After seven days on the bike I hit some serious mountains. Click on the link to see the route so far

Day 39 in Deuchland

It is 39 days since I started the trip and 34 of which have been cycling days and so far I have done 1626.12 miles. I am taking a day off in the town of Itezhoe - a town of 27,000 people just north of the river Elbe and north west of Hamburg. My cycling companion, Jürgen, has a friend, called, Stefan here and we are staying at his place.
Since leaving Gothenburg on 12 June, I have travelled south to Varberg. There I left Sweden on a ferry and arrived at Grenna in Denmark.

I headed for the northernmost point on Denmark at Skagen, travelling along the great cycle paths provided in Denmark, through some lush countryside and beautiful coastal areas. At Skagen the Baltic and the North Sea meet. It was the home to the celebrated painter PS Kroyer and it was here that  I met up with Jürgen again. I had travelled with him for 4 days in Norway. Another German guy told us about the shelters provided for people travelling in nature in Denmark. We took a copy of his map and headed south. We used three shelters and also camped wild a couple of times as well as using camp sites. At one of the wild camps in a forest, I woke up to find that one of my food panniers had gone missing in the night. It was on the outside of the tent but less than a foot from my head. An animal had taken what was a heavy bag away into the bush and had got the food out. We tracked the bag down, luckily there wasn´t any damage done!  Again, the cycle routes were great. There are no big cities along the west coast until you get to Esjberg, so we were mostly on car free cycle routes. After two weeks travelling in Denmark we crossed the border into Germany. From the southern part of Denmark onwards into Germany, the scenery changed completley. We have been following dykes all along the coast. The scenery is open and spectacular. There are many islands along this coast from Romo onwards. Alot of the land had been claimed from the sea by the building of dykes. We have been cycling by the Wadden Sea and the Hallig islands for the last few days, getting ever closer to the Elbe.
Yesterday I got my second really thorough soaking. After the initial heat wave in Norway, the weather has been mostly cold, with some strong winds and of course plenty of rain on occassions. I am dried out again now, ready for the next phase of the journey tomorrow

In the mountains

At the top of the mountain pass near Anna-Sira

North Sea Cycle Route - the story so far

Hello bloggers. Here's the latest on my trip around the North sea cycle route. I reached Gotenberg yesterday in the worst rain of the trip so far. It was a relief not to put my tent up in it. I am staying with a friend until Tuesday to see the city and recover a bit from the journey.

My intention to post copies of my journal still holds good, but I have not been able to do so since leaving Stavanger, because I camped every night. It was more often wild camping rather that in a camp site and I had no wi-fi available in either place... so no ability to blog. This is likely to be the situation when I leave Gotenberg, but I will update when I can.

I have cycled 870.19 miles so far. The first part of the trip from Bergen to Fredrickstad were hilly, around Ergunsund where I did a mountain pass followed more  mountains.  The scenery in Norway on the C1 cycle route is truly superb. It takes you through out of the way places and along fjords and through forests. Some of it is on tracks. I have been off route alot of time but only truly lost once. If it hadn't been for two runners turning up  in the middle of the woods I would still be there now. Without exception, people have been helpful and friendly and always wished me a 'Good Trip' Crossing over the bridge at Idefjorden into Sweden was  a real milestone. I have travelled through the beautiful west coast islands on route to Gothenburg and I'm enjoying the city and few days off. Keep in touch with then blog and I will post the journal enteries, photos and paintings.

Ray

Got some wi-fi

I'm using the bike on the right  Stand on your head and you will see what mean

Day1: 18 May 2012

Okay its not rocket science, but here is the day of my journal of the trip

C1 cycle route. This is the sign I will be looking for during my trip through Norway

Cycling Mindset

Really getting myself into a mindset to cycle 6000kms around the North Sea Cycle Route, helped by reading Scott Wallace's blog He has completed a quarter of his trans America route from east to west - he has been meeting some good & generous people      I have been getting my gear together Today I bought a nice sleeping mat & a trangia for cooking  The key is to keep things light so I have been buying stuff with that in mind My tent has already seen service in Shetland & weighs in at 3.6lbs & the rest of the gear is pretty light too I want to try it out before I go... If it ever stops raining Had a run out on my bike the other night to see what it feels like with front panniers - pleased with feel of the  bike although the butterfly handle bars make going around corners at speed a bit tricky
Might kip on the new mat in the back bedroom tonight to see how it feels

Telford College

A white A4 sized envelope hit the mat at my front door the other day. When I picked it up, I saw the words Telford College written on the outside. I was surprised at my reaction. I went into avoidance mode. I couldn't open it because inside was the result of my application and interview to study for the Foundation Diploma in Art and Design. I haven't felt so nervous since I was an eighteen year old waiting for the outcome of job interviews. In the end I tore the envelope open and took a tiny peep at the first line of the letter. I saw the word 'pleased' and let out a very big 'YIPPEE.' I'm not kidding... I wasn't able to read the letter properly until the afternoon. When I did, I found out that I have got a student username and password - so that must make me an official student. The course starts on 20 August at the sparkling new campus in Granton. This is such an amazing development in my life that I can hardly believe it.
 The course is in three parts.  To start off we get to try out all sorts of different media. This will be stuff I have never done before, such as sculpting, printing and getting into digital 3d animation, plus a whole lot more. The next section of the course is about focussing on the area of art I want to develop and learning the skills necessary. The final third is producing a piece of art which is judged as part of the ongoing assessment of the course. There are various assignments that have to be completed  in order to progress on the course. I am also expecting that we will be looking at our attitudes to art and unblocking preconceptions about what it is all about.
So that leaves a couple of months to go on a long cycle ride around the North Sea Cycle Route. I will be taking my sketch book and water colours with me. 14 days until I leave for Bergen.

Three weeks to Bergen

I'm looking out of the window at the incredibly heavy rain and counting off the 21 days till I head off to Bergen, Norway on the first leg of my cycle trip around the North Sea Cycle Route. Twenty-one days may sound like a fair amount of time, but I know from my experience last year that the evil fairy of cock ups makes sure you only  just scrape together the necessary plans in time. (When I went to New Zealand last year, I arranged my proxy vote for the election at the airport.) I managed to defeat the evil fairy by making extensive lists - which, as I have mentioned in an earlier blog, is the way to save the world. It was touch and go last time but I made it. The main problem was that the bike I was taking was not up to the job. Hang on a minute, I'm taking the same bike with me this time... but I'm sure it is okay this year... gulp. The problem was the handle bars wouldn't come off, but that's sorted this time and you may have seen my beautiful new butterfly handlebars (on my blog) http://triboy57.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/butterfly-handle-bars.html  which are designed to make my life easy as I cycle around the 3000 miles of the trail, haha. Whether I make the whole distance back to Scotland, is down to where I have got to by the end of July. I have decided that I must be home by then to welcome my daughter Zoe and grandson Soli who will be here from Melbourne for a month. So, if I happen to be in Holland or wherever, I will hop on a train and do the  rest of the route another time.
I'm guessing that the hardest bit of the route will be the first bit. Bergen is near the fjiords and no doubt the coast line will be hilly. By the time I get to Holland it will be nice and flat. It might sound like I don't know much about where I am going, but I have been reading up bit on the very good web-site called NSCR North Sea Cycle Route, it's well worth a look  http://www.northsea-cycle.com/ . By the way, my bike is getting new tyres and a cycle computer fitted. Those together in new front panniers and my brand new Smartphone (to put travel reports on my blog) and 'I'm good to go.' Although, I'd better not get to cocky or the evil cock up fairies will get me.