...A Great Day in Murmansk....

....This Russian Soldier looks out over Murmansk Harbour like Christ the Redeemer looks over Rio....


....Murmansk is quite a city made all the more easy by a great guy called Igor who I met through couchsurfing.....He's a bit of a businessman and owns the hostel we're staying in but is insistent that we don't pay.....at least for the first couple of nights......
.....We kind of arrived here with three problems.....


1...The back tyre has worn out.....It may have another day or so's riding left in it but the tread has pretty much gone so today Igor took me down to the auto market & I bought a new Dunlop racing tyre for the back wheel!!.....A bit of a missmatch to the T63 on the front!.


2....We arrived here with no motorcycle insurance!.....a big problem!....Last year when I rode to Moscow, I bought it in a booth just after the border....Crossing the international border from Norway there were no businesses at the border.....We were the first international motorcyclists that the border guard had met....thankfully at the border there was no check on my insurance....only on the temporary import of my bike.....With no insurance the Police can impound the bike so last night Igor arranged a 4pm Saturday meet with an Insurance agent and we now have legit 3rd party Russian motorcycle insurance valid for 3 months.....British insurers are a real pain....They just won't insure for Russia and don't seem to want to issue "Green Cards" any more.....


3....I need a haircut otherwise I will look back at all my holiday snaps with shame!.....Igor has a friend who can do this!


So as well as getting insurance, buying a tyre and changing some sterling with "The only" changer in Murmansk to change sterling, we had a whistlestop tour of Murmansk visiting the huge war memorial to the allied troops that looks out over the city and the great battleground of WW2.....We also saw one of the Russian Aircraft carriers (Strictly no photographs)......and tomorrow we're going to visit a Nuclear Icebreaker which is docked in Murmansk harbour at the moment.....


.....I quite like Murmansk......If you look beyond the soviet housing blocks and the pollution, it's quite a bustling lively forgotten city that just seems to get on with it.... (mind you, it is midsummer and sunny....It's probably a bit different in winter with three feet of snow and no daylight for 2 months).......

...We made it to Murmansk!!....

.....Good border crossing......The Russians were polite and only searched the front panniers.....Stopped in a town called Nikel, about 20km in to get some cash & fuel.....Petrol is now 50p a litre here instead of £2 a litre in Norway!!

.....That was 150 miles of tough riding on very potholed and gravely roads but we made it safely...What can I say about Murmansk so far?.....The only city north of the Arctic circle....Quite dirty & poluted but also seems a pretty friendly place....

....I think I need a new back tyre.....There's one waiting in Moscow but unfortunately over 3,000 miles of two-up riding has nearly finished it off... 

....The forecast said rain today but I'm glad it held off because it was the certainly the windiest and maybe the coldest day of the trip so far...We were buffeted around for most of the 100 or so miles we covered....At one point we had to stop to put more layers on....The bike has been stalling a bit over the last few days so when we arrived in Kirkenes, I had a fiddle with the both the mixture and the idle screws to improve the running.....Kirkenes is interesting....During the war I've learned, It suffered more bomb attacks than any other place in Europe apart from Malta....Nearby are some iron-ore mines....We're in a cabin here for two nights waiting for Friday when our Russian Visa commences....There's a couple of interesting museums near the town which we intend visiting in the morning....It's now about two weeks since we experienced anything vaguely resembling night-time....At last in Kirkenes there were signs to Murmansk....Really excited about crossing the border into Russia now....

.....This is Jefferey!....We met him at Nordkapp.....He'd ridden all the way from the Netherlands on his Tomos moped.....

...The road upto Nordkapp involved several tunnels....The longest one is nearly 7km long.....The lights of the MT seem to vanish into nothingness in the tunnels and you have no points of reference.....The sound of the engine is amplified at times and at others just seems to disappear.....It costs about £13 each way for bike & 2 people!....The Norwegians seem to manage to extort high sums of money for not a lot!......Some prices I have seen so far include nearly £5 for 5 stanley knife blades, £1 for a bar of chocolate (the size of an after eight mint!), a standard 200g bar of chocolate is about £5, a hot dog & chips at a garage is close to £10!......No wonder tonight we decided to nip back into Finland for the night and nip to the shops here....

.....Today was a hard days ride.....Only a touch over a hundred miles but 
much of it on gravel.....Right up in the northern reaches of Norway.....It was really cold and it rained heavily on our tent last night.....We camped in a birch forest.....away from the road but full of mosquitoes.......We took alot of care to keep them out of the tent....Didn't get too much sleep though.....Today's ride was cold and a little bit wet.....I'm amazed at how well my ex-army Goretex overtrousers keep the rain out......and my new rubber gloves, bought at a garage in Finland last week to replace my mitts I lost in Sweden make brilliant over gloves for the rain.....Today had so many changing landscapes....If it hadn't been for the snow and rain, the first part of the road could have been desert.....The afternoon felt a little like Snowdonia but on a bigger scale.......

....We're in Nordkaap!!....

....Levi was great....3 nights in a cosy cabin....Visited a husky farm and came face to face with some wolves.....Got off the motorbike and onto a pushbike and went for a long bikeride in the rain....but was starting to get itchy feet standing still so with the forecast promising good weather, we headed north today....just over 200 miles to Alta in Norway.....It was a really good ride, dodging reindeer and seeing the changing landscape....We came into outback Norway and it felt like the back end of beyond!!....After a couple more hours we landed in Alta....only one more day's ride to Nordkaap....We're stopping with Julian and his girlfriend Christina, a couchsurfer and ex-para....Pictured is Julian in Kosovo in 1999....Who's riding this one now??....(Last night Julian hosted Two couchsurfers riding two up on a vespa from Milan to Nordkaap...and I thought we were mad!!)...

...Hung out in Jokkmokk for a day......or to be more precise we hung out under the verandah outside the campsite kitchen because it rained all day!....It was just like wet welsh rain.....Ruth has been bitten really badly.....We reckon a flea got in the sleeping bag in one of the cabins but who knows??.....She's ended up with about a hundred bites.....We packed the bike quite early then headed for the Jokkmokk Sami People museum.....It was pretty interesting and had some good vintage films playing......Then we hit the road.....The first 50 miles were dry, then the rain started.....Rode in rain for about 100 miles until we reached Pajala, not far from the Finnish border.....Then we found a hospital and Ruth got to see a doctor.....She's been given some medicine and the swellings are going down.....


....Then rode to Levi in Northern Finland....It's a really lovely Ski Resort although there's not too much snow here now....We found a cosy log cabin with it's own sauna.....80 euros for three nights!.....Sorted!.....We've got our feet up....Just watched Doctor Who with Finnish subtitles!......Finland seems so much better organised than Sweden.....There's even vegetables in the supermarket......Ruth's bites are getting better......Really looking forward to riding the bike tomorrow with no luggage!.....If Ruth goes to the spa, there's some forest tracks by the cabin that look pretty tempting...... 

.....21 days and 2170 miles after leaving home, we arrived at the Arctic Circle near Jokkmokk in Sweden today!!....

......Just had two brilliant days riding.....Crystal clear blue skys......Dazzling sunshine......Bike running well in the cool dry air.....Have covered over 400 miles these last two days and now have less than 100 miles until we reach the Arctic Circle at Jokkmokk.....Although sunny, it's very cold so wearing thermals and enjoying the benefit of heated grips....Two days ago we saw snow for the first time and yesterday we encountered reindeer just wandering over the highway.....Had a bit of a scare too.....Driving at about 50 on the highway, suddenly without warning, the tarmac vanished and was replaced with chunky gravel for about 30 metres.....Managed to keep the bike upright but was a bit shaken.....After four nights sleeping in Kabins, last night we were back in the tent on the campsite in  Arvidsjaur.....I've been inundated with the usual "Is that really a Harley-Davidson".....Getting bored of seeing GS's!....Have heard that there's a midsummers Biker party in Levi in Finland so starting to look in that direction!.....Yesterday visited some Sami people and enjoyed some reindeer meat and their hospitality in wooden huts....

.....Wednesday was another tough day!....We set off soon after 9am and arrived at the Bear Centre near Orsa.....There are many huge enclosures housing brown bears, polar bears, snow leopards and wolves.....Seeing a mother brown bear with four cubs was pretty special....It started raining there before we left and so we had 100 miles is hard driving rain....The bike runs best when it's dry and not too cold so it was a slow day on the bike....We arrived here in Svet around 4pm and headed for the camping. The owner, Ivar Svenssen, on hearing about our adventure, gave us a cabin for the night for free....Thanks Ivar!.......We're about 500 miles from the Arctic Circle now, it's definately getting cooler. The nights are getting pretty short and it's starting to feel distinctively rural!......It's starting to get to be 50 miles between petrol stations......

Sweden's beautiful but has been tough going......We arrived in Trollhatten on Friday and made camp......That night however it rained hard.....very hard.....Saturday I couldn't get the bike started.....I assumed I'd flooded the engine and slowly flattened the battery trying to get it going.....I changed the spark plug at which point I realised I wasn't getting a spark to the engine.....After some referral on the MT Riders site, I discovered the problem lay in the Kill Switch....Rain having got in and done some damage.....Saturday was mainly spent trying to find some WD40 in town, We also managed to see the waterfalls which are turned on at 3pm on a Saturday which were very spectacular......With the bike going, we discovered some further electrical problems ie no indicators or horn......which we can live with for the time being on the E45 in Sweden!......just one  long winding forest road with little traffic......Sunday's mechanical problems were added to by us riding in driving rain......Just as we thought our day was over, we found a campsite which resembled an overspill of Dale Farm so I suggested we look elsewhere.....As we were leaving we realised the back tyre had a puncture so the next two hours were spent roadside, fitting the spare inner!!....At last we found a campsite next to a beautiful lake and made camp.....We are now in Mora....just 600 miles of roads to the Arctic Circle, currently the only residents in a motorcycle camp site....We're taking 2 days in a chalet to rest after 9 nights under canvas....Having a matress was bliss!!!......

....Had a brilliant time in Copenhagen......Spent much of our day off chilling in Christiania, a district of the city.....Met a well travelled French couple Paul & Olga on the campsite who have motorcycled Africa, India several times and the Americas.....They've invited us to stay in Paris on our was home......lovely!!......Set off this morning to Sweden....Held back just enough Danish cash for the ferry which turned out not to be enough.....They let us on for free!!!.....So Scanlines, All is forgiven.......Thanks for the ride......Managed to watch some of the transit of Venus over Copenhagen harbour......Starting on the long slow ride North now............Now in Sweden....Arrived yesterday, spent the morning in Gothenburg before riding on to Trollhattan......A beautiful town with an amazing gorge & waterfalls......Feels good to be driving north.....We're a similar latitude now to the highlands of Scotland......Can't believe we've had no serious rain yet....

Holland was brilliant.......After a great time staying with Arie & Caroline in Soest and visiting Amsterdam, we rode to Leuuwarden close to the Northern coast.....The ride was really great......We rode the dykes.......20 miles long.......quiet, straight, windy roads......and it was cold......but at least it was dry.......We stopped in Leuuwarden with Jose & Ruud.....Ruud has a couple of Harleys including a Shovelhead formerly owned by the Sudanese Government.......After our stay, he took us on a scenic tour and saw us up to the German border......We spent two days riding across Northern Germany.....avoiding the Autobahns.....Crossing the Elbe by ferry was the highlight of the day's ride.........Camped in Puttgarden ready to get the ferry to Denmark the following morning.......834 miles so far, 66.6mpg, top speed 64mph...........Haven't had internet for a few days so this post is a bit late!...Now in Denmark...Decided to have an easy day after the morning ferry......If ever you're out this way, avoid the ferry Germany to Denmark....51 Euro...what a rip off!.....Rode onto the island of Mon to spend the day by the sea.....Found a lovely spot on the Baltic coast and built camp there.....Had a nice fire and cooked dinner......Was really enjoying it until some local came down in his car and started giving us hassle.......We figured he'd be back in the night so we packed up, rode up the road & camped elsewhere.......Set off this morning and now heading for Copenhagen.....We're on the highway alongside the motorway.....Doing a steady 50 in the cool wind.....Still no rain......Bring on Copenhagen...