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Date: 16/06/2017
From/To: Egilsstadir – Fáskrúðsfjörður
Distance: 110Km
Total Distance: 4329Km
Weather: Cold, Foggy, Rainy
Road: Sealed, Dirt Road

We packed up and took our time to get started, since we hadn’t ride very far today. it was not very far. So we stopped not far from Egilsstadir to take a couple of pictures from a  water fall and to have some lunch. During the break the sun tried to break through the cloud cover. I think that was the last attempt for the day, then she gave up J.

We did arrive at the guest house around two PM. All the doors were closed, but there was a phone number with some Icelandic text on the door, so we called. It turned out that our host would be back around four PM, so we had two hour s to spare.

So we decided to try some dirt road, leading around the peninsula. The road was not too bad for a second grade dirt road. Most of the road was nicely compacted, only some patches were filled with deeper gravel. After two hours we stopped at a petrol station close to our guest house and had a coffee when Peter and Gerlind passed by.

They stopped we had a short chat and continued to our accommodation. The host was very friendly and we could use his restaurant to have our dinner. Gerlind and Peter introduced us to some special prepared salmon that became our main dish. After dinner we had a look at the map and decided to have a look around Egilsstadir, there is a water fall and a hydro power station. So we booked an accommodation in Egilsstadir via Airbnb, which made it affordable.

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Date: 15/06/2017
From/To: Seydsfjordur – Egilsstadir
Distance: 26.8Km
Total Distance: 4219Km
Weather: Cold, Foggy, Rainy
Road: Sealed Road

When we arrived in the morning in Iceland, the motorcycle were the last to go. We were not sad about it, since the weather was, let’s say, average. It was +5degres, drizzling and foggy. The GPS didn’t work either as expected, so we were flying blind. Having said this, there was only one road leaving Seydisfjodur, which made it easier. The road was a mountain pass. I believe the landscape would have been stunning, if we would have been able to see it. The visibility was 20…30m. We stopped at a view point at the top of the mountain; well I still could see Sigrid, that was it.

Coming down the mountain improved our mood a lot. We could see a village and a lake. Without any map we opted for the next village to fill up our bikes and have a look for accommodation to fix the GPS problem. After the first wrong turn and then talking to a post man, we found the petrol station where we filled up the bikes.

It was raining again and quite windy, so we thought we have a look for a hard accommodation instead of camping. We looked at a three star hotel, the price for a standard room for 2 people one night was 350AUD (235Euro) Ouch!. These seem to be a normal price. At the end we found a guest house that had a room with shared bathroom for 100Euro, this was our cheapest but quite nice option.

 

After fixing the GPS by applying the island only image I had a look at Google maps where we would meet with Peter and Gerlind tomorrow.

Our next adventure was going shopping for dinner. The food was as well expensive. We discussed the exorbitant prices with our host.. He mentioned that the prices increased dramatically in the last year which would explain why it was so much more expensive than we anticipated. The income for Icelanders increased accordingly, so that it doesn’t seem to be too expensive for Icelanders to go shopping or dine in a restaurant (main meal ~60Euro/person). Anyway, in the evening the weather became better, no rain and the wind died down, conciliating us with our wet arrival here.

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Date: 13-16/06/2017
From/To: Hirtshals – Seydsfjordur
Distance: —
Total Distance:
Road: Ferry

The accommodation was close to the harbour, so there was no rush. When we arrived at the ferry, the sun was shining. The motorcycles were loaded first.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hadn’t tied down the bikes for a while, so it took a bit before I was finished. We booked the ferry a bit late, so on this trip to Iceland there was no cabin left, only bunk beds. So we went to the room and settled in. The room had 12 bunk beds in a tiny space, but there were only 9 used. The top three were empty, so we could use it to store our stuff. The sea was calm and we had a very pleasant day.

The next day we arrived in the Faroe Islands, lucky we didn’t miss them since it was really foggy. Here is a view onto the old city. I found the grass roofs interesting.

There was as well a picturest light house.

From Faroe Island it was only a couple of hours before we arrived in Iceland. Hopefully the weather would be better.

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Date: 05-12/06/2017
From/To: Eppelborn- Berlin – Rügen
Distance: 1059Km
Total Distance: 3560Km
Road: High Way,

We went back to Berlin to pick up some parts ordered, went shopping for some electronic equipment added some minor modifications to the bikes. The bash plate was rubbing against the exhaust, so it needed some modifications. Since it was off J, I added a tool pipe to the bash place and Klaus and I made a table with the H&B boxes as base.

Here is the finished product, doesn’t look much but works well when you are short of table space.

After finishing all the small tasks, we set off to Insel Rügen, to meet with Reni. She moved a year ago to Rügen to manage an apartment complex and we were keen to have a look at her new work place/home called ‘Feriendomizil Speranza’.

We meet as well with Gerlind and Peter to plan our Iceland trip, which starts mid next week J

The ride to Insel Ruegen was nice; we arrived at the evening without any incidents. The next morning Peter and Gerlind arrived, and as well Julian, Verena’s son which we hadn’t seen for a long time. I wouldn’t have recognised him on the street, he;s grown up and now sports a beard and long hair.

In the afternoon we had a nice stroll through Sellin. At the beach there was a fun run this afternoon; people were running through the sand, up and down the stair, through the water ….., looked really exhausting. After watching this exhausting activity, we were hungry and went to a nice restaurant. Food was great and at the evening we started to plan where we are going to meet in Iceland. Peter and Gerlind would arrive two days earlier on the other side of Iceland (Reykjavik), we would arrive later on the east side (Seydisfjodur). So we opted for an accommodation not far on the east side. It feels unreal, in three days we on the ferry and in five days we are in Iceland.

The next day we all started with a nice long breakfast.

All of us? No a small green sheep had to stay on the balcony and watch J

After breakfast, we went for a walk on the beach and Gerlind took JK, Julian’s dog for a walk. Here some pictures from the walk.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sigrid had a swim, and JK tried to rescue here J


The swan was not sure what to make out of it…

Peter and Gerlind said good bye and drove back to Berlin, to get ready for the Iceland holiday. We got ready for the next day to get to Hirtshals on Denmark, where the ferry to Iceland leaves.

The next day we said good bye to Reni and Julian and went off to HIrtshals where we arrived around 7PM. We had dinner and got ready for an early departure.

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Date: 02-04/06/2017
From/To: Verdun – Eppelborn
Distance: 168Km
Total Distance: 1996Km
Road: High Way,

We took our time to pack up, said goodbye to our host and off we went to Hackenberg. To get there we used Sigrid’s mobile as guide since the Garmin map didn’t include France. We arrived a bit earlier and used the time to have a picknic lunch before this Fort was opened for visitors.

 

What a fantastic tour! The technology of the time was impressive. You could see that the design was based on the Forts from the First World War, but the shortcomings of the previous forts were removed. It was fully equipped to facilitate 1000 man, including kitchen, dentist, hospital, air condition, water recycling station, 54000L tanks for water …. There was as well a train net of a couple of km in the fort which was used to bring the ammunition from the storage to the gun positions. Everything was electrical, the train, lights…..

Dieselgenerator, kitchen and the side of a huge water tank.

 

Dentist and Theatre

And the train system

And the tarot, very similar to the one in Fort de Vaux, only bigger and with improved technology.

 

 

 

 

From here we continued to Eppelborn where the European Ulysses club gathering was.

As part of our registration we had a hotel room book but had difficulty to find it! Actually, we’ll blame the GPSJ. The Ulysses club meeting was at another side and a bus service was organized to get us there. On the way we meet Ian, a Switzer member who accommodated and accompanied Lance and Lesly, the other couple from Australia, Queensland. It was a nice evening and we were talking to a lot of people and even got some German Ulysses club T-Shirts.

 

We meet as well Arvid and Arne, members from Norway. We had great fun to discuss our planned route and got some additional ideas for our trip.

 

The next day there was a ride organized. Divided into groups with a maximum of ten people, including the ride leader and the Tailend Charli we set off. We haven’t been in Saarland before and were impressed with the beautiful landscape and sweep roads. Our first stop was the Saar loop, which had a whooping totally amazing view point. The next stop was the ‘Talsperre Nonnweiler’, which had a nice restaurant where we had

some coffee and cake. When the other groups came in, I saw a beauty of a motorcycleJ. I was talking to the lady owner, and she agreed with me, the bike is beautiful. Finally, I’m not aloneJ.
To be honest, I’m writing this blog at the end of our Iceland trip (I know, I have to hurry up to catch up with the blogs), this bike, as nice as it looks, would be completely inappropriate for our trip. Still I like the look of it.


After I got over the excitement, we continued to the ‘Schaumber Alm’, the highest point in Saarland. From here it was only a couple of km to our hotel.
At the evening were meeting again at the same place as yesterday and we meet again amazing people I get the feeling there is not enough time to talk to most of the people .

The next day we took it easy. It was drizzling in the morning, so we chickened out and gave the organized ride a miss. Instead we checked out the Kirmiss and ended up on a large Ferris Wheel. The view was quite nice.

 

At night we meet again at the same place. This time we meet Volker, he has a bike with a sidecar. We started to talk about how it handle, why he put it onto his motorcycle and started to exchange email addresses, he noticed the name Henning in Sigrid address book. As it turns out, he is one of Henning’s good friends. We meet Henning two years ago on a HU meeting and celebrated New Year ‘s Eve with him in Sydney and stayed in contact with him since. It’s a small world.

 

 

 

 

Now the meeting is over and we make our way back to Berlin. Here we will finish the bike setup and collect all the things we had ordered, but sent and delivered to Klaus.

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Date: 29/05-02/06/2017
From/To: Sippersfeld – Verdun
Distance:–
Total Distance:
Road:–

We had a couple of days to spend before the Ulysses club AGM started, so we thought a trip to France would be nice. Not far from Sippersfeld was Verdun, that seemed to be a nice enough destination. So in the morning we slowly packed up the tent, had a swim and some coffee and cake, than started in the afternoon direction Verdun. The weather was quite warm and we arrived in France without traffic jams.

After the border we realised that our GPS had only the German map and was now showing us the coarse world map, which was not useful at all. We had a real problem to find the accommodation. At the end we used the mobile phone. When we finally arrived, we noticed as well, that our French is not really up to scratch. Our host didn’t speak English but admitted eventually to speak a little bit German, so we reverted back to Google translate. That seemed to work, a bit slow, but better than nothing. We found out that our host offered to drive us to the city, so we could have something to eat without jumping back into our motorcycle gear. With the high temperatures at night, we happily accepted. We walked around a bit, picked a restaurant and had a nice dinner. What a lovely day. Our host was so kind to pick us up again.

The next day we explored Verdun; there were plenty of places to visit. We started to stroll through Verdun and found the Porte Chaussee, huge entrance to Verdun. Later we found out, that this was not the main gate; this was another gate close by.

From here we went to the impressive ‘Monument to the victory at Verdun’. It contains a crypt which was used to hold books with the names of those French and American soldiers who fought in this region. There are many steps J. Inside was a small exhibition, some of the German propaganda material.

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the crypt was it a short stroll to the ‘Cathedrale Nore Dame de Verdun’. This cathedral looked impressive, especially when you saw how damaged it was at the end of 1918.

From here we walked to the Museum for Peace where we went through an exhibition about the First World War. It did show not only the live at the front, it showed as well the impact on the civil population. We were happy that we never had to live through something like that.

From here we went back to the Meuse and found some sort of water feature, which looked nice.

The next day we planned to have a look around the city, but our host told us (via Google translate), that it would be interesting to have a look at the ‘Citadel’

 

Next day visit the Citadel, there was not much to see from the outside and I forgot to take pictures inside.

 

 

 

 

The next stop was Fort Vaux and Fort Douaumont, both Forts were built to defend Verdun. It was incredible to see how people have lived during the war and which technology exists at this time. Below are some pictures from both forts:

Back side of ‘Fort de Faux’

Connection tunnel in the Fort. It felt we and cool.

 

 

 

 

 

Some bombs, I tried to lift on, they were really heavy.

 

Sleeping quarters

 

 

 

 

Toilets, well one, the rest was removed since it didn’t work during the siege.

 

The washing quarters: The stalactites are a new featureJ. It shows how moist it was.

 

 

 

 

 

And the turret tower from the inside and outside. One was still functioning and could be lifted and retracted.

After all day sightseeing, we went back to Verdun for some nice treats and to walk through the city gates.

 

 

 

 

 

 

That was our time in France. Tomorrow we’ll travel back in Germany. On our way we will have a look at Hackenberg, a Fort build from France in the 1920th.

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Date: 22-29/05/2017
From/To: Berlin – Sippersfeld
Distance: 785Km
Total Distance: 1800Km
Road: High Way

In the morning we went swimming with Gabi and had breakfast at the pool. The weather was just great. We went home, packed up and left, with a shot detour to Klaus & Conni. We left on Friday the luggage there since we had to change the tires. At Klaus we packed the rest and we are ready to go.

 

 

We had only one traffic jam, it was reasonable hot, but it took no more than 20 minutes. We arrived in Jena without any problem. We even found out how to refill my scot oiler J. As I have learned, it is not a good idea to try to fill it up using the breathing hose J. We had a nice dinner and went to bed.
Talking to the waiter, it would be worthwhile to have a look at the tower, so we did.

To our surprise, the tower is called the ‘Intershop Tower’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the top of the tower you got a good view over Jena. We had some lunch and stumbled across the ‘Cosmorama’, the unit used in the ‘Zeiss Planetarium Jena’ until it was dismantled in 1996. After lunch we started to get to Sippersfeld.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We arrived after a reasonable long day and Sigrid was happy to relax. The setup was just beautiful.

 

 

 

 

We setup the tent from Steffi and Julia. It was similar to our tent and went up in no time.

We met as well Sebastian and Sonja, the couple that sold us Sigrid’s bike. They had been travelling to Ushuaia as well, so we had lots of stories to share.

 

 

 

 

 

 

At night I noticed that my air mattress was leaking, so the next morning I decided to have a look at it, Sebastian came along to help. Putting the air mattress into the lake did show the problem quickly. We applied a patch and let it dry. Then we went for a beautiful ride. In the evening we listen to multiple presenters talking about their experience during their journey. Some have travelled through Africa, others around the world. Some were very well prepared, others made it up as they went.

 

The next day we stayed at the campground and talked to some people. There were as well two interesting stalls, one was about travelling China, which might become handy on our next trip. The other was a guy who modified a motorcycle to travel from Alaska to the South Pole.

He is still in the process of modifying the bike

Previously he travelled around the world using his modified ‘Fireblade’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We enjoyed the three days there; the time was over too quickly. After this weekend we are even keener to start our next long overland trip. On Sunday we said good bye to people we met.

 

 

 

We stayed for another day, just relaxing and having a swim in the pond.

Our next stop is Verdun in France.