Gs fr&se

GS Scotland day 11 Moffat to Carlisle via Tibetan tea rooms

Ugg

GS Scotland day 10 Moffat coffee and frigin around

GS Scotland day 9 Moffat loop and chain trouble

GS Scotland day 8 Dumfries - Moffat

GS Scotland day 7 Grassmere - Dumfries & Tyre trouble

GS Scotland day 5 Grassmere - Yorkshire dales - Grassmere

It’s a panniers off day today. After a relaxed full English breakfast in the sunny garden it was off on a lakes district and Yorkshire dales mega loop.

Tour of Scotland day 3 Newcastle to Grasmere

The usual multiple anouncements on the ferry making it impossible to sleep in. Now to see if the bike has enough petrol to get to the first petrol station. I’m in luck and were off the ferry. Now what the fuck is this boarder control rubbish? I mean what is the point of all this Brexit rubish when we had to wait in line (burning fuel) to get passports checked and customs checked. With the closets paetrol sation punched in the GOS we were off into the dodgiest part of Newcastle. God this place can be depressing.
Found it, and what a Servo it is. It even had an outdoor laundromat facility for those who happend to trudge through this former industrial area with a swag of washing over their shoulder.

Servo pie, washing, glassing, fuel what more do you need

We headed straight sth heading for the lakes district and on leaving we crossed the river and saw the rather inticing heart of Newcastle. Must check it out properly.

On to grassmere via

GS Scotland day 2 Sieversen to Amsterdam and ferry to Newcastle

Another motorway dash today. Servos, coffee, burgers and a sore bum later and we were at the ferry by 4:30 and on board by 5. The usual self strapping down of the bikes phaff took a while but we were soon settling into our cabin and to the poop deck for some well earned rumbos in the sun.
 Tomorrow UK

GS Scotland day 1 Kolding to Sieversen

Left Kolding around 10 and head off to Toftlund mc garage to get our chains tightened. Then onward via motorways and autobahns (yawn) to a little pub in a small town south of Hambourg for the night.

Day 1 Kolding to Hartz mountains

Alpener tur

And so it begins, dear reader. My first motorcycle you're of the European alps. We'Ve left it a little late but this was the only time we could get 3 weeks leave. The BMWs are packed and we are heading south towards Munich tomorrow.

The rough plan is r presented in the following pic. Ite a clockwise pass grabbing frenzy covering as many countries and famous motorcycling roads as possible.

GS ScandoBaltic Tour 2016 Round Up

Distance - 4,170km(MC), 775km(Ferry)

Duration - 20 days, 

Riding days - 18

Rainy days - 95%

Average speed Norway - 53km/h

Average speed remainder - 86km/h

Ferries - Lost count, may be 10

Memories - Shitloads

Nights Camping - 1 (see rain)

Best Bits

• Hardanggervida
• Geiranger Approach
• Trollstein
• Dash across Sweeden and Umeå
• Helsinki and Suomenlinna
• KGB Museum Tallin
• Riga
• Vilnius

Not so great Bits

• Speed limits in Norway
• Rain

The Route and Stops

GS.dk Day 20 Broen "The Bridge" and Kolding (416km) via the Danish pipeshop

Ever whatched the Scandi drama the bridge? Its namesake and beginning scene is the 8km long Bridge from Mamo Sweden to Near Copenhagen Denmark. I loved this series and have been wanting to see and cross this engineering marvel for a while.  So bugger it, we did.

Broen (The Bridge)  was completed in Aug 1999. The project consisted on constructing and Island a tunnel and the bridge containing a cable-stayed main span of 490m, which is the longest cable-stayed span in the world carrying both road and rail traffic. It costs 48euro ($71AUD) for a car and 26euro ($38 AUD) for a motorcycle. So whilst it was fun its not the cheapest thrill one can have. I understand that if you commute for work you can apply for a %75 discount.

Stock Photo

The project built the bridge, an island and a tunnel

Said Bridge, Island and tunnel

GS.se Day 19 Klaipedia and on to Sweden (308km

Fairwell Vilnius. We rode the 4.5 hours to our departure port Klaipedia. Luckily this is realy close to the National  park we wanted to see so we took a 50k round trip detoured. Another UNESCO site this lon thin strip of land is split down the center one half Russian and Lithuainian. The Russians apparently negotiated a small bit of land between Lithuainia and Poland so as to maintain another Baltic port. At 21:00 we were bound for Karlsham in Sweden.

GS.li Day 18 Lithuainia and Vilnius (292km)

A slow ride to Vilnius. One lane 90kph highway with heaps of trucks and the odd tractor delivering grain or hay at snails pace. No stops bare benzine. Approaching Vilnius the road became a freeway two lanes divided and 130kph so the last 80ks was fast. That is until the traffic jam entering the city. It seems that there is so much infrastructure work in the Baltic capitals that the locals have been enduring crap traffic for years.

We checked I to Artis hotel in the old town and headed out for a curry. Why all the currys I hear you ask. Well two reasons. One Baltic food is pretty much the same across country's and heavy on potatoes (which I try to limit). Second there is not a decent curry place in Kolding and we have yet to find one elsewhere in Denmark.

After a brilliant curry we walked the streets of the old town. All thre states have UNESCO old towns but this is by far the biggest and most used as a normal part of the city rather than just a theme park. It is a very open feel with wider streets, parks and plazas. But there are little streets alcoves every where two riddle with bars and  restraunts all lively and frequented by locals. We headed up the Gediminas tower, a ruined fort on a hill in town, to get a view of the town. Sorry no pictures. As it started pissing down the minute we arrived at the top. It proceeded to piss down the whole walk home so we were drenched and rash for a shower and bed.

I must apologise for the lack of photos in general I will up old some she I get home. It's just that this old iPad has great difficulty white anything at the moment and loading photos via wifi from the camera just about kills it. You may like to revisit once I've processed and added them. Also taking good photos when your not alone and rushed and at the mercy of the weather leaves you only with holiday snaps.

GS.lv Day 17 Latvia and Riga (300km)

We left Tallin for a very windy ride to Latvia. We are running out of time due to a customer services debacle perpetrated by DFDS ferry company in booking our return to Sweden.

<Rant on>Basically this company's web site will not allow a two motorcycle booking for two and cabin. So after a chat session we were advised to ring the call centre and book. The agent could not see our rout onto system so promised to book the passage and call us back. He never called back and we made several calls to remedy only to find that there was now no space available for motorcycles. Asking for escalation recovering apologies etc etc but no head way untill centre manger Amy was engaged and she went to work freeing cargo space. Three hours later we received the original booking confirmation from Aron (the first Agent) for a passage in the wrong direction FFS. Amy was extremely helpful getting all but one motorcycle book and tried everything but in the end she couldn't make it happen. This really pisses me off they stuffed our beooking so rather than having a hard conversation with the person that booked after us the take the easy route and shaft us. 

Aron and team leader I hope your CSAT and NPS and variable component plummet 

Amy and Rebecca thank you

<Rant off>

Amy did have a booking reserved early in case so that's what we are doing cutting a few days off the trip. Unfortunately this means less time in The UNESCO sites of Vilnius and the national park.

Back to the ride. We took the direct main road to Riga. We had read that the EU has funded this road so those horror stories of dirt won't be an issue. The road was only two lanes but we'll serviced and no one gave a shit about speeding. I must say that the books read that Lativia is a poor cousin of our experience was the road in Latvia was just that little bit better with wide shoulders good surface and good markings. On markings. These appear purely open to interpretation in Latvia as we learnt to lane split one lane each way and shoulder as if it were a four lane hwy. everyone was well behaved and the trip was thrilling and fast.

We arrived in Riga about 5pm and checked in the Tallink Hotel. Brilliant cheap hotel with super Se use parking in the basement. In fact the vehicles have to go down on an elevator accompanied by a hotel employee.

Riga is very calming compared to Tallin. Less people, less ye olde theme park and very beautiful. It's not as defined a walled city as Tallin and architecture not as old but still it's relaxing. At least it would have been if the restraunt experience had not been so frustrating. Faults on both sides due to language, miscommunication by us due to fatigue (did I mention the wind, you know the type on minute your fine the next minute the front wheel lurches a foot aides way). The steak was beautiful and the cheapest I've had since Australia, but it was one of those travel fatigue moments for Gerty and I so we were fighting to remain civil to others and each other.

GS.ee Day16 Tallinn

Today wa spent exploring the old own in Tallin. The highlights were the maritime museum situated in "Big Margret" the fortified tower guarding the main port gates of the city and the KGB meuseum.

The KGB meuseum is situated on the top floor of a hotel. This hotel was the first hotel for foreigners and the first high rise in Estonia. The USSR had decided that they needed money from outside so commissioned the building of a luxury hotel for foreigners. Unfortunately the first attemp was a failure as the soviet culture had bread a lazy, couldn't give a shit work ethic and no builder had experience in anything higher than a few stories. So the government commissioned a Finnish person to run the hotel and they imported finish workers to build it. The hotel was a place many wel to do visitors stayed. It was totally self contained with doctors mechanics chemists shops etc etc so the visitor did not have to leave the building and see the real soviet Tallin. Of course the hotel was visited by influential people fro the west so the hotel had an extra floor housing a two room KGB office that bugged 60 of the 300 rooms and monitored all staff to prevent defection and or marriage to foreigners. The me suit is small but the story is brought to life by the tour guide, Ana. She had lived through the era and had a health sarcastic sense of humor about the whole thing. This is so worth a visit, spy cameras, microphones in saucers, exploding dye purses to capture staff seeking hard currency, panoramic views of the city blocked to avoid guest seeing soviet infrastructure etc etc etc. Brilliant.

GS.ee Day 15. Helsinki to Tallinn 0 km ( on a bike that is)

Today was spent wanfdering around Helsinki. The design district, the waterfront followed by boarding our ferry to Estonia (hence the .ee).

Helsinki turned on a beautiful sun filled day. In fact so fine that the design meuseum was bypassed after entering and almost passing out due to the heat. We visited the natural history museum (brilliant taxidermy and old school displays) wandered along the foreshore and reclined in designer chairs sipping coffees. 

We tried again to find the fabled hipster Kallio district, but again we were disappointed, apart from a few topknots there was no vibe.

 Boarded the ferry to Tallinn around 6pm choosing the overnight option which. Means you get a cabin and sleep untill 7 am before disembarking. The trick being that th trip is 2 hours but you sleep in port for about a third of the price of a hotel in Tallinn. Go figure.

GS.fi Day 14 Helsinki 0km

Helsinki, is weird. It looks like a old eastern block city but it's clothes are deceiving. It's pretty great. We started with a Sleep in then a coffee before catching a ferry to Suonemelina, the UNESCO listed island fort installation guarding the harbour. The few hours we spent there did not do it justice there is so much history and so much to see. 

Reindeer pizza, 

Booked another night