Ten Things We Have Learned So Far.

Dateline North Atlantic Ocean somewhere east of Iceland.

Wednesday, 2nd July, 2025

Series 2 Instalment 5.

Grand Hotel De Draak (Dragon)
The oldest pub in Holland in the main square of Bergen-op-Zoom

1. The United Kingdom is big! Much bigger than we anticipated. Even given the fact that we have lost several days from our roughly unplanned itinerary we still haven’t allowed nearly enough time to do it justice. We almost deliberately avoid the usual tourist trail traps and by taking mostly B roads we hope we found a snap shot of what might be the real Britain, and we love it. We will almost certainly be back one day.
2. British people are nice! Without exception we are greeted with smiles, politeness and a genuine interest in our travels. Sally takes every opportunity to tell people about our blog and hands out post-it notes of  https://beyondtassie.com/ and more than one person contacts us later to say they are enjoying the read.
3. British roads are good. Much better than the Aussie equivalent. Potholes only exist on minor roads and farm tracks, surfaces have excellent grip, sign posting is more than adequate and drivers are considerate of others (with one notable exception, but lets not go there) Pommy road workers though, that’s another story. They think nothing of putting out several hundred safety cones blocking 2 lanes of a busy motorway for several miles just so someone can mow a tiny traffic island.
4. Not all Airbnbs are equal. In the last instalment we described a fairly horrible Airbnb experience in Scotland but there is an opposite end of the scale. Just take a look at the pic below. No we didn’t have the whole house but our half is private and comfortable with the added super bonus of six adorable Labrador puppies in the back yard.
   

   Some Airbnbs are just better.

5. Brits love their dogs. Everywhere we go in the UK we see dogs of all shapes and sizes accompanied by similar humans. Most cafes and pubs welcome dogs on leads. We are told this is a relatively new phenomenon but it is a good one. Sally is totally in her element and spends ages chatting with the canines and even occasionally with their human companions.
   

   Two cuties!

6. Everything costs money. Even going to the loo costs anything from 50p to a pound. Literally, spending a penny costs a pound! Everything we buy is at least 50% more expensive than Australia, so stop whinging about the price of stuff in Oz. You truly don’t understand how good you’ve got it.
   

   Yes it costs money but I ask you, how much would you pay for an ice cream sandwich?!

7. No one has ever seen the English Chanel, it is totally shrouded in fog 24/7. After blindly following the GPS into a thick grey cloud we arrive at what we are assured is the ferry port at Dover and despite arriving an hour before the appointed time we are not allowed to board. Apparently the hundreds of semi trailers that lumber past in the mist take precedence so working mostly by feel we find a cafe and wait for over two hours for the next sailing. Once finally aboard we head east. There is an almost constant chorus of blaring ship’s horns and occasionally we see leviathan ghost ships appear from the gloom. Then mysteriously the fog parts and France is there before us.
   

   Ghost ship in the gloom!

8. The best thing about having once been Airbnb Super hosts is the people we meet. After disembarking in Calais we make a bee line through northern France, into Belgium to Putte just over the Netherlands border where we are taken in by Innez and Jacques, a Dutch couple who knocked on our door in Tassie about 7 years ago, looking for a room. We have remained in semi regular contact ever since.
   

   Innez and Jacques, our friends in the Netherlands.

   They put us up in the spare room for two nights, and show us some of the local sights. Jacques even takes time out to help me find a bike shop to replace my front tyre which was developing a split.

   

   The super helpful Dutch mechanic who found and fitted a new front tyre at very short notice on a Saturday morning.

9. You can tell a lot about a place by the number of wind turbines in the landscape. After two marvellous days in Putte and the neighbouring city of Bergen-op-Zoom we decide to make a determined effort to reach as far into Denmark as we can. After Twelve hours, 1020 km, and at least ten times as many wind turbines all spinning fast enough to turn your average seagull into chicken mince we arrive in Aalborg, Denmark. To say it is windy would be to understate the conditions completely. We are both reminded of our battles in Patagonia two years ago. Read more here  https://beyondtassie.com/2023/03/18/a-yank-a-pom-and-an-aussie-walk-into-a-bar/ The city of Aalborg is a delight with a very pretty harbour. The artist and architect Jorn Utzon, designer of the Sydney Opera house was a resident here and his family has a gallery displaying some of his work in the last building he ever designed, on the water front.
   

   Jorn Utzon Gallery on the waterfront in Aalborg, Denmark

10. The best thing about riding motorbikes is the people we meet. We have already mentioned Billy Ward, Charley Boorman and James Crates, all lifelong friends and all with the common obsession of motorcycle travel.
    

    This is our mate James, tech guru and fellow motorcycle travel tragic.

    Now as we prepare to board the ferry to Iceland we are reunited with our close friends, Scott and Gina Sandquist from the USA. We first met Scott and Gina a little over two years ago in South America and our shared interest and values immediately led us to an inseparable bond. If you think Sally and I are a bit adventurous then maybe we get our inspiration to actually do the adventurous things from these two. In the past eight months they have travelled about 40,000 km on three continents, and New Zealand, all by bike. Now they are going to be our travel companions for the next two weeks in Iceland. All four of us are beside ourselves like puppies with new chew toys.

I am sitting writing this in a cafe on the Smyril line ferry, the “Noronna”. There are at least another fifty bikes on the boat with us, plus about a berzillion cars and trucks all loaded to the gunwales with people and gear. Iceland has become one of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe for those with a taste for adventure. We have once again deliberately tried to avoid tourist traps in our planning if you could call it that, but it remains to be seen how successful we will be. We will let you know.