Hello all,
As the title suggests, i have started (well, on the 20th of May) my round the world trip. Like a lot of people posting on here, i'm travelling solo.
I have started a bot of a blog to keep a track of my travels, the website for this is
www.theferaltraveller.com and ive been posting pictures on Instagram under
the_feral_traveller , feel free to check them out if you're interested.
I'll past the first post or two in here and add them in periodically...
So take yourself back to May 20th...
Travel, remember that? Leaving the house and going somewhere just because you felt like it…
Like most of the UK (and world), I’m sat at home right now dreaming of times where leaving the house just because you wanted to, wasn’t as socially unacceptable as dropping a fart in a lift.
A large part of the reason for my time spent reminiscing about days of care free travel, is that I handed in my notice at work in the middle of November 2019, 3 months of notice to be exact. Then, from mid-February I would spend six weeks finalising my house sale, selling the remainder of my belongings and sorting my affairs before riding my motorbike round the world. My ferry to Spain was booked for March 31st.
You would be correct in assuming this has not gone exactly according to plan.
At a time when I had expected to have been riding round Spain and Portugal for 5 weeks and considering leaving Spain via the Pyrenees and popping into Andorra, I have in fact, not moved an inch. My initial plan was to get the ferry to Spain, head straight for the mountains and wild camp while moving slowly towards Portugal, sort of like below:
I had been holding out hope for the six weeks since my first ferry was cancelled that the Ferries would start again, the first round of cancellations ran until mid-April, I decided that I would err on the side of caution and only book a ferry for after the dates that the EU said the internal Schengen region border restrictions would be lifted, which was the 15th of May, so I booked for 17th May. Keeping an eye on the Brittany Ferries website I noticed that the late April and early May ferries had now also been cancelled, the new date bookings were being taken from was 15th May in line with the EU’s statements on internal borders.
At this point I was feeling rather smug, I’d done my research and felt like I was ahead of the game. Brittany Ferries then cancelled all ferries to Europe before June 1st. I was not ahead of the game; I was stabbing in the dark like everyone else.
Now, I appreciate that the Coronavirus pandemic is serious and that we all need to do our bit to slow its spread and, as we keep getting told, flatten the curve but this doesn’t change the levels of frustration felt when the dates travel will be allowed to resume, keep drifting further and further towards the horizon.
As a backup plan I had been keeping an eye on other routes out of the UK and through Europe, was there a way to start my trip without the use of the ferry to Spain?
Passenger ferries form the UK run to a number of places within continental Europe, these include France, Spain and the Netherlands. A quick google will let you know that the Netherlands has the least restrictive Coronavirus related lockdown measures of the 3 of these countries and in fact the ferries haven’t stopped operating at all during this pandemic.
I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this.
I’ve now booked a ferry to the Netherlands, what happens from there is anyone’s guess. I will need to be doing a lot of wild camping as hotels and other forms of accommodation will be closed, but this is OK with me and was always part of the plan. I will no doubt be restricted in where I can go and when but keeping abreast of the news will hopefully allow me to enter countries as their borders re-open.
I will of course be respecting each countries rules and restrictions but as most of Europe are weeks ahead of the UK right now, it makes sense to me to get across to Europe as soon as possible.
With current events as they are, I have had the same thing said to me countless times since Coronavirus, Covid-19, call it what you want emerged, ‘wouldn’t you be better off leaving this trip until next year’, and, ‘aren’t you worried about traveling while the virus is still around’. The short answers are no and, no. The slightly longer answer is, you will always be able to find a reason not to do something and you can’t panic and abort every time your plans take a knock. I do appreciate this is a fairly large knock, but it can still be worked around.
This pandemic will, without a doubt, change the nature of my trip. It will alter where I’m able to go and how I’m able to interact with people once I get there, but this doesn’t have to be seen as a bad thing. I will be visiting countries as they emerge from a once in a generation (we hope) event that has changed the way sections of societies interact with each other. I’ll be seeing the world in a way I perhaps won’t be able to see it again in my lifetime, regardless of how this turns out, it will certainly be interesting. This may not be the adventure I planned but it will be an adventure none the less.
So, time to get going...
When I was sat at home dreaming of this trip, a part of it, and quite a large part was centered around wild camping. As anyone who’s participated in a bit of wild camping will (or should) know, its technically illegal in a lot of places. For the most part though its overlooked as long as you adhere to the golden rule of wild camping, and that rule is this:
Don’t be a dick.
Now that seems like an easy rule to follow which is why its baffling that so many people get it sooooo wrong! The age old saying of ‘take nothing but memories (or pictures nowadays) and leave nothing but footprints’ covers most of it.
If you’ve read the ‘Traveling during Covid-19’ post, which can be found ‘here’ you’ll know that the original plan was to take the ferry to Spain and spend some time camping in the mountains in the north while heading towards Portugal.
In steps a global pandemic, its all goes to pot and I’m looking for other options.
Sweden, they have taken a very different approach to the Coronavirus pandemic than the rest of Europe, I’m not going to get into a debate about whether its right or not but I’m certainly happy to take advantage of their open borders.
The UK to Netherlands border remained open and the Germans had stood down their border in the northern regions bordering the Netherlands, this seemed like as good a time as any to start making tracks.
Its worth noting that Sweden also take a different approach to wild camping, they’re all for it, and the swedes bloody love it!
Day 1
So the date is the 20th of May, I’ve packed up my bike, said goodbye to my girlfriend, Char, and left Coventry, first stop, the magical town of Harwich. OK, so it may not be described as magical but it’s letting me leave the country so I’m pretty fond of Harwich for now.
I had a Stena line sleeper ferry booked for the Netherlands (which for the record is great!) with the aim of riding straight from the Hook of Holland port to Rostock in Germany for the overnight ferry to Sweden, it’s about 705km of motorway riding on a 250cc motorbike, you would be correct in thinking that’s a shit day out.
Day 2
None the less it got done fairly uneventfully, with the exception of being about as close to running out of fuel as I have ever been (without actually running out) on the German Autobahn, I’d underestimated how much fuel a tiny engine uses when trying to plow into a head wind and maintain motorway speed. When I got to the petrol station, I managed to get 9.7 liters into a 10.1 liter tank. That 400ml of fuel would have been good for another 5 miles or so in those conditions so maybe I could have cracked on a little longer.
So next is the ferry to Sweden, a cabin wasn’t mandatory on this ferry as it was on the previous so I didn’t bother, got some sleep on a chair and arrived in a slightly less fresh state than I arrived in the Netherlands.
Day 3
I arrive in Sweden, nobody checks my passport, I just ride straight off the ferry and into town. Brilliant.
This is as far as my ‘last min change of plan’ planning had got, I was now in Sweden with no idea what I was going to do next. A healthy dose of ‘winging it’ should suffice.
I pick a random spot on the coast and head to it, that doesn’t seem too productive, so I decide to head a little north and join the Trans Euro Trail for a while.
If you haven’t heard of it before, the Trans Euro Trail, or TET, is a network of over 50,000km of trails that run round Europe. The aim of them is to stay off road for as much as possible, if roads are needed the smaller the better. You can find out more ‘here‘.
So I sit on the TET for a fair few hours until I feel like I should probably start looking for a place to camp. My mum had told me about an app that campervaners (I don’t think that’s a word) use to record and log places to stop for a night. They can be carparks, laybys or in a lot of cases out the way little spots that you would have had to have spent ages searching for. If you’re interested the app is called park4night, ill put a link ‘here’.
With my new found app in hand I find a little spot by a lake, when I get there its really off the beaten track, if a big camper made it there I’m pretty sure they’d just have a living space full of smashed plates that had fallen out of their cupboards as it was damn rough.
I pitched my tent 10 feet from the water and cooked up a delicious noodley treat, day three was a winner!
Day 4
I start the day with a wash in the lake, good start.
I then decide im going to head over to an island off the east coast called Oland, but with the a pair of these fellas “ above the O.
The weathers changed a little now, its cold and wet, not raining, just spitting and, well the best way to describe the weather would be ‘shit’.
It takes a fair few hours to get to Oland, not a fun ride being cold. I’m also starting to get a little bored of the scenery (I have a very short attention span). Its lovely, its just the same, every house looks the same, red with white corners, some may be painted yellow, a couple white, I saw a grey one but I imagine the owners of that house were hauled into the town square and burnt as witches. Red, if your Swedish, your house is red.
Once in Oland I use the faithful app again to find a nice little field that’s left open for people to camp in. The app does let me adown a little here as there is mention of a toilet, that toilet doesn’t exist and the field is very exposed and there are a few other vans kicking about. I solve this dilemma by digging an en-suite in the porch of my tent.
Now, I was as apprehensive as I imagine you are reading this about the prospect of having a shit in my own tent but needs must! If I’m honest I was expecting to have to move my tent along if my en-suite was needed. In reality, putting soil on top worked a treat, like a long drop with a very tiny drop. Crisis averted, tent en-suite invented, created and trialed!
Day 4 wasn’t the best, time to sleep and move on.
Day 5
I decide to spend a little time planning what im going to do next, Sweden has the largest lake in the European union, Lake Vänern, I should probably go have a paddle in that.
It turns out that’s quite a trek for one day so I decide to split it in half, I have a group call with some friends in the evening so decide to treat myself to some accommodation with some Wifi.
Accommodation found (AirBnB), I head west, rejoin the TET and start north to my digs for the night, the TET got a little more fun, more muddy, more roots, more off-roading rather than gravel roads, I imagine it gets better still the further north you go.
Group call had, lots of laughs had, video call with Girlfriend after, lots more laughs had, bed time.
Day 6
On day 6 I had a fairly short stint to the lake, I got there in no time, I’d left the TET behind now so was on the road. With the help of trusty app again I found a great spot for the night. I did have to pop back into town as the Oxfod USB charger I had fitted to my bike broke. I had only used it for the previous 5 days so I’m a little peeved about that. Luckily, I had a cigarette style charger port fitted also so I popped into town to grab an adaptor and I was good to go.
See camping spot below:
Lake Vanern is great, and massive, I got the drone out to take some pics, being 87 miles across it obviously just looks like an ocean.
Day 7
In what seems to be the style of this trip so far, and if I’m honest, how I hope it continues, I wake up and start to think about where I’m going to go next. I come to the conclusion that I should go to the coast, I pick a random town on the east coast called Smogen, pack my tent and head west.
Smogen is a great little town, I wandered round it for a little while, took one picture because I’m shit at remembering to take more and got the ever faithful app out again.
This time the app plays a blinder, it takes me about 45 mins from Smogen to a little cove that has a tiny patch of grass which is perfect for camping on. That may not sound like a big deal but most of that area is bear rock so a nice patch of grass right next to the cove was great to find.
Set up camp just in time to see the following sun set.
Not bad ey!
Day 8
Time for a lazy morning, all this getting up at whatever time I like and doing whatever takes my fancy had not at all worn me out so I think I deserved a rest!
First course of action is to take a bath in the sea, I promptly stand on what looks like an Oyster….it is an Oyster. The whole shore is littered with them, just wander around at knee depth and pick them up. Which is exactly what I did. Wild camping and foraging, this has tuned out to be a brilliant spot so I decide I’m not moving!
It’s this spot that made me think of the main rule of wild camping, people seem unable to follow it here. I carry a spade on my bike so if you’re in a van you certainly can. If you pop into the woods for a pee you will find many a surprise waiting for you. Like the rhyme goes, ‘if you go down to the woods today you’re sure to be in for a surprise’, it just wont be a teddy bears picnic, it’ll be a dirty big turd covered in toilet paper. Dirty bastards!
Little surprises aside, this has been by far the best camping location to date. Sweden has become epic again!
I’ll stop this post here as I’ve no doubt lost both readers by this point.
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Soooo, obviously that last line is cut from my blog so you would need to go there to subscribe if interested in following along.
I have another post about the reasons i chose the CRF250 Rally which may be of interest to some on here.
Cheers,
Mike
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