Swiftly on to Sweden…

I was up at 5.00am, just four hours after I went down…!! The next two hours were taken up with fetching the bike from Michel’s garage, loading all the kit onto it, and tidying up the apartment… I rolled out of Oudezijds Voorburgwal at 7.00am, and spent the next twelve hours Hightailing it out of Holland, Galloping through Germany, Dashing through Denmark, before Swooping into Sweden… I covered 1 140 km in those twelve hours, refueling three times along the way, and stopping on four other occasions for a short break… Yeah….we “smoked it” today, Dudes…!!

I have received a few emails asking about the current route plan, and in order to appease the curious, here it is…

Here's the Plan...!! London to Helsinki... 5 680 km only...!!

Riding conditions were near perfect….not a drop of rain, cold for the first few hours and then warm and sunny all the way to Gyllebo in Southern Sweden for the remainder of the ride…

Early morning out on the Amsterdam Motorway, heading for the Zuiderzee Enclosure Dam...

Considering how often I had got lost and disorientated while walking the streets of Amsterdam, getting out of it on the bike proved to be a breeze… Within minutes of leaving the apartment, I was on the motorway heading north for Hoorn, and then out onto the 35 km long dyke that separates the North Sea from the huge man-made Ijsellmeer…

Awesome...!!! Looking back to the west, the North Sea on the right and the Ijsselmeer on the left...

A double-carriage freeway runs along the top of the dyke, straight as a ruler from Den Oewer on the one side to Comwerd on the other… With hardly any traffic on it, we thundered across from one side of Holland to the other, stopping halfway to take in the Memorial to the workers who completed the original dyke in 1932… Since then, it has been widened and strengthened considerably, but kudos to those who toiled away for years to hold back the North Sea and enable the Netherlands to expand in the manner it has…

Most of Amsterdam lies beneath sea level, and at one spot in the centre of the capital, The Hague, the street level is almost 60 metres below sea level…!! You would need to be on the 20^th floor of a building to keep your feet from getting wet in the event of a little mishap out on the dyke…!! I do not think I would sleep well living in The Hague… Especially if I knew Sipho and Philemon were at the controls of the sluice gates… I can just picture the scene:

Philemon: “I am wondering what dis button does…?”

Sipho: “Eish… I don’t rightly know…! I just got my forged work permit last week and started here yesterday…! I told them I worked on building Baas Karel’s farm dam and they gave me this job…”

Philemon: “I’ll just push de button once to see…”

Monument to the men who built the Zuiderzee Enclosure Dam...

A loud rumble comes up from below them as seven massive sluice gates lift to let the North Sea take a peek into Holland…

Sipho: “What is happening now Philemon…? Better you push de button again to stop dis noise… My ears are hurting too much…!”

Philemon: “Eish… I can’t do it…! The titanium button just broke off when I pushed it de first time…”

Sipho: “Eh….this titanium must be very soft…!”

Meanwhile, with every passing second, ten million litres of North Sea are pouring through the open sluices beneath their feet… The tide in England goes out….and stays out….!! Within hours, four million Asian immigrants begin building houses in the place once known as Europe’s busiest shipping lane…

Philemon: “Hau…! Sipho…! Why is that big boat going backwards…?”

Sipho: “I tink it must be all dis water dat is pushing it…!!”

Philemon: “I am tinking we have made a blunder…! Dat big town wid all the water streets is in the way of dis water…!”

Sipho: “Maybe we must warn de peoples in dat town…!”

Philemon: “Eh…better not…! Dey will start to ask us too many questions…! Besides, dey’s going to find out soon enough anyway…! I tink I will go to Germany now…and if you know what is good for you Sipho, you will follow in my shoes…!”

Sipho and Philemon change into running gear, and disguised as Kenyan athletes, exit Dyke left…

Europe is changed forever… Amongst other things, the price of Tulips reaches unprecedented highs…

But I digress…

The first windmill I saw was this one close to Groningen...

Firewood comes in all shapes and sizes...!!

Strange place names abound out here… I passed Sneek, (named after two South Africans who once worked on the Dyke…) and then another place called Leek, (where the same two South Africans stopped to relieve themselves on their way to Germany…) before I pulled the Big Fella into a place called Dikke Linde, to refuel…

I kid you not…!! Check out the photo if you doubt that a place with this name actually exists…!!

I spent a few minutes chatting to guy on an old BMW who was on his way to work, and looked wistfully into the distance when I told him I was on my way to Nordkapp…

“I was there a few years ago, during the month of July,” he said… “It rained all the way up, and all the way down, but it was still very beautiful… I would do it again, but work is taking up too much of my time…!!”

I vaguely remembered the concept of “work”, having left it behind me more than ten months ago, but sympathized with him anyway…!!

“Yes, “work” can be a terrible thing…!” I replied with a straight face…

Big Fella sits in the early morning sunlight at Dikke Linde...

We burst out laughing simultaneously, and shaking his head, he rode back onto the motorway, while I chewed on a banana and thought of Top-pine and Florentine, and Guy and Robert, wondering how things were going down there… After three full seconds of that, I hopped back on the bike and pressed the starter button, eager to tackle the long road ahead of us…

Back on the road, we skirted the large town of Groningen before crossing the border into Germany at Zuideinde. The A7 had wound its way through flat farmlands all the way across northern Holland, and there was very little change to the scenery on the German side of the border… Huge fields of maize and wheat, combine harvesters and tractors, pretty homesteads and small villages…

Just south of Bunde, I turned onto the A31, and began encountering a lot more traffic… We crossed the Ems River and a short while later the A31 became the A28, taking us ever west to the city of Oldenburg, and then on to the A1, south of the massive industrial city of Bremen with its huge harbour to the north of it… Underneath me, the Big Fella hummed happily to himself, gliding over the smooth road surface at a healthy 140 km/h… The ride became a procession of signposts, and at Rosengarten we turned north and headed towards Hamburg…

Tearing through Northern Germany...

The tunnel under the Elb River west of Hamburg...

Always good for some schoolboy humour...!!

The A7 took us up along the western edge of the city, crossing the Elbe River, or rather diving under it through a three kilometre long tunnel…

I have been continually amazed at some of the constructions I have come across during my ride through Europe, and this tunnel was as impressive as any I had ridden through before… While we thundered under the river, I thought about the millions of tons of rock, soil and water that were suspended above me… (and hoped that Sipho and Philemon had not got work using a mechanical digger in the vicinity…)

Just north of Hamburg, the Big Fella’s Fuel Management System began whining for some liquid refreshment, and being a little thirsty myself, I grudgingly pulled over into the large filling station complex of Holmmoor Ost, spoilt him with 20 litres of Germany’s finest, and then sat myself down under the shade of an umbrella covered picnic table, and enjoyed a light lunch…

Two Snickers Bars and a Coke, if you must know…!!

Nearing country No 34 on the GBWT...

We then set our sights for Flensburg and the Danish border, zipping over the Nord-Ostsee Canal, that runs from north of Kiel, all the way across to the Elbe River to the east of Hamburg. An hour later we were crossing into our third country for the day, reminding ourselves as we did so, that we still had a long way to go before we reached our destination…

That bloody Knud...!! Far too rough for the other children...!! And as for Borg...!!

The motorway ran due north, past places with names that had me shaking my head in wonder… Aabenraa, Arslev, Bramdrup, and Hjerndrup (lot of “drups” in this part of the world…!) and then swung east towards Odense on the first big island of Funen, which forms part of the chain of islands that stretch from the mainland of Denmark in Jutland, to that of Sweden…

The bridge south of Fredericia lay high above the picturesque town with the unfortunate name of Middelfart… It looked like the sort of place you would want to take a long walk in… It lay nestled in the arms of a wide bay, houses built up the slope to join the road connected to the bridge we were crossing…

I eased off on the throttle and glided across the last few hundred metres, smiling to myself at the beauty of it all…

The Great Belt Bridge looms up on the horizon...

Took this photo seconds before I fought the wind-induced mother of all wobbles... Got the Big Fella straightened up on the white line close to the solid looking barrier on the left...!!

We were now on the E20 motorway, which, if my navigational department made no mistakes, would take me all the way across Denmark and into Sweden… At a healthy clip, we ran south of Odense, and on to Nyborg on the east coast of the first big island of Funen (or Fyn as it is known locally)…

We rode out onto the Storebaelt Bridge, also known as the Great Belt Fixed Link, the first of two massive sea bridges that link the two main Islands of Denmark, and later, Copenhagen, on Zealand Island, to Malmo in Sweden…

It is difficult to describe the scale of these bridges, and impossible to capture their grandeur in a photograph… They are just too big and too long to give you even the remotest idea of their size…

I was snapping away merrily with my camera, riding one-handed across the Storebaelt Bridge, when a huge gust of wind sent us hurtling across both lanes of the motorway, towards the steel barrier that splits the traffic heading east, to that heading west…

Being this high up off the water, I should have expected that there would be a stiff breeze blowing, but the magnificence of the structure I was riding on had shifted my focus from the road, and this lapse in concentration nearly had me sampling the expertise of a Danish hospital…or worse…!!

It was a very close call… I dropped the camera back into the open zipper of the tank-bag, and in one smooth motion grabbed the left hand grip, while giving the throttle a healthy squirt to bring the power back onto the rear tyre… The sudden gust of wind had caused me to have a temporary “brain freeze”, and I had instinctively eased off on the power… Not a good thing…!! In split seconds like these, speed can be your best friend…!!

With both tyres on the painted line next to the barrier, the Big Fella straightened up out of his wobble and I managed to bring him back into the centre of the left hand lane… With a racing heart threatening to leap out of my chest, I felt the surge of adrenaline that immediately after, leaves your back and chest tingling and cold… Needless to say, I left the camera alone until we rolled off the 7 km long bridge and stopped at the first Toll Gate…

Bruzzers doing Bizzness keep left, Short of cash, follow the blue lane...and if you want to meet that Spanish immigrant, then keep right... I had it all sussed...!!

Naturally, I did not have a single Danish Krone on me, and to make matters worse, my brain still addled from the near disaster out on the bridge, I ended up in the wrong lane, where only cards are accepted… With traffic backing up behind me, I frantically called to the guy operating the Toll Booth next to me…

“Gypsy Biker to Houston….!! We have a problem…!!” I shouted…

“Babble, babble, gobbledegook, babble, babble,” the attendant replied…

“Yeah right…!! Whatever you say, but you better shut down this lane while I “Babble, babble and gobbledegook”, otherwise the cars behind me will be backing up all the way onto the bridge…!!” I shouted back in frustration…

The red light came on, closing the lane, and another attendant came running over to see what was causing the commotion… Six cars had to reverse to find another lane, while I fiddled about trying to get my wallet out of my jacket pocket… I was holding my debit card while trying to read the instructions on the machine next to me, when it was snatched from my hand by the attendant, inserted into a slot, a button was pushed, my card removed a second or two later, and thrust back into my hand…

“You can go…!!” he said abruptly…

“Do I have to…? I was just beginning to enjoy myself…!!”

“No, no… You are blocking the road…!!”

“How much did I pay ? I asked…

“115 Danish Krone…!!”

“That’s almost R160.00…!! A bit steep for a little old bridge, don’t you think…?”

He looked back towards the bridge, then back at me, and then back towards the bridge again, a frown creasing his forehead… A little nervous twitch seemed to be affecting the corners of his mouth… He began shaking his head from side to side… No sense of humour at all…!! Seeing that there were now no cars behind me, I took my time getting my card back into my wallet, and my wallet back into my jacket, all the while watching the attendant’s face getting redder and redder…!!

“Excuse me, old boy…!! Where is the nearest petrol station…?” I asked innocently…

His lips moved but no sound came out of his mouth… He blinked few times, and then with a trembling hand, pointed down the motorway and said,

“Five hundred metres….!! Now please go…!!”

With a wave and a huge grin splitting my face, I dropped the clutch and roared away, no doubt to the intense relief of my new-found friend…

Entrance to the tunnel that would take us onto the Oresund Bridge, and into Sweden...

Zooming through the Oresund Tunnel...!! Yeah...made me dizzy too...!!

We continued east toward Copenhagen, across the island of Sjaelland as it is known here, the E20 taking us south of the capital and through a tunnel under the island where Kastrup Airport is located… At least I think it was under the airport… One minute there were signs for the airport turnoff, and the next I was in a tunnel, which after a longish ride, brought us back out onto the second huge bridge which crossed over to Sweden… I was on the Oresund Bridge… I had left Denmark behind me… Just like that…!!

Out on the Oresund Bridge... Check out the size of the truck and then you might get an idea of the size of this structure...!!

Remembering my little tussle with the wind on the first big bridge, I put my camera away well before I reached the highest point on the bridge… I’m a quick learner, you see…!! A howling wind awaited me at the first set of concrete towers, but I was ready for it and made it across to the other side of this 8 km long section of amazing construction, without incident… I also slowed down enough to ensure that I got into the correct lane at the Toll Gate…

And yes…, not a Swedish Krone on my person… Luckily they accepted Euro, and the elderly lady behind the glass window sweetly asked where I was from, while calculating the worst possible exchange rate to give me change with…

“How much is the Toll..?” I asked her…

“Just 205 Swedish Krone…!” she replied with a smile…

“That’s R205.00…! Do I get a Coke and Cheeseburger with that” I almost shouted…. “Give me my money back, I’m going back to Denmark to take the Ferry…!!”

She screeched with laughter while handing me my change, nearing falling off her chair in the process…!! Silly woman thought I was joking…!!

“If you go back, you will have to pay on the other side anyway…!!” she said, still chortling…

“Ok, then, I’ll accept it just this once…!! But Sweden better be worth all this money…!!” I retorted, which got her bursting into laughter again, and wiping a tear from the corner of her eye…

I could not keep a straight face any longer and joined her in a healthy burst of laughter myself…

“Go now, you funny man, people are waiting behind you…!!”

And so they were…!!

Into Sweden...and not a nurse in sight...!! We were bitterly disappointed...!!

Just a short distance after my entry into Sweden, we logged up 1000 km for the day… It seemed to have passed by in a flash… I patted the Big Fella’s tank, telling him it was not too much further to Borge’s holiday home on the coast, and with that, we surged down the E20 to a point south east of Malmo before turning off onto the E65 and heading for Ystad…

Ton up !! For the third time on the GBWT we crack the 1000 km mark in a single day's ride...!!

Just in case you think I am not where I say I am...!!

The town of Simrishamn on the A11, was close to where we would be spending the next few days...

"Did you know...?" That Thumbelina had a brother who lives in Sweden...?

The road then took me through towns and villages with the weirdest names and spelling that I had ever seen, and also through some of the most breathtaking countryside I had ever seen as well… The roads seemed built for biking, and I passed dozens of guys on their Harleys, mostly in small groups of twos and threes, apparently out for an afternoon run…

They chugged around at speeds of no more than 60 or 70 km/h… I noticed that the vast majority of them were “Greybeards”, and was later told by Borge’s brother Jens, that many Swedish men on reaching their 50^th birthday, hankered after a Harley “to remind themselves of their lost youth…”…!!

Whatever rows your boat, Dudes, but get something quieter in keeping with the peace and harmony of this amazing countryside…!!

I stopped in a thickly forested area, to drink in the beautiful scenery and marvel at my surroundings… The sun shone warmly on my back, large grey-brown pigeons with bright yellow beaks and white bibs around their necks, darted overhead and landed in the branches of Fir Trees above my head… The world was a wonderful place to be in at that moment… I thought I felt my soul expanding… It was that special a moment…

Get on yer bikes...!! These roads were made for us...!!

With plenty of light left, I deliberately turned in the opposite direction to that indicated by Gi-Gi, forcing her to take me on a longer route to where we were heading, wanting to prolong the ride, despite having been in the saddle for almost 12 hours already…

We swooped through the narrow, winding roads of Southern Sweden, exhilarating in our freedom, the Big Fella leaning effortlessly and smoothly into the corners, slowing down as we cruised through tiny villages with the longest of names, accelerating again as we tore back into the open country beyond them… Just plain loving it…!!

Traffic was light and I could have gone on for hours in these conditions… We were shaken out of “fun” mode by a combine harvester on a sharp bend… The huge machine took up most of the road and left just enough space for us to get past, its big tyres seemingly brushing my left pannier… The startled farmer swerved off the road long after he had passed us, probably wondering what the hell he had just seen…

“Ok…enough of this..!! Let’s find Gyllebo Lake before somebody gets hurt…!!” I told the Big Fella… “You know the old saying, “After laughter, comes tears…”!!”

Do you think the wild pigs know that they only have a 200 metre stretch to croos over in...??

At 7.15pm, we found ourselves cruising slowly down a narrow country lane, lined with Oak tress whose branches met overhead… The tunnel of greenery led to a nondescript turnoff down a narrow dirt road, past a quaint little house nestled among trees and shrubs, and just as I was enjoying the view, Gi-Gi disturbed the peace and quiet, by announcing in voice too loud for my liking,

“Arriving at Borge Sweden on the left…”

I parked on the thickly graveled area in front of a wooden house, painted dark red in the style of many of the country houses and barns that I had ridden past in the last hour… The key to the front door was exactly where I was told I would find it, and minutes later I was inside the place I would call home for the next few days…

I had hardly had time to carry my gear inside, when a car pulled up outside and Borge’s brother Jens arrived to introduce himself, showing me around the house, and explaining where everything was, including Borge’s remaining stock of Danish Beer, which was quickly transferred from the pantry area, to the large fridge in the kitchen…

Jens had built the house himself, and just recently, the entire Leth clan, almost 30 of them, had spent a week here together, enjoying a family reunion of sorts… Out in the garden, Borge had ordered a pub to be built (surprise, surprise…!!) and in another building just off the main house was a large room that contained a sauna and entertainment area… This looked a “party palace” to me… I imagined that many a happy moment had been spent here…

After 1 140 km, we arrive at Borge's hideaway in Southern Sweden...

The sliding doors from the open-plan living area of the main house, opened out onto a large wooden deck, which overlooked the back garden, and out into the thick bush which surrounds the premises on three sides…

I could not think of a more perfect setting to put my feet up in… The silence and solitude was just what I needed to think about the past few weeks in Europe, and plan for the run to Nordkapp in the Arctic Circle, and the Top of the World…

©GBWT 2010