Week before The Overland Event

We arrived at the ferry port the time we were told to be there and were first in line. That’s OK. Get something to drink and pull out the ukulele to entertain the masses.

This was an overnight ferry that seemed more like a cruise ship. It was a beautiful ship and very nice. We pulled on board at the designated time and secured the bike to the deck, along with about 50 other bikers. Finding the stairs to the upper decks we found our room, stowed our gear and headed to the open decks on top. We had a couple drinks and sat with a couple other riders about their upcoming journeys. While on board this Danish vessel I went to the ATM to get some new currency, not knowing it was going to give me Norwegian Krones. If anyone is traveling to Norway next year, I’ll trade you for Pounds, Euros or Dollars.

We arrived at the port in Hitshals, Denmark in the morning. The skies were threatening with the promise of a couple days of bad weather. The hightailed it east, away from the storm front to a small, isolated AirBnB near the coast. This was a nice one room hut in a farmer’s back yard, about 100 meters from the house. We had heat, nice full-sized bed, and a small kitchen with refrigerator. Perfect! We quickly unloaded and ran into town to get some groceries for the next couple of days. We almost made it, catching the rain just before we got back to our hut.

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After relaxing and catching up on electronic communication (FREE, good Wi-Fi), we headed to a small-town south of Copenhagen to see a friend and do some motorcycle maintenance on the bike. He was a US citizen back at the Hobbit house that he had grown up in. He was taking care of his elderly mother and had invited us to stay for a while. While I can’t disclose who he was, we had a fantastic time with them, made some lifelong friends and can’t wait to see them again. We toured Copenhagen with them and were fascinated at the number of bicycles we saw. They were parked everywhere. On boats in the canals, on streets and in multi-story bicycle parking garages. The rush hour traffic consisted of bicycles with men in suits, women in dresses and everything else you could imagine.

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After a few days of having fun with the best host and hostess ever, it was time to move on. It was threatening rain again, so we put on our yellow rain suits. It had the desired effect, it never rained. Our destination was a campground on the levee in Germany, just north of the border of the Netherlands. We stopped in Hamburg to visit Miniatur Wunderland, an enormous model railway system based on famous global sights. Each of the different section highlighted an area with light town and cities, moving vehicles on roads and, of course, trains. It just defied description. We followed that with a Big Red Bus tour of the city and then left for the coast.

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Staying on small roads as close to the coast as possible, we made slow progress but had a wonderful ride. The campground was across the road from the levee that towered maybe 100 feet about the campground. It was a beautiful setting with good wind block and green grass all around us. There was a small restaurant at the campground, and I had to try the Seafood Pizza. It had shrimp, mussels, calamari, and fish on a dough pizza with a red sauce. Fantastic! The next day we rode toward Amsterdam.

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We would be here for a couple of nights. The following morning, we would catch the train into downtown Amsterdam and look around. Again, the public transportation was easy and inexpensive. We decided to do the on/off bus tour, which also included a boat tour of the canals. We enjoy these as we also get a narration of what we are seeing. Stopping in the downtown area we had to visit the Original Dampkring Coffeeshop of Amsterdam. It has a most captivating menu of smokables and edibles. We followed that with a visit to Vleminckx Sausmeesters, serving homemade fries since 1887. The original munchies joint, I would think. Of course, no visit to Amsterdam is complete without a beer at Delirium Café.

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The next morning, we packed up camp and headed south to the beach. Our ferry for the UK would not be leaving for a few hours so we had some time to waste. There wasn’t much to see, or so we thought. Stopping at a seafood kiosk to look at the water, the owner of the business came out to say hello. We ended up talking for a while and he invited us to eat some seafood, desert and a coffee. While talking he told us of a motorcycle track just on the other side of the berm, which we couldn’t see from the road. We rode around the corner and right up to the track to watch some open track day for people in the area.

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Off to the UK, and The Overland Event.

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Cheers,

2WANDRRs