A week or two inside the Arctic Circle

When you are travelling it's inevitable that some places you visit will leave a much bigger impression than others. We really only picked Muodoslompolo as a long term stop because there was some volunteer work available, meaning we could stay for a week and hopefully see the northern lights. There were a few other options of places to work in the north but Oliver in Muodoslompolo seemed like the kind of guy we'd get on with. I'm so glad we chose to volunteer with him. 

Amanda took this doozy of Oliver and Mini using her Dianamini
film camera - Say no to hipstamatic iphone camera aps, use film. If
you see a square photo on this blog it's from Amanda's Dianamini

Olivers house

Reindeer, potatoes and lingon berry jam

Oliver moved to Sweden from England a few years ago, bought himself the old community centre in Muodoslompolo and has been chipping away at making it into his home. It's a gloriously massive building and he was happy to have two extra pairs of hands to knock out a few jobs. I spent my first few days helping Oliver construct a storage area for his heating fuel while Amanda was busy doing some gardening and sanding. The weather was really mild; we were there around the autumn equinox so had a pretty normal daylight to dark ratio. But there were a couple of wicked frosts and some awesome clear nights. So for about a week we were helping out around the house, taking frequent trips to Muonio in Finland for supplies, and meeting Oliver's awesome friends. We ate a fair bit of reindeer meat, which is like venison but even more flavoursome, drank some great beer, and worked on our baking skills. I adapted a vegan brownie recipe (to be full of butter) which was a glowing success and Amanda conquered the art of swedish style cinnamon pin wheels (Kanelbullar) as well as smashing out some pretty awesome loaves of bread. 

Amanda's fantastic Kanelbullar - even the locals were impressed

We were really lucky to see the the northern lights a couple more times during our stay. One night was really spectacular. Bright green, almost blue, fingers of glowing light were sweeping in long arcs across the northern horizon. We sat outside for a long time ignoring the sub zero temperatures and gawking at the visual delight of excited particles emitting photons 80km above our heads. It's hard to get decent photos with pocket cams, especially when all you want to do is gawk. One night, as the outside temperature hit -7C, we were sitting in the sauna drinking beer and sweating in the sticky 70C heat. When the heat became too much to handle we'd pop outside and steam for about ten minutes until the bite of the frost finally penetrated our red hot skin. Repeat twice, then rinse and sleep like you've never slept before.

Oliver has some amazing friends around Muodoslompolo. I met Jönne when I was outside pulling nails from some wood and he pulled up in his hearse. This buzzed me out a bit until I looked in the back and saw it was full of tools and other bits and pieces. He asked about my van and I told him about the fuel pump issues we were having. After a quick gander he assured me it was quite fixable and suggested we pop around to his place that night and he'd have a look at it. So later in the evening we took what was left of our very cheap, and not very delicious, border crossing beer and nursed Edward over to Jönne's place. He had some astounding nic nacs and memorabilia around his house; my favourite was a soviet moon globe from the 50's. The 'dark side' was black as there was no way of photographing that side in those days. Awesome. Anyway with a quick tap of his mig welder he had (as a not so rigorous idle test showed) fixed the leaky pump, so we retired to his upstairs sitting room and drank our cheap beer.... and then some of his delicious beer. It's exciting to meet someone who hordes amazing stuff and isn't afraid to get things out and play with them. Jönne's 1930's gramophone still works and his acetate first pressings of 30's big bands still sound incredible. He also has an mint vintage Bang & Olufsen stereo. We listened to some incredible records and marvelled at the euphoria induced by pristine analogue audio. Jönne told us stories of travelling in a home made camper around eastern Europe. Back then the USSR was in full swing and he gave us a interesting insight into what it was like being a tourist the in the communist states. I can't remember exactly but I think he even drove all the way to Iraq. Basically Jönne is my hero on a hundred different levels. Nowadays he makes little wooden birds for a living. You can check them out here. We saw them in loads of different tourist shops in Finland over the following few weeks. Just before we left he gave Amanda his old Kodak Box Brownie camera from the 50's because he was stoked to find someone that would use it again!!

Jönne getting it done

Gramophone + acetate jazz and swing records = Bliss

We were also very privileged to met Äke. He helped run the community centre before Oliver purchased it, and they have been great friends ever since. Meeting Äke was like meeting a jolly and wise wizard from some ancient fairytale. Like a mix between Geppeto and Gandalf. He lives with his wife in a beautiful house nestled next to a wooded area, surrounded by log cabins that he has built from scratch. Äke used to make amazing knife handles out of wood and reindeer antlers. They had stunning intricate carvings of reindeer and elk and must have taken many hours to make. His rheumatism has slowed him down a little but he's still very active and it seems like there's always someone around that Äke is giving a hand to. We visited him many times during our stay. His coffee is strong and zippy, and the treats delicious (pikelets with cloud berry jam were a hit). Amanda wishes Äke was her Grandfather.

Äke, coffee, pikelets and cloudberry jam - perfect

After our week long stay in Muodoslompolo, it was sad for us to say goodbye. Oliver took off for a trip to Finland for a few days and we stayed for what we thought would be one more night before heading back south. But when I tried to start the van the next day it took some serious encouragement and polite reassurance. I assumed starting it in sub zero temperatures was the problem but when I lifted the bonnet my heart snapped a little. The fuel pump was leaking at an all time high so we had to abandon our plans for heading down through Finland that day. It was a real downer for us. We had no idea why it was leaking so bad but thought that maybe the cold nights had possibly caused the already perished seals to be completely ruined. We thought about abandoning the rest of our trip and flying back to the UK. No one in Sweden had the fuel pump we needed, and not many people anywhere else in the world had them either. Äke to the rescue using his magical skill of turning up at just the right time. I had the bonnet up and was trying to remove the pump seal to take it over to Finland and find a replacement when he pulled up and saved my freezing hands from losing any more blood. He towed me to the nearest garage (just a cool 15km away) and kindly translated for me, explaining the problem to the pessimistic mechanic. After a weekend of waiting they decided they wouldn't touch it with a 50 foot pole. Edward was just too old and not worth the effort. We contacted Oliver who said we could stay in his house as long as we needed to figure out a plan, even though he wasn't there. THANKS OLIVER! So we spent a few days trawling the internet looking for pumps that would fit our van but really had no luck. Oliver kept in touch and was kind enough to send some ideas our way. A couple of depressing days later we finally found a pump on ebay UK that looked like it might work. I got stuck into taking out the old one and (magical timing again) Äke popped round to see how I was going. Then Jönne drove by and stopped to talk to Äke. I swear these guys are part of a secret league of extraordinary gentlemen who are at all times waiting at alert level 4 to rescue people from every day mishaps. Jona pulled the pump apart and spotted ruptured O rings on the throttle spindle. Another twist of fate (or magic) and Äke pulled a box of various rings from the back of his truck. Sorted. No leaks. No problems. Jönne came around the next day and welded the broken bolt back in place so we had a semi permanent fix. Elation ensued. We were pretty happy that Edward would be on the road again. By this time Oliver was back so we stayed another few nights to hang out and watched the All Blacks world cup semi against Australia.

Mini changed my long held negative opinion of cats

Now that the van was running we decided a quick sprint into Norway was worth the short 400km round trip. We headed for Kautokeino, a small village near where Finland, Norway and Sweden all meet. We couch surfed with a nice couple there. Gerlinde and Berndt were so lovely. They both work for the Sami theatre in Kautokeino where they put on plays and musicals in the traditional Sami language. They have even toured to India with the show. Berndt had some wicked guitars lying about; my favourite was a bass ukulele with rubber strings!

Ice meets liquid in Kautokeino - The sun never got much higher than this

Confident in Jönne's repairs and having spent yet another 'last' night in Muodoslompolo, we finally said a sad farewell to Oliver, Holly and Mini. We will have to go back one day and experience Muodoslompolo in the grips of the northern winter, do a bit of cross country skiing and lay in the snow after scorching hot saunas. When I grow up I want to be like Jona, and when I grow up even more I want to be like Äke.

Goodbye kittys!

Oliver is looking for more volunteers to give him a hand around the place. If you're thinking of a trip to Lapland (and if you're any where near Europe you MUST go to Lapland) you should definitely go and stay with Oliver. You'll never forget your stay there. Get away from the expensive tourist traps and let Oliver and friends immerse you in the Lappish pace of life. Click here to see his profile on workaway.info

Northward - Forests, ten o'clock screams and reindeer

Counting myself lucky that I didn't get caught stealing a shower from the sports club in Copenhagen, we made our way north to Helsingor to catch the ferry to Helsingborg in Sweden. We could have gone over the big bridge from Copenhagen to Malmo but, even though bridges are awesome, ferrys are exciting and motorways are boring. On the way to Helsingor we were pulled over by a policeman who I assumed was going to ticket me for only having one head lamp working (they have to be on day and night in Scandinavia). He went to Amanda's window, naturally, and was surprised to find we were from New Zealand and were planning to drive all the way to Lapland. He said good luck and wished us well. There was no mention of the busted headlamp. The ferry crossing was uneventful and Helsinborg was nothing special. There was a distinct lack of internet cafes so we resorted to grabbing a coffee at McDonald's and hooking up to the wifi for an hour or so to check future travel plans and couch surfing arrangements. This turned into a filthy habit for the rest of our trip; they are just so easy to find, and always have internet. But the coffee is so awful.

Our last Danish in Denmark

Once we left Helsingborg we felt like (to quote Reon Murtha) we were on the track proper. Hundreds and thousands of pine trees lined the smooth and straight single laned roads that regularly dipped through small valleys with lakes on either side. Nearly all the houses were red with white trim (a throw back to when red paint was cheap because of all the iron ore mining). It was pretty easy to find camping spots as the country is so sparsely populated. We'd spend our days easing ever north and taking walks in cute little towns, and our nights cooking awesome one pot meals on the gas hob and playing cards or board games in the back of the van. We visited Öland, an island off the south east coast of Sweden. There are tonnes of stone age and iron age ruins here and we spent over a day roaming around checking everything out. When night fell we found what appeared to be a pretty normal camp spot in an area called Trollskogen (Troll's Forest). We went for a stroll in the dark and it was spooky as hell. The knobbly old oak trees look like Ents and I swear they were watching us. When we woke the next morning the sun was rising over the Baltic sea and streaming directly into the back windows of the van. It was surreal. 

Eskjo

Runestone -  Öland

Mushrooms on Öland

Our camp site near Trollskogen

After Öland we made our way to Linköping where Emma, another friend from Dunedin, was home for a few months visiting her parents. We stayed there for a few nights and got treated to some amazing Swedish hospitality. Fish bake with apple sauce was a revelation. As was lingon berry jam with cheese! We had to check out IKEA and their amazingly cheap coffee and hotdogs (although the dogs were about the size of my pinky finger). Emma took us to Gamla Linköping (Old Linköping), where we got shown the workings of an old printing press by some enthusiastic old timers, then for a walk through an amazing local forest. We even got to meet some local horses. Emma and her parents were amazing hosts and we felt quite at home.

Amanda and Emma in a forest

 I will buy a horse one day and ride him around like a train in the night. 

We said a fond farewell to Emma and family and then spent a couple of days in Stockholm, camping in a huge park near Saltsjö-Duvnäs and catching the train in to town to avoid parking and congestion charges. We didn't plan to see anything in particular and just roamed the city for two days. We watched the All Blacks destroy the French in a packed Irish bar, again avoiding all the chest thumping racist code heads chugging pints and making dicks of themselves at 10am in the morning. After the rugby Amanda went looking about while I busked for an hour or so on a big tourist alley. I got a pretty good response and made a few kroner. Stockholm is really lovely but riddled with tourists and so bloody expensive. We found some nice parks to relax in the awesome autumn sun. I think it must have been around late September by this stage so we had to start adding layers to our summer attire to keep out the fresh northern air.

Our sneaky Stockholm camp site, next to an abandoned forest hut

The green arrow is the camp site and the red marker where we got the train each day

Our friend Nick lives in Uppsala, just north of Stockholm, so we went and stayed with him for a few nights. He was pretty busy with uni so we showed ourselves around the town and generally chilled out. He lives in a large student accommodation complex so there's lots going on, and awesome (free) commercial laundry facilities nearby. It's the little things, aye. Every night at 10pm every student in his area screams out their windows. It's called the ten o'clock screams and cracked me up every time I heard it. I took this recording of it.


10 o'clock screams


We planned to go out drinking one night so had to take a bike ride into town. Two bikes between four slightly drunk people meant some awesome old school doubling went down. It was pretty crazy. Our bike was an old hack that Nick had fixed up and was a bit of a beast to ride but it was hilarious. Back pedalling to brake is awesome, especially when there's two of you going down a huge hill towards a busy intersection/pedestrian area. It was a grand laugh. When we got to town, all the pubs were shut for some silly reason, but the student bars were open. No student ID meant no entry so we missioned back home to Nick's, getting a little lost on the way and generally fighting to keep the two of us upright on the old bike.


There are some cool op shops in Uppsala, but we didn't really have a need for vintage clothing. We did find an awesome thick woollen blanket which was going to be essential as we progressed north. Just before we left Uppsala I noticed a bit of diesel on the ground under the car. I thought I'd have a crack at seeing if the seals were all okay and tried to undo a bolt on the injector pump. It snapped straight off. It turns out it was made of gravy. We managed to get it back together with the tiny bit of thread that remained and went to the nearest mechanic. He was the first Scandinavian we'd met who didn't speak English, because he was actually Turkish. With the clever use of google translate he quoted us 8000 kronor (about $1600nz) to sort it out. No thanks mate. We tried a few other places and none of them would replace the small bolt we needed, they all wanted to put a whole new fuel pump in. Money grubbing bastards. It was still working, but the fuel pump was literally held together by a thread. So after a day of deliberating and staying at Nick's place another night we decided to risk it all, gaffer tape the bolt to the pump so if it came off we could find it again, and leg it the 1200km to Lapland in the North. 

Gaff fixes everything

I saw an Elk just north of Uppsala, but Amanda missed. I made a bold promise that we would see another before getting to the far north. Elk (or moose if you're North American) are hilarious looking and sometimes get drunk on fermenting apples and try to climb trees.


The journey north took us three days. We avoided driving after dark so we didn't hit any elk or reindeer on the road. Everyone in Sweden has HUGE mother fathering spot lights on their cars to see animals from 200m away. We had one headlight with a range of about thirty metres. The first night after leaving Uppsala we stayed just north of Sundsvall, and the following morning took the scenic route along the Höga Kusten (high coastal route). Endless hours of easy driving roads breezing through never ending pine forests. Our next camping spot was a little south of Lulea next to a small gated village. It was a nice spot right near the water and we spotted some red squirrels in the morning. While I was making coffee an old local came down to check out what we were up to. He didn't seem too phased, maybe a little suspicious. We had a brief chat with him, and he continued on his way. Around lunch time we stopped in a rest area next to some flooded huts. I have no idea why they were there.

Morning wake up north of Sundsvall

Breakfast sunrise

Buzzy flooded huts

Later in the day we finally crossed the Arctic circle, which was pretty exciting. Somehow the fuel pump was still holding together so I did a dance under the sign and wondered if anyone else had danced there. We saw quite a lot of reindeer on the way, grazing in some tasty green fields by the road. At bout 5pm we finally made it to our destination. After keeping our eyes peeled for elk all day we saw one just as we got to Muodoslompolo and my promise held strong. 

Happy and free Reindeer

Blue team GOOOOOO!!!!!!!

A month earlier we had signed up to a website called workaway, and organised a stay in Lapland where we'd be volunteering in exchange for food and accommodation. Out host, an awesome English guy named Oliver, needed help to renovate his massive place. As soon as we had arrived and unpacked, Oliver took us to a restaurant in Finland where we had some deliciously huge pizzas with smoked reindeer and other exotic goodies on them. They were AMAZING! When we got back to the village we had a tour of Oliver's gargantuan house and met his Norwegian tree cat, Holly, and her kitten Mini. Our accommodation was bunk room style cabin, separate from the house and attached to a sauna! Really nice place. It felt like being on school camp.

Holly the Norwegian tree cat and he amazing tail, 
with Mini the half Norwegian tree cat/half one-eyed-cat kitten

The stars were amazing up there and on our first night we were lucky to see the Northern lights. They were not too active, but it was still bloody incredible. There was also an uncanny amount of shooting stars, maybe one every thirty seconds or so. I have never seen a sky that impressive. Tekapo comes close, but the sky in Muodoslompolo is HUGE. You feel like you are above the atmosphere. Every now and then a shadow would pass silently over us. It was a snow owl checking us out, in super stealth mode. Complete silence on the top of the world. Surreal.

Some faint aurora action over our cabin; not the last we saw of the Northern Lights

Mince and cheese pies in Deutschland

After ten amazing days in Holland we pointed Edwards nose towards Germany. The north of Holland was much the same: dikes, small dense towns and loads of wind farms. All very enjoyable to drive through. Shame about the big ol' fat rain and low visability. Cruising along the enourmous sea barrier called Afsluitdijk, I marvelled at the Dutch and their never ending fight with the ocean. Civil engineering pornography everywhere. Just before the Dutch/German border we stopped in Leeuwarden, a university town, and spent a night playing board games with Amanda's cousins, Lieke and Annemieke. 


I was pretty excited when we got to Germany and the infamous autobahn. Edward actually did pretty well. In a brain explosion moment I threw caution to the wind and went hunting for Edward's top speed. At 135kph I decided that it was time to back down (I'll never know how much faster he could have gone). I'm sure the engine still had plenty to give but it felt like I was driving through custard with the massive air resistance and floaty suspension. Just as I pulled back into the right hand lane a Maserati screamed past us at more than 200kph. Captain Carbon Emissions shows no mercy.


We didn't expect a lot from Hamburg. I didn't know much about it apart from that the Beatles cut their teeth at some basement bar in the Reperbahn and there was a massive port that the allies took exception to in the 1940's. Basically, we were just keen to see our old mate Hugh for a few days. Hugh is a Dunedin lad, but has spent most of the last 5 years in Germany. His adopted home town really took us by surprise. There is so much going on there. Everyone we met was really cool, and easy to get on with. There is this organised messiness about Hamburg which is hard to explain. Lots of street art and graffiti, and loads of homeless people, but it's still tidy and welcoming. And the homeless crowd are a nice bunch. I'd say Hamburg has a higher percentage of attractive people than any part of the world I've been to. Amanda agrees. Hugh had offered us a place to crash at his place, but at the last minute couldn't take us in due to an unexpected romantic development. So we parked our van under a bridge next to his flat in Sternschanze and camped there during our stay. It actually worked out fine (aside from the hassle of midnight nature calls), and we had no trouble with the law for illegal camping.


Hugh works at a little bar called Aurel and made sure we were well supplied with booze for our few nights in town. The night we arrived we went drinking at Aurel and somehow ended up at some Peruvian guys flat. He's a tattoo artist and is basically the man. Hugh (in a state of severe inebriation) wrote something on his mate Gorca's arm with biro. Five minutes later it was permanent and the Peruvian tattooist  was looking for another victim. We decided to leg it. We were tired from a lot of driving, but I was also worried that I would take the offer of a dirt cheap tat and regret it.

Before

After

We basically spent the week drinking, relaxing on the beach with a club mate (sounds like martay said in a New Zealand accent), a south american style fizzy tea with heaps of pep, and sussing out some sweet flea markets. One night we saw a French band (a pretty awesome two piece with tight jeans, tight grooves and a name I can't remember) playing in a bar on the Reeperbahn, and afterwards I tried my hand at busking back in Sternschanze. It was a bit grotty and lots of drunk girls were requesting really bad songs and paying me a few cents for the trouble. They were German girls but all spoke this weird heavily american accented english. They sounded like actors in 1950's Hollywood war films. I wish I spoke Deutsch because it wasn't nice to listen to. One particularly smashed girl wanted me to play Jack Johnson. I refused and she got right up in my grill, fell over my guitar case spraying coins everywhere and breaking a strap. I gave up busking and we headed for bed. When we got back to the van it was about 1am and there were still loads of punters out so I said goodnight to Amanda and decided to change tactic. I told her I'd just walk around the block and see if anyone was interesting in listening to me play, so I'd probably be back really soon. I found a dark alley next to a kebab shop and decided to play a song and if nothing happened go back to bed. So I sat down on some sticky concrete by myself and started playing something by Paul Cathro. Eventually some guy heard the racket and came in to see what was going on. Once we'd established that I can't speak German he said "wow your guitar is cool, have two euros, I'm gonna get some friends from the kebab shop. Can we eat and listen?". Before long the alley was filled with Germans suprised that a drunken New Zealander was playing guitar in a random Hamburg alley. Most were soaking up beer and vodka with the clever use of rotisserie grilled meat (some things remain universal), and were generous with their left over coins. I also drew a small crowd of homeless people. It was such a blast. One homeless guy brought me a chair from his sleeping area, and proceeded to dance like Michael Jackson while I busked. It was a pretty spirited performance and everyone was amazed at how good he was so they dished out some change for him too. I made about €20, 2 beers and a bag of ham and cheese snacks. I tried giving the homeless guy a handful of my coins but he refused to take the money. He gladly accepted the beer. Meanwhile Amanda was sound asleep just around the corner, missing out on all the fun. It's times like these when you wish you both had phones. Dang.

Stocking up on cheap German beer before crossing in Denmark.
Note the one litre can of Tuborg!

After about 5 days we said farewell to a bunch of friends by making some amazing mince and cheese pies. Making meat pies is easy and they are so delicious and naughty. We drove north to a place called Haddeby, just south of the Danish border, and camped for the night. The next day we stocked up on beer because in Scandinavia the law states that alcohol must contain 3% gold and the price reflects this. After a night couchsurfing and eating an awesome host made curry in Kolding (nothing to see here) and a night camping near Roskilde (where we went to a great Viking ship museum) we were in Copenhagen. We couchsurfed the first night and camped near a sportsground the next. I managed to catch the All Blacks give Japan a good smacking in pool play of the Rugby World Cup. Rugby isn't very popular in Scandinavia so I had to resort to heading to an awful Irish pub. There were a bunch of kiwi jocks being heroes so I sat in a corner and talked to two of the three Danes in the world who are interested in rugby.  Copenhagen is a pretty cool place. We saw a lot of it on foot and a tiny bit on the free city bikes. Using city bikes was like riding the joke bikes in Alexandra so we didn't do that again. 

Our couchsurfing accommodation in Kolding. Our host built
the boat in the corner for a dress up party! Madness. He works for lego.

Viking museum

The gate into Christiania

Of course, we visited Cristiania. They have a no photos rule there. We weren't sure why until we passed the first street and saw about 20 venders selling marijuana in all it's various forms. It is illegal in Demark but for some reason it's no problem in Christiania. There were a few dodgy looking groups of people there but general the vibe was pretty free love on the free love freeway. When we woke the next morning a nice German couple came to greet us. They had camped in their pimping VW transporter on the same street as us. They told us to grab a shower in the sports complex right next to us that appeared to have been left unlocked. Great advice. When I came out of the open shower room the place was full of young boys getting ready for football. It was a close call. If I had have showered ten minutes later I could be on a list of known paedophiles in Europe. Ideal.

Bowling, boozing, coffee shops and cards.

Holland is in my top 3 for sure. Probably thanks to Amanda's amazing family and their incredible hospitality. I think we ended up staying in Langedijk, which is an hour north of Amsterdam, for about 10 days. Relaxing, eating great food and drinking heaps of pilsner. After my dismal performance in two legs of ten pin bowling, I was well on my way to inebriation. Thankfully we'd taken the offer of a ride to and from the bowling alley. I don't think I'd have made it back home on a bicycle.  We all headed back to Joop and Pauline's (Amanda's auntie and uncle) place for a game of cards. Just about everyone in Holland speaks great English, but with cards I tried to join in by counting in Dutch. Pretty hilarious for all. Especially as my short term memory was vague as a result of all the pilsner. A bit later we hit the pub for yet more pilsner and a game of electronic darts. It counts for you. Ideal for someone in my state. It's all about games when hanging with Amanda's family. Bullshit, Patanque, Sjoelbak (a table version of shuffleboard) and Kezeen are wicked games that provoke more than enough competition to be exciting/infuriating. All are best served with pilsner and an assortment of salty snacks.


I tried to go for a run the next day to sweat out some of the beer... and shots apparently, I don't remember. This was a bad idea and resulted in me standing beside a canal in the countryside trying my very best not to vomit. I felt very sorry for myself, but improved a lot when Joop took us out for a spin on his canal boat. Years ago Langedijk was surrounded by water and thousands of little rectangle islands upon which farmers would grow vegetables or crops. Some of the canals and islands still remain so Joop showed us around the waterways. A great hangover cure.

More from Amanda's golden half camera. Left: The kaasmarkt in Alkmaar. Right: Amanda , Scooby and Joop in the canal boat.

A few days into our stay we took a trip to Alkmaar, a medieval market town just south of Langedijk. The centre of town was full of games, food vendors, rides and crying kids all in town for the annual kermis. A kermis is a kind of travelling carnival with some pretty amazing rides and games. Most play awful techno music and have PA's announcing hilarious things in English like "It's a super machine". Amanda's cousin Lieke, suggested we go on the Booster. Looking at this beast of a ride I realised suddenly how ridiculous humans are. Some things we do for entertainment are so stupidly unnatural. I guess that's the fun. Anyway it's basically a giant steel girder standing 60m tall vertically, with an axle through the centre and seats attached to each end. We jumped on and got strapped in, and then it slowly rotated 180 degrees and stopped to let people get on the other end. So we were at the very top, 60m in the air with a stunning view over Alkmaar and north Holland with a chilly wind in our faces. All of a sudden the ride kicks in proper and starts winding up to full speed. There's something unnerving about the sound of a very high powered electric engine revving upwards with you bolted into a seat going through a giant spin cycle. The seats also have a separate rotation so things get pretty wild pretty quickly, especially at 125kmph and 4.3g about 5m from an ancient church steeple. I think it went for about five minutes, after which I was desperately ill but luckily not sick. I tried to act cool and pretend nothing was wrong but soon had to suggest that we sat down for a coffee. Motion sickness is weird.

BOOSTER!!!!

Later in the week I thought I should sample one of the local coffee shops before trying to overcome my motion sickness woes on some more rides. Maybe it would settle my stomach? Walking into a coffee shop and buying something that is considered illegal in my home country is a strange feeling. You feel naughty, yet liberated. Cool, yet very uncool. Coffee shop workers must get pretty sick of all the classic tourist types strolling in, getting high and heading to the nearest snack bar for a croquette, so I asked Amanda to help us blend in by speaking Dutch. She basically said 'if you want to get high you can buy it yourself'. Fair enough. No point pretending I'm not a tourist. So I used some hilariously bad Dutch to ask for a joint and some matches, with reasonable success. At least I tried. I bet most geezers don't. So there I sat with Amanda in a cosy little coffee shop in Alkmaar trying not to cough my lungs out, smoking some very very potent weed. Maybe it was a special 'you'll think your dying' tourist blend, I don't know, but I quickly entered the fourth dimension and pondered my own minuscule existence. After a few minutes of buzzing out Amanda reminded me that we were going to go on a big scary ride, so we said thanks to the nice lady behind the bar and moved on. Outside it all became a bit much for me. So many people, all looking at me, knowing I was a stoned tourist, hating me. PARANOID. We had a look at the ride we wanted to go on called XXL Inversion. Similar to Booster but with a few more axis of rotation, louder more aggressive techno music, and scary lights that make skull faces. A real gut winder. In my state I was a bit freaked out by all the lights and the awful techno music, and there was a possibility I would grab the DJ's mic and say "Hello. Hello everyone. Can somebody call me an ambulance because I'm in trouble. Time is moving really, really slowly and everything is flat. I need you to call me an ambulance, or failing that my mummy. I really want my mummy because I'm not being dramatic, I think I might be dead. Is that clear, Mummy or Ambulance?". So we didn't go on the ride. Instead we tried to bike the 7km back to Langedijk which itself was a mission. I got confused on the way and stopped in the middle of a bicycle lane intersection, annoying some girls who (my paranoid brain assumed) had said "That guy isn't a local, he's obviously a stoned British tourist." But they were speaking Dutch, so may not have said such things. Eventually we got home. I had several strong coffees and some cereal then watched bad TV movies for a few hours. Amanda went to bed.

Amanda's father grew up here. No lie

Amanda's father grew up in a windmill. It's now a museum and Amanda's aunt Coba was kind enough to give us a grand tour. The sails were up so the mill was turning, although the water screw was disconnected. Those old mills are pretty amazing feats of engineering. With hardly a scrap of metal in them they can harness the relentless wind to push water up and up through a series of locks and dikes then back into the sea, so that the land can be planted and farmed. Imagining the water screw in action I wondered how important this old technology may become in the future. 



History and science lessons completed we returned to Alkmaar yet again. This time for a party! Birthday parties in Holland are great. Lots of beer, lots of food, lots of laughing. When you arrive at a birthday party, it's custom to greet everybody with "feliciteerd" and a hand shake. This can take a while but it's a great ice breaker and lets everyone know that you're foreign and rubbish at speaking Nederlands. When they find out you're soon to become a member of the family, beers flow towards you with unflagging regularity. Oom Nico's (Uncle Nico) 50th birthday was certainly no exception and we had an amazing time. Rumours surfaced of all of us heading into town to check out the kermis. I would have a chance to ride the XXL Inversion after all. And what a bizarre mix of fear, adrenalin, anxiety, fright, and awe that ride was. Hanging upside down, sixty metres above an old market square, held only by a hoop of hard plastic and your own cramping fingers is very very exciting, but also very bloody scary. Alkmaar looks nice at night upside down and flying by at warp speed.

Onward Edward

Back at work I was bored to the bone so I spent most of my time drawing up hundreds of possible holiday routes on Googlemaps. We tentatively decided that we should try to drive from Edinburgh around the north and eastern coasts of the UK, spend a week or so in the Netherlands, then slowly make our way to Lapland in northern Sweden where we would volunteer for a week or so. Hopefully we'd see the northern lights then carry on down through Finland and the Baltics, Poland, Germany, then hoof it back to London. 16,000km in total. 14 countries if you count the different flags in the UK. Ambitious.

So I finally finished work at the end of July and drove back up to Edinburgh to start our holiday. We stayed a few extra nights as Amanda was a bit sick, but this meant that we had a chance to see some more of the city. I'll say it again. Edinburgh is mint. We went to a sea bird colony and saw some puffins, seals and thousands of gannets. It was incredible, but if you've ever been lucky enough to play sniff the urinal sponge you'll know how ridiculous it smelt. David Attenborough describes the sanctuary as one of the seven wonders of the natural world, my friend Lilly calls is bird shit island. Both are fair descriptions. After a few days Amanda was feeling okay so we drove a bit further north to Pitlochry. Lilly and Jimmy, our mates from Dunedin, were living and working in his parents B&B. We were lucky as they had no guests so we got to stay in a lovely 4 star room and live the non-camping life for two nights. Pints in the sun, paasha for tea and a great game of boozey putt putt in the pitch dark on the practise green next door. Jimmy was a great host, and passed on some awesome local knowledge for the rest of our trip around the UK. 

Jimmy and I having a beer in the secret rotunda

 A mean spot for a picnic near Pitlochry

These two were having more fun than the dolphins

We spent the next week or so driving around the coast of Scotland and the Isle of Skye. A highlight for me had to be seeing dolphins cruising in Moray Firth near Inverness. The low: suffering hordes of ferocious midges. At the time I didn't realise that they were biting, infact I pulled the hard man routine and refused repellent knowing that I am all that is man and midges hate me. The real barstard is that it took about 3 days for them to really itch, so I thought I actually hadn't been bitten and happily continued the hardman routine until I was eventually fatally crippled by the burn. Midges suck almost as much as Six60. We ran out of diesel somewhere on the Isle Of Sky. After attempting to hitch for about forty five minutes we waved down a bus and Amanda did a mission to the nearest town for some diesel. She scored a ride back with a buzzy linesman who was wearing a sweet poncho and baggy trousers. That was awesome... 

Shoe lace fail on Ol Man Of Storr, Isle of Sky

When we got to Glasgow we had our first mechanical drama. I had replaced the brake pads and discs a month earlier as I thought the discs were warped. They were warped, but this was being caused by a faulty brake calliper. So by Glasgow the discs were warped again and every time I used the brakes Edward would do the Macarena. We had to have them replaced, along with a brake caliper and two tyres that had been punished in the process. So all that cost us what I payed for the van in the first place. Stink.

Since we'd lost a bit of travel time we made a dash down the east coast of England. We stopped in Blackpool for a look. It was pretty tacky and full of obese tourists  who were spending money on bad casino games with shitty prizes. We sped through Liverpool, which was basically a ghost town because of the recent riots, and camped somewhere in the north of Wales. Waking up to some rare sun we meandered around the Welsh countryside. The valleys are very very cool. We ended up in Hay On Why, a cute little town that straddles the border with England. It's famous for having heaps of books. There was an awesome honesty box book shop in a ruined castle. A few nights later we stayed near Cardiff with Amanda's friend's grandparents, Idris and Melvina. We were spoilt rotten and enjoyed some great yarns and great food. They kindly dropped us to the ferry in Swansea and let us leave Edward in their locked yard.

Panda sheep in Wales

Nice horsies on the common

Our crossing to Cork on the ferry was mint! Big waves, high winds and hardly any passengers. I don't hold much of a kite string to Ireland, but entering Cork harbour really stirred something up inside me. It was pretty spectacular at 7am, with the low morning sun spraying the sky a dazzling shade of red and the hills an indescribable green. I felt like I was heading home. It was my third time in Cork. Ireland is always great but this visit was pretty special with a bunch of family over to see my brother's brand new son, Donnacha. The party after Donnacha's christening was brilliant! I played a few classic hits to warm everyone up, my uncle sang a Maori blessing and Mike (my brother), boyed up with plenty of Guiness and New Zealand wine, performed a seriously amazing haka! A few Irish cats got a wee fright when he started yelling for no apparrent reason and thought maybe he was upset about something. Everyone was in great form. It was sad to have to say goodbye after only a few days. The return crossing was mellow and Idris picked us up in Swansea and took us home to a big breakfast and some more great stories. We packed up Edward and headed towards the tourist trap that is Stone Henge. It was fine. Just so bloody busy. There were so many gymies and jeans tourists that it was hard to get the Druidic vibe going. We found a nice common marshland near Salisbury to camp that night. While Amanda was cooking a mean chicken chilli on our trusty camping stove, some horses came over to see what we were up to. They were so nice and friendly and loved a good pat. In the morning we woke up to a bunch of cars and horse floats making a racket. I thought we were going to get a pasting by the locals for camping there but they were all very friendly and maybe just thought we were a bit crazy. It turned out that over night one of the horses had been stung by a swarm of wasps and was found up to it's neck in a river. What a commotion. The horse was fine, more scared than hurt. Poor horsey. 

Blockhaus D'Eperlecques

I was dreading the drive into London. I hate traffic, and I hate traffic jams. Dunedin is bliss. But actually the trip wasn't so bad. We only drove as far as Putney; that's as close as you get to central London with free parking. After meeting up with Mum, Dad and my Aunties in Victoria, we all got the tube over to Camden. They hadn't been on the tube yet (there isn't one in Ashburton), so it was a blast. We had a good look around the touristy market in Camden lock and went for a cheap pub feed at the local Wetherspoons. If your prepared to forego atmosphere and music then the Wetherspoons chain have some pretty cheap pub food. When I first arrived in the UK I was astounded at what £2.50 could get me for breakfast at Wetherspoons; never could shake that tacky vibe though. We said another sad goodbye and headed south to Dover and Folkeston. The route we chose turned out great aside from the 3 hours it took to clear greater London. Classic country side with narrow lanes and thatched roof houses everywhere. The midnight channel tunnel crossing was hassle free and we slept in a car park near Calais. In Eperlecques there's an old secret Nazi weapons factory and V2 rocket launch site so we spent most of the next day there. Bit of a mind melt. One of Hitler's two hundred odd launch sites for sending death to London. On our way through Belgium we stopped at a few war graves in Flanders and looked over the names. So many young lads from home who died in Europe. We carried on to Brugge where we had stayed earlier in the year, had a burger and a walk around the town then slept  in the van down a dark back street next to some windmills. We were woken by what I thought was the Police banging on the windows to give us a ticket for illegal camping. Turns out it was massively loud thunder and a great lightning storm. I love electrical storms. They make me feel tiny.

We had been to Amsterdam on our last trip to Holland so gave it a miss this time around and drove straight on to Langedijk, where a bunch of Amanda's relatives live. This lot know how to have a good time and within a few hours of arriving we were well fed, well clean, well drunk and having a cracking time at a bowling alley. Turns out Amanda is quite good at pub sports (darts, bowling, pool) and I am useless. I think I got one strike. Consistency is not my forte.

Edward Gets Road Tested

In early July 2011 Amanda arrived from New Zealand and I was pretty excited, not just to see her after four months apart but also to get Edward on the road to see how he actually functioned as a camper. Amanda arrived at Heathrow and we checked in to a cheap hotel in Hammersmith then headed out for a meal with some friends. We went to a Thai restaurant somewhere in west London. Food in London is usually pretty reasonably priced. Decent dine-in Indian is around £15 a head with drinks. So I hadn't counted on the £250 bill to be shared between six of us. For Amanda and I this meant £85 for a shared starter, a mains each (£4 rice not included), and one drink each. Hell!! $170 nz for dinner. It was good, but maybe not that good.

 

Amanda took a few photos on her Golden Half film camera. They were poorly scanned by some lazy photolab operator when we were in Estonia. Left is Paul and Mems who were pretty delighted with their £30 Lobster, and right is a reasonably plastered Rodgers getting ready to hit on our 'hot' waitress (who was 16 and had a moustache) before trying to pay the whole £250 bill.

Not a great start to our attempts at travelling on a tight budget. Suffering from jetlag and a bank account hang over we returned to our cheaper than a Thai meal hotel and slept the pain away. This was the only nights accomodation we payed for in the next four months.


The next day we took the train to Aylesbury, the town where I had been working about an hour northwest of London, and Amanda finally met Edward. 'It's a bit smaller than I expected'... oh dear. It was a great couple of days for driving. 25 degrees and blue sky. We'd turned off motorways on the satnav so we ended up taking a pretty interesting route towards Edinburgh. One highlight was Claxton, a tiny little villiage in the middle of nowhere near York. It's a personal joke. Something to do with Left Or Right being hackers, having clackers and living in Claxton. As we followed the signs to Claxton we saw some travellers (or gypsies/knackers/tinkers) parked on the side of the road with a sign up offering building and labouring services. A young boy of maybe 10 or 11 was standing there in what appeared to be nappies... that's a hacker. 

Finding a camping spot in North York was a litlle bit of a mission, I think we spent an hour trying to find a nice place to sleep.  We wondered if we were setting a precident for the rest of our trip...? Eventually we just gave up and parked on a farmers lane just off a country road. The actual sleeping part went well. I patted myself on the back for camper conversion success.


Carrying on North the next day we went through a small fishing village called Whitby where we grabbed some bacon rolls for breakfast. Bacon rolls are awesome and cheapish and perfect for an occasional travelling treat. It was already hot and muggy outside. Inside the van with black interior and no air con it became relatively uncomfortable. We found a nice beach just north of Whitby and I had a quick dunk in the North Sea to cool down. I realised it was the first time I'd swum in the sea for over a year. 

About 5pm we arrived in Edinburgh and Amanda got settled into her new flat. For the next month she'd be studying TESOL (teaching english to speakers of other languages) at summer school in Edinburgh while I went back to Aylesbury to try and cash up for our holiday. But for the next few days I was on a break. Amanda was flat out with school right from the get go so I spent my few days in Edinburgh busking, drinking beer and watching Wimbledon in pubs or on tele. Edinburgh kicks arse. I didn't make a whole lot of money busking but scraped together enough for a few beers each day and met some pretty classic local buskers. There are so many in Edinburgh that it's impossible to stand out just playing guitar. I generally played songs by bands from Dunedin, not citing any references in the hope people might think I was a clever songwriter. Some people did, one guy even offered me a spot in a singer songwriters night that week. I had to come clean and tell him that my songs are rubbish, so I was playing my friends songs. Obviously this meant I didn't meet the criteria for singer songwriters night. I gave him the names of the artists who I'd been stealing from and told him to buy their stuff. I hope he did.


One afternoon while breaking a sweat busking in the uncannily balmy Edinburgh summer, I saw a familiar face checking me out. It took a while to click that it was my old band mate Matt Bodman. Bizzare. Matt was on holiday with his girlfriend and here I was playing songs by Tono, who we used to be in a band with. Buzzy times. We caught up over a coffee on the royal mile, and pondered the odds of such meetings. The coffee was forgettable which leads me to a rant on coffee in the UK. It's generally quite average. In New Zealand there are hundreds of cafes specializing in coffee, with barristers working the machines. In the UK there are thousands of cafes specializing in cheap greasy breakfasts and weak arse coffee, employing grumpy old bags with turkey necks that shudder when their jaw drops if I ask for an espresso. It probably wouldn't bother me so much, and I may have never mentioned it if those working in cafes didn't insist on calling espresso 'eXspresso'! What a wanker I am. Getting my whine on. The tea is bangin' though.


While I was in Edinburgh we caught up with our buddies Lilly and Jimmy who were living up the road in Pitlochry. We had a few drinks at their hotel room and went to see a pretty awesome Fleet Foxes gig at the Corn Exchange. The Fleet Foxes avoided most of their boring new crap, and kept the attention of a few thousand standing drunk Scots for over two hours.


So Amanda had settled in and was up to her eyeballs in assignments. I tried to be a good boyfriend and help, but I'm terrible at grammer and all things lingual so the best I could do was cook dinner as much as possible. A few nights in I had to leave Amanda to it and head back to work. Seven hours on the motorway, one stop at BK and a sore rump later I'd made it back to Aylesbury. Edward broke some records. Averaging about 110kph/70mph and using less than one tank of diesel for the whole 750km trip left me pleased. Shame about the price of Diesel, and those carbon emissions....