked for hours).
Me ! smiling like a looney at meeting my friends and being able to speak in plain English rather than waving my arms around and speaking very slowly with lots of head nods ! Saturday 14th June DAY 7 After a very, very cold night I awake to bright sunshine and breakfast (did I say that it stays light in Finland till about 3 in the morning and then dawn breaks at 4 !). I decided that I didn’t fancy going out on the ride out and headed into town later in the afternoon. I needed to stock up on food, money and a decent pizza. The rest of Saturday was spent chatting to people and practising my pigeon German (that doesn’t mean that I was flapping my arms round like a pigeon !)
this is me relaxing and pondering over the return leg of my adventure. Having chatted to a lot of folks it became apparent that Estonia and the rest of the old eastern block countries could be a bit dangerous for a single rider. So as I was pondering about going back the way I came (you see, no plan no problems) I discovered that Barry and Lorraine were heading back thru the eastern block. So the one soon become three ! or the 3 musketeers as we were about to come. Sunday 15th June DAY 8 All packed up and raring to go, the 3 musketeers set off for Helsinki. A round of group hugs and lots of goodbyes to the rest of centre 4 and we were on the road, stopping now and then to check tomtom directions which seemed to be wanting to take us back to Turku ! A few hours later had us arrive at Helsinki ferry port bound for Tallin in Estonia
Signposted just in case you forgot where you were going !
Waiting to board the fast ferry (we were moved to the front of the queue, that’s what’s biking is all about!) My famous words to Lorraine was “it’s a sea cat, the crossing should be smooth because they don’t run in rough seas” actually this was a FALSE statement, the thing was pitching around like a small dinghy in very rough seas !
This picture shows Barry rushing to catch Lorraine in the rough conditions! The crossing became so bad that Lorraine decided to lie on the floor of the boat and I thought I would join her. This turned out to be a godsend as I had a brilliant sleep and woke up as we approached Tallin
We had decided to stay in Tallin but feeling refreshed from my sleep we changed plans and headed for Parnu, which was about 80 miles down the road. It was 8 o'clock as we hit Parnu and tomtom was leading us to campsites that didn’t exists. Then Barry spotted a sign for a campsite. We pulled up and with much delight found it was a biker’s bar campsite. It was a gift from the heavens. They were happy to let us camp but a better offer of a small hut with single beds was made to us. I can’t tell you how nice after 8 days on the road it was to sleep in a real bed.
I could do with a hut like this in the bottom of my garden when I have guest staying over ! Monday 16th June DAY 9 Having slept like a log in a warm log cabin and fed with a good hearty breakfast, we headed off to town for a quick tourist trip.
You can still see the origins of the communist/eastern bloc styling of the streets.
Here is one of the locals having a morning nap (actually it’s a drunk vagrant sleeping off the night !) Parnu is a lovely little town and its well worth a visit. I would however suggest that you stay away from this MCC
We rode off just after lunch leaving Estonia and headed into Latvia. We passed thru Riga looking for somewhere to stay but couldn’t find any camping spots. A few miles down the road we found the town of Bazooka. Again we struggled to find somewhere to camp, eventually we found a small farmers camping ground, so small we were the only campers, still cant complain at the cost of £3 each !
Please note that Barry didn’t bring the dog all the way with him, it belonged to the farmer. Also note the high viz pants Lorraine was wearing, just in case she got lost coming back from the loo’s ! Tuesday 17th June DAY 10 It all started so well, then the heavens opened up !
Here Lorraine is wearing the latest in fashion for our wet European climate ! We pushed on despite the rain getting heavier and waved farewell to Latvia and hello to Lithunia. The rain never gave up and we spent what seemed like hours looking for a campsite that Barry had heard off, the campsite bordered Poland, Lithunia and the little bit of Russia. Eventually we found it and the sun came out.
We then took a short trip back into town to get some much needed provisions. Namely beer booze and alcohol ! oh and something for breakfast. The shop turned out to be someone’s front room, it looked like something from the sixties. The 2 old ladies didn’t speak a word of English, but after much pointing and making gestures we finally got what we needed. When we got back to the campsite this thing turned up
It’s a German mobile bus tour (complete with a trailer full of push bikes) the rear of the bus are the bedrooms. When it pulls in, they all muck in and get the food on and the tables up (some bloke even gives out beers !!!) Wednesday 18th DAY 11 It was with a tear in my eye I waved farewell to Barry and Lorraine and headed for Poland on my own, Barry and Lorraine decided to stay on at the lake for a couple of days. So it was back to being “Billy no mates” and with ipod on I headed off for Poland. I had been warned about the state of the roads but I think you have to see it to believe it. The only bit of motorway was about 300 miles away down in the south so I was left with A class roads or we might call them B or even unnamed in the UK ! the plan was to head down towards Pozan. Once I was on the road I soon realised that I wasn’t going to make it as far as Pozan. The roads were covered in potholes and were deeply rutted by the heavy goods vehicles. Some roads had road works were they would scrape the top 6 inches off just leaving gravel and mud ! at some road works they would stop the flow of traffic for up to 20 minutes, you can imagine the length of tailbacks, luckily I could filter passed and get to the head of the queues. I had been riding for about 7 hours when I decided to call it a day and look for somewhere to stop. As I couldn’t find any campsites I decided to stop and ask a local for help. As I don’t speak any polish I had bought a book, which is full of pictures of every thing you can imagine. So I showed a picture of a tent to a young lady, she nodded her head and then gave me directions in POLISH! so that cunning plan failed time for plan B. good old tomtom, it showed me lots of hotels in the local city, so I spent 30 minutes looking at these hotels but couldn’t find anywhere to park were I could keep an eye on my bike and book into the hotel at the same time. So time for plan C, tomtom said there was a motel about 10 miles up the road. Tomtom got me there in no time, In 15 minutes I was parked right next to the motel, the only trouble was there was a 10-foot fence between the motel and me! it took me a further 15 minutes to find the right access road to the motel. By this time I was very tired and hungry and would have slept in a ditch by the side of the road.
The polish border
My refuge for the night. You cant see it from here but on closer inspection to the door I was horrified to find the door had been forced open quite a few times, so
I brought all my kit in and left it on the spare bed. Despite the motel being a bit run down, they served the best lager I’ve had in a long time and it was about a pound a pint. Thursday 19th DAY 12 Woke up after a really good sleep and thought that I would get my stove out, make a coffee, make a flask for the day and then head back into town for a MacDonald’s breakfast. While I was brewing up a German from next door came up and told me in good English that breakfast was being served and it was included with the room price. So after making my flask up I headed off to find breakfast. Here we had the same problem, they didn’t speak English and I don’t speak polish. Eventually I manage to order toast, omelette and coffee. This is brought out to me and I look at the omelette and wonder what’s in it? So I open it up to find strawberry jam in the middle ! Having said that, I did scrape the jam off and enjoy a really nice well made omelette. Breakfast over with I hit the road once more, the plan was to make my way to Pozan and then pick up the only motorway to Germany. The roads didn’t get any better until around about lunch time when I hit the motorway, which is a toll road and it cost me about £6 to do the 100 mile trip to Germany. Passing the German border gave me a second wind and I decided that I would push on towards Colditz. I arrived at Colditz just after 8 in the evening. (Once again tomtom had taken me to someone’s back garden where tomtom insisted that a camp site existed here!) I had arrived to late to catch the shops and the woman who ran the campsite very kindly supplied me with 4 bottles of beer for £2. after the 3rd bottle I couldn’t get out of my camp chair ! so I decided it was time to stumble into my sleeping bag and get some much needed sleep, for tomorrow I head to the POW Colditz.
The very beautiful and peaceful campsite just outside of Colditz. Friday 20th June DAY 13 Well this was going to be one of the highlights (So was going to Auschwitz but the roads of Poland were so bad I will have to do that another trip) of my trip, ever since I was young I've always wanted to see Colditz castle. Can you imagine how disappointed I was when I got posted to Germany in the eighties to find out the castle was in East Germany and we were not allowed to travel there. So now my dream was to come true. I decided to eat in style and go into the village for breakfast (truth is, I had run out of food !).
Breakfast in style. After breakfast I headed up to the castle, only I took a wrong turn and ended up going up a very very steep cobblestoned back lane. This indeed was a test of nerve and stamina ! Then I arrived at the castle
No I didn’t hire a helicopter, this is taken off a wall in the castle and I think it gives the best of impression of the castle because it’s huge. Once inside the castle you can walk around for free but I did the guided English speaking tour for £4, it was well worth every penny and the tour lasted for nearly 2 hours.
Just one of the very many tunnels that are still in place today.
This is a photo of me sitting in the courtyard of the POW section, this is where all the escapes were planned from. While I was sitting there thinking back to how it might of felt, a bloke came over to me with his camera in hand. He was speaking in English but with a sort of foreign twang, speaking very slowly and pointing with his hands, asking if I would take his photo. He seemed to think that I was a German, maybe its my blonde hair ! anyway said “no problem” and he jumped back and was amused to find out I was English, he was Scottish but I didn’t mind ! we sat chatting for about 1 hour, it turns out that he was touring Europe on an old BMW and because his GPS had packed in a week before the trip, he was using maps he had downloaded from google ! I spent a further couple of hours in the castle, the museum is fascinating and definitely worth seeing . I headed back to the campsite to give the bike a good once over and got some much needed laundry done. On my way back I noticed an older woman with a UK registered caravan. I got chatting to her, it turns out her and hubby were touring Europe and were taking a good few months to do it. She was busy painting watercolours and before I knew it 2 hours had passed by. She was fascinated how I could carry all my camping gear on the bike. Before I left the next morning she came over to do a photo shoot of my tent, my camping gear and me when I had the bike all loaded up ready to go. Saturday 21st June Day 14 I had got a text of Barry and Lorraine saying that they had made it to the camp site we had stayed at last year in Arnhem. So I got the map out and thought, yes its only about 420 miles, I can easily do that ( I had intended to ride about 250 miles leaving me 250 miles to the port on Sunday). So off I set. It wasn’t long before the drizzle turned to rain and I pulled over to don the waterproofs. After a few hours the rain stopped and the sun started to shine. By lunchtime I was halfway across Germany. By tea time I was still 150 miles short of Arnhem. I decided to push on and I made it to Arnhem by about 7 in the evening, to find out that reception was closed. I was lucky that I was able to get my bike round the barriers and I soon found Barry and Lorraine’s tent. I soon had my tent up and had showered to Join Barry and Lorraine for some much needed food. Holland were playing in the world cup that night so the pub was very busy, after a few beers I was shattered and ready for my bed. Sunday 22nd June Day 15 We had quite a lazy start. I think we only had 40 miles to the port and the boat wasn’t leaving till 6pm. We did however hit some traffic jams which we filtered passed. At the end of the traffic jam was a bike lying on its side while the emergency services gave first aid to a rider, it was a harsh reality to what could happen to us as we ride. My thoughts hoped that he was ok and would make a full recovery. We made it to the port with plenty of time to spare and decided to eat at one of the café’s just before you enter the port. Fish and chips have never tasted so good ! Before we knew it, we were loaded on the boat and enjoying a couple of cold beers and thinking about work ! Monday 23rd June Day 16 We got off the boat around 10 and said our goodbyes. I headed straight up to see Julie but as I arrived in her street she was dashing off to the dentists. So it was a quick hug and nearly a hour before I could tell her all about the trip. I didn’t stop talking for hours and I’m sure Julie was happy to get away and go to work ! 3000 miles had taken me thru 10 counties in 15 days. Not quite the “long way round” but to me it felt like a milestone in my life. I did have a few low moments, the rain, the wind and missing Julie but at the end of it I was left with some fabulous memories, not to mention the 300 photos I took. My look forward to 2010 is a trip around Europe following the path that the D-Day soldiers took. Its taken me nearly 5 months to write this (due to family commitments etc) and ive had time to reflect on it. Did I enjoy riding on my own ? Yes I did, I enjoyed planning the routes, making decisions on the day and loving the ability to stop for a quick 5 minute smoke or take 30 minutes to get off the bike and stretch off. There was times when I thought I wish I had rode A to B and met up with the group in the evenings there by having the best of both worlds, not to mention the good company of the club. Julie would have been much happier if I had rode in a group, incase anything happened to me or the bike. I did ring her every night ( and a few times during the day) but at the end of it all, I feel this was my ADVENTURE and I still 5 months on, think of something that brings a smile to my face. Maybe I should alternate each year, ride with the group and next year ride solo Ride Safe Will
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