London to the Arctic begins

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The time has come.  The panniers are packed.  And in usual fashion, I’m now running late.  Of course, I have to have some photos with the family before heading off and Sasha kindly takes to the camera while Mia climbs all over the bike.

Today I head off to meet Brad, my riding partner for the next couple of weeks, on my way to Harwich for the ferry to Denmark.  Meeting on the M25 before heading up to Essex should be quite simple, but at 31 degrees in London it is pretty warm to be out riding for the day.  Luckily the traffic wasn’t too bad and with the traffic flowing the temperature remains bearable and it’s not too long before we are at the Harwich International Port for our ferry checkin.

We are travelling with a Spot GPS tracker which records our location every 10 mins assuming it gets a lock onto satellites.  You can see from the map that a few points were missing so the run up to Harwich didn’t work as expected.  We have adjusted that now and should have a better signal for the remainder of the trip.

All went pretty smoothly getting on the ferry and the accommodation was pretty good also.  We have about 18 hours on the ferry for an overnight journey across the North Sea so it was time to settle into a beer on deck, dinner in the restaurant and another beer in the bar before bed.

We docked in Esberg, Denmark, at 1pm and we were on the road by 1:20pm.  Unfortunately today was going to be a bit of a boring ride.  We ride straight up to Aalborg which is about 135 miles of straight highway riding.  Trying to break up the trip we stop at a cafe that’s doesn’t serve coffee or take non-Danish credit cards, and finally find somewhere to eat at the equivalent of an Aldi supermarket.  Great hotdog though.

Tonight we stay in Aalborg and tomorrow morning go for a quick scoot up the road for the ferry crossing to Norway.  Hopefully by the end of the day tomorrow we are leaving civilisation behind and getting into some of the more interesting roads, I am told, Norway has to offer.

For now, here are a few photos of me setting off from home and aboard the ferry to Denmark.

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