Date: 15/10/2013
City: Wilhelmshaven, Germany
Kilometres ridden: 190
Cumulative kilometre: 64067
Street: Single lane highway
Weather: Cloudy, cold

It was time to leave our lovely hosts, Anita and Bernd and make our way up north. But first we would say “g’day” to Julia’s parents, as we were just around the corner. Bernd recommended a more interesting drive to us from Hamburg to Wilhelmshaven including a ferry ride. That sounded great.

Upon arrival on the other side, we were surprised by the following picture; have a look at the left pollard. Apparently this is a high water warning….. when the captain sees the ducks swimming then the river Elbe has high water J

We arrived at Silvia and Bernds house, and not long after Julia arrived. She’d just returned from visiting Simon in Australia that hour! Ouch, we had gotten our dates mixed up. We were under the impression that she would arrive a day earlier. Anyway, Julia was still in good spirits, so we all went to dinner in an all you can eat restaurant. The food was amazing, unfortunately my stomach was not big enough… It was a lovely evening.

Date: 16/10/2013
City: Copenhagen, Denmark
Kilometres ridden: 541
Cumulative kilometre: 64609
Street: N/A
Weather: Cloudy, cold

Today we will try to make it to Copenhagen which shouldn’t be a problem if everything goes well. Kuh Elsa has been reliable since Italy, so we hope it won’t show any problems in this last part. We started around 9:30 and were heading towards Fehmarn. From there we took the ferry to Denmark. Upon arriving in Copenhagen we found it difficult to find a reasonable hotel; most hotels were either booked out or overpriced. We had earmarked a hotel in trip advisor that was value for money, unfortunately our GPS map stopped just before Copenhagen and we could not find it. So we did our South America thing: driving around and asking people on the street for directions and recommendations. All of them were very helpful and understood and spoke English, what a relief! In the end we found a hotel and happily moved in.

Date: 17/10/2013
City: Guestro, Germany
Kilometres ridden: 308
Cumulative kilometre: 64917
Street: Highway
Weather: Cloudy, rain, cold

Today was the day; we would ride over the Oresund bridge – the longest combined road and rail bridge in Europe. That we would land in Sweden on the way was a bonus! But before that, we checked out the Copenhagen icon, the little mermaid.

It started to drizzle a bit and it was cloudy. Maybe we are too late in the season, again? J Anyway we took a couple of pictures and continued to the Oresund Bridge. On the way I did – purposely – a sightseeing tour around the town. Did I mention that the GPS map ended just before Copenhagen?

Eventually we found the road to the bridge, but to my surprise the bridge did not start on mainland Denmark, it started in the middle of the Øresund straight on an artificial island called Peberholm. So it was first through a tunnel and then onto the bridge. Not how I’d envisioned it. I was after the effect that when you ride on the bridge, it looks as though it ends in the middle of the straight… So change of plans, in Sweden we turned around and rode back. Even though it was cloudy it worthwhile for us.

Now we were on our way to Gedser to catch the ferry to Rostock. The clouds got darker and darker, I was optimistic as usual, Sigrid…. not so much.
So Sigrid got her rain gear on and I didn’t. Well after a while it started to bucket down and I got drenched. Stoically I continued for nearly 100km, then I gave up and at the next petrol station finally got my raingear on.  It even fit over my pride now 😛

The rain didn’t let off so I was happy to have my rain gear on. When we arrived in Gedser, the lady on the ferry told us that there was no room for the motorbike on the next ferry, bummer. So we tried to find accommodation, but there was only one hotel, expensive and run down and the tourist information was closed as well. So we thought we get back to the lady at the ferry terminal and ask for some other hotels around. When we arrived she told us that all of the sudden there was space on the ferry after all! We were happy.  Wet, but happy 🙂

We arrived in Rostock a couple of hours later. The rain had eased; we started to ride towards Berlin. Not long after the clouds caught up with us, so we turned off the highway and looked for accommodation nearby. Tomorrow we will be back in Berlin and catch up with Ria and Freya.