We left Amsterdam in good time this morning, but with a bit of drizzle. There was quite a bit of traffic coming out of the city, partly because the swing bridges were open for passing boats and we took the motorway towards Rotterdam before joining the smaller roads island-hopping back towards the Channel Tunnel.

After another 6km tunnel we rode into Belgium and stopped for petrol before looking ofr some lunch. 100m down the road from the petrol stop was a cafe, but it was shut. As I was talking to a local who was directing us to another place a man came running down the road holding my tank bag which I had left at the petrol station! This reminded of me of the night before we left 3 months ago where I did the same thing - must be getting close to home!

We managed to avoid the showers most of the afternoon and just got caught in one as we arrived at the Channel Tunnel terminal. There was another biker joining the train as well who was over visiting friends in Belgium for a long weekend from Somerset. He asked "Are you two over for the weekend then?". Ed replied "Errrr, not quite, no!"

We popped up in England shortly afterwards into the glorious sunshine. Just a couple of miles around the corner and we were welcomed back by Alex and John, back where we had stayed on day 2. They had another couple of visitors (Alan and Jan) staying with them and the 6 of us shared a wonderful homecoming meal and drank wine over travelling stories.

We have run out of superlatives to describe hospitality now, but I suppose the biggest compliment and thanks we can pay to Alex and John is to say that it felt like coming home. John even lent us some local currency to pop down the road to the pub for a pint. Ed and I sat at the same table that we had done 3 months ago and reflected on the trip. 100 miles or so to Brighton tomorrow and we will have actually completed the loop we planned, on schedule and with only a slight adjustment in Scandinavia.

I've forgotten how many miles we did today, but it was 275ish!

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After a stroll around town and a beer we met up with Mclean and his lovely girlfriend Alex for a chin-wag over a meal and some wine. Even at this late stage of the journey we are still surprised and amazed by the friendliness of strangers and I'm sure we'll be seeing them again at some point, hopefully Mclean, Ed and I can sort out a ride some day.

For dessert we had some glasses of whipped sorbet with vodka and champagne that were absolutely delicious!

On the way home I saw a couple of girls clutching a map, clearly lost and had been for some time as they were shivering, so went over to help. They showed me on the map where they wanted to get to, and I pointed out where we were.

"So, just left here is Dam square, and right is the direction you want. Keep walking for 5-10 minutes and you'll be there."
"Okay, so left: Dam square, right: our hotel. Thanks."

As I walked away I turned around to see them walking left!

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We stopped for lunch just before the border with the Netherlands and the friendly Dutch waiter put the formula one on the tv for us!

Over the border the landscape flattened almost immediately to the stereotypical Dutch flats. Around an hour North of Amsterdam we reached the Dam separating the North Sea from the Ijsselmeer. This was something else: a 15 mile dam with an embankment on one side, the road stretching as far as you can see into the distance and water to your left for as far as you can see. Halfway along we stopped and got a view from the embankment. Quite strange to have water at different levels on either side!

We enjoyed the ride through the canal-side streets of Amsterdam and checked into our apartment for 2 nights. As we unloaded our things a guy called Mclean came over to chat with us. He's a Texan guy who is living and working in Amsterdam and has a big Harley. We'll be meeting up for a beer and a bike chat before we leave I think!

323 miles today takes us to 15 965 and we're off to the channel tunnel on Tuesday.

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We set off from Lemvig this morning in beautiful sunshine again as we headed down the west coast of Denmark. There are some beautiful nature reserves on the coast and a few thin spits of land sheltering lagoons again. For stretches 10 miles long or so we were riding at the foot of huge sand dunes/banks on one side (facing the sea) and on the other side of the road a big lagoon. Lots of wildlife around as well, plenty of people out enjoying the weather and a fair few insects found our visors too! There were also lots of bikers to wave to.

Shortly after lunch we made it over the border into Germany. At a petrol stop we found a German fella with a fifty year old BMW bike and a couple of friendly petrol attendants. The girl was understandably helpless against our charms and fantastic German.

Back on the road we noticed a more forested and undulating landscape than Denmark and enjoyed the small roads south towards Hamburg. We also noticed that virtually all of the traffic lights were switched off, so either someone hasn't paid the bills, they're rethinking all of their junctions or they're conducting a huge social experiment,

In Hamburg we parked up on a partially pedestrianised street to find a room for the night. Every other shop seemed to be a kebab shop ('kebaps' here) or an adult DVD shop and all the hotels were pretty full as there is a marathon tomorrow, but we got a place without too much trouble.

270 miles makes 15 642 total.

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We said goodbye to Fleur as she went off to work at school and Jacob took us 60 miles or so up to the Northern tip of Denmark where the North sea meets the Baltic sea. It's around a km walk along the sand to the very tip which was okay, but on the way back we nearly got heat exhaustion with the midday sun in our faces and fully geared up!

After 10 minutes in the shade partially stripped we set off for a place to have lunch and top up on water before riding South.

An hour later we said thanks and farewell to Jacob and wound our way around to the beautiful West coast, water on both sides often and really vibrant green fields and blue skies.

At another short ferry crossing another helpful Dane let us know we had missed the last ferry by 30 minutes, so we turned around and took the long route. At a place called Lemvig at around 8pm we decided to call it a day as we were both exhausted, so we found a hotel and a pub for some food before hitting the sack.

259 miles today!

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A few miles down the road we came across another impressive bridge crossing similar to the Malmo one with a 6 mile high suspension bridge and 4 miles of a lower arched bridge which took us onto the Jutland peninsula which makes up the bulk of Denmark.

After a few miles heading North on the motorway we turned off and took some nice small coastal roads. The countryside was very green and lush and there is an awful lot of farming and fields which might explain why everywhere smells of cowpats! We think it's muck spreading season!

Up the coast nearing Aalborg we boarded a ferry for the quick hop to the other side of a long inlet and got some petrol on the other side. There we met up with Jacob, another Fazer rider who I got in contact with on an online forum (not that sort of forum!). He had kindly offered a place for us to stay for the night, so we took him up on the offer. His Fazer looked factory-fresh next to Frazza! The three of us rode the last 10 miles or so to his place together and when we got there met his wife Fleur and Max their little 6month old Terrier.

We said the other day that we were impressed with the frendliness of the Danes, but Jacob and Fleur set a new standard. We spent the evening chatting about the bikes, the trip, how they met etc and they plied us with beers, cooked for us on the barbeque and then got out the wine, champagne and whiskey! We went to bed eventually!

275 miles today.

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The main road made its way down the coast and we got some great views over the sea. We stopped for a quick look in a national park on the coast and walked up a sand dune (leaving our bikes in the car park this time!) to get an even better perspective and figured it was a good time for lunch at the nearby cafe.

Not long after that (and after passing through a small shower) we arrived at the border between Sweden and Denmark, separated by the Øresund Straight. There's now a bridge linking Malmo to Copenhagen and it's very impressive. We rode along it as a ferry passed underneath us and 6 miles after it started we plunged underground for 4 miles in a tunnel.

We popped up on the outskirts of the city and headed in. The traffic was slightly heavier here, but like most countries we've been in recently the towns and cities are much less car-centric than British ones and there were big, segregated joined-up cycle routes which were being used well.

We found a hotel in the centre of town easily and headed to the Tivoli theme park just around the corner. A big, colourful and well kept park right in the middle of the city that has been around for over 100 years. We had a lot of fun on the rollercoasters and got a great view from the top of a massively high spinning swing ride. We've found the Danes to be very friendly as well.

Local tucker tonight (wagamamas!) and back for bed.

205 miles today.

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After breakfast we drifted through some of the bustling city streets and found our way to the Konstmuseet (basically the city art museum) and enjoyed some of the exhibitions there.

The museum was good, but we found the human art around the streets of Göteburg even better and enjoyed a lovely lunch in a cafe close by to the museum. We then tried to find an internet cafe somewhere to upload some photos on to the blog, which proved pretty much impossible as nowhere had computers which allowed USB connections! Another day for that then.

It was dinner time by now, so we ventured out towards a restaurant recommended in the Lonely Planet guide. As we were looking for it we happened across Cheers Bar which was showing the Arsenal Vs Liverpool game and decided we would have a drink and watch 10 minutes of that. We got talking to a Swedish guy who was so in love with Liverpool it was quite scary, he even had an agreement with his boss where if they ever lost he would not work the next day! Committed. (he should be!)

After the drink we walked across the road to a Spanish Tapas restaurant and luckily managed to catch the end of the game there whilst enjoying some delicious food.

Back on the road again tomorrow.

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We were aiming to leave nice and early this morning as it was a bit of a trek down to Gotëburg, but true to form we arose around 09:30 and after a lovely breakfast out in the sun on Jamie and Paulina's terrace plus loading up the bikes with all the kit (we were a bit out of practice) it was about 12:30pm by the time we were set to go! On top of this Roger decided to throw a bit of a wobbly and wouldn't start! After realising it was just a flooded engine all it took was a fast run down a rather fortuitously placed hill for him to splutter into action!

So we ended up setting off at 13:00 hours, heading out of the lovely Stockholm on the E20 which would take us all the way. It was superb to be back in the saddle after virtually 2 weeks under other people's steam and with the glorious sunny weather this made the whole experience even better. After 100 miles we stopped for a bite to eat and petrol at a very nice service stop, the food was high quality and impressed Mr Leaver no end! (they had fresh cut-your-own bread and vinegar for a start!)

Then it was back on the road to get the remaining 200 miles done. The scenery was pleasant and was mainly tall trees lining the road and we actually passed in between two large lakes but unfortunately we were not close enough to take in these views. There was a lot of wildlife around and at one point an Eagle soared over the top of us carrying a snake it had picked up for afternoon tea!

One more petrol and tea stop on the way at an initially quiet petrol station that suddenly got overwhelmed with old dears when a coach turned up and we were in Göteburg/Gothenburg. We chose a nice good-value hotel in the centre of town overlooking a canal and off we went for food and drinks.

We also went to a club-bar afterwards with a really good DJ and loads of beautiful women we didn't talk to. A bloke nearly tripped over and fell on Ed at one point and he said "I'm sorry! I almost, er, trembled all over you!". I don't know what he meant, but that sounds disgusting!

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After that we went to the National Gallery and saw a lot of Edvard Munch paintings amongst others. The Scream is obviously a brilliant piece of work and a version was on display, but we didn't know much about his other works and to be honest found them to be largely underwhelming simple portraits. Maybe that's just us!

We also took a look around the castle and fortress which appear to have the most easily defeatable defensive walls of any fortress.

Just round the corner from the castle was a newly developed quay-side area of cafés which was very pleasant to spend a few hours in and grab done dinner before we made our way over to the bus terminal. We had wanted to get an overnight train to Stockholm, but it turns out that there was only one train per day at an inconvenient time, so we ended up on a coach.

The coach was unfortunatley considerably less comfortable than the one to Tromsø and we got less than an hours sleep on a 7 hour journey. Back on the bikes tomorrow thank goodness!

Sent from my iPod

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After a few more hours whiling away the hours in the sun we arrived in Bergen and said farewell to our home for the past four days. Bergen was a beautiful place to walk through with mountains, trees and water surrounding it and lovely buildings, cobbled streets and open parks.

Just a flying visit though as we jumped on a train to Oslo. Again the scenery was absolutely stunning, initially lakeside, then twisting up the mountains, then passing ski resorts with 2 metres of snow. It was very reminiscent of the Canadian Rockies and may have been a struggle for the bikes in places again.

We got to Oslo late, but found a good hotel/hostel close to the station quickly and got a room with a DVD player! Borrowed a Bond film and headed upstairs for the night.

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The daily program which is given out each day details some of the main attractions for the day as well as highlighting the port stops. We read this over breakfast and the day had considerably less stops than the previous. This is good for our progress down the coast, but the stops are also a welcome change from the ship and help break up the day a little.

The sun was out in force today and some time could therefore be spent on the sun deck of our ship and as the general air temperature is slowly rising as we head South you could quite easily stay out for hours.

Towards the end of the day we pulled into the rather American looking town of Molde. Here we jumped off and had a bit of wander round. We hoped back on the boat an hour later and as we were pulling out the North bound Hurtigruten called the Richard With was pulling in. As it came alongside us some of our crew had gathered some towels together and started waving them furiously whilst making red Indian warbling noises at the same time. Of course we both joined in!

Look - the steepest road in the world!

The rest of the evening pretty much went along the same lines as the night before. Beer and yahtzee!

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This morning we again had breakfast amongst stunning views slowly passing by through the window. We'd sailed out of the Arctic Circle early in the morning and whilst there was still a lot of snow on the peaks there was noticeably less by the shoreline.

We went ashore a little later and grabbed some supplies from the supermarket. We also used the Wi-Fi in a bank to hurriedly finish the blog entry and fire it off.

The afternoon was spent amongst lots of books, music and yahtzee. We started to make friends with our boat, the Nordstjernen too - I had banged my head at least five times yesterday on doorways, ceilings and such-like but today nothing!

We had some dinner onboard in the evening and were just finishing as we docked in Rørvik alongside a Northbound Hurtigruten called the Finnmarken. Some of the passengers came aboard our ship to have a look around and we felt like a museum exhibit as they walked past grinning and taking photos of the ship. In fact we got a little defensive of our girl! We did the same thing and went to have a look at the Finnmarken and immediately felt very jealous. It's an enormous, plush, airy 15 000 tonne floating luxury hotel (ours is 2 600 tonnes to compare). Amongst the 8 decks are Internet cafes, Wi-Fi, jacuzzis, heated outdoor pools, gyms, saunas and lots of bars. And worst of all it wouldn't have cost us any more to get on a ship like this, maybe even a little less.

Still, we went back to ours and consoled ourselves with the fact that it was now the Summer schedule on the Hurtigrutens and ticket prices had trebled for some cabins, so whilst we ended up on the smallest, oldest, unequipped ship of the fleet from Tromsø due to our lack of planning at least we got tickets two days before they went up in price!

We played yahtzee and drank beer until the early hours as the rest of our boat said goodnight and went to bed.

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We awoke to the bright sunshine and some of the most amazing views we have ever seen. We had traveled around 100miles over night through some of the many islands just off the Norwegian coast. As we enjoyed breakfast, we took in some of the beautiful scenery of the snow capped mountains lining both sides of our route. Not a bad way to start the day!

As mentioned previously our boat is relatively small (we later found out that it is in fact the smallest in the fleet and the oldest, having been constructed in 1956!) so there is no sauna or jacuzzi to help us while away the hours on board. So a good old fashioned bit of reading was the plan for most of the day, interrupted by the odd trip outside and various scheduled stops in ports.

Just after lunch we docked at Stokmarknes where there was a Hurtigruten museum we could all have a look round. We almost held the boat up departing as we were too busy using the free Wi-Fi in the museum to write and send days 70&71!

We have also acquired a Yahtzee set and managed to get through quite a number of games in amongst all the reading! The shouts and whooping maybe starting to annoy some of the other passengers, but it keeps us entertained!

There was a planned excursion at one point in the afternoon which took anyone who wanted to pay to go aboard another smaller boat to go and see some Sea Eagles, we were a little bit tight to pay but fortunately the smaller boat came in to view at one point dragging an Eagle along with it. So we managed to see one anyway!

For dinner we once again disembarked from the boat, this time in Svolvær and found a nice restaurant to enjoy a rather expensive meal in. About 58quid for two main courses and two beers! As usual we left it until the last moment to get back on board! I think the crew have now clocked us and will be advising us we should be back 10minutes earlier than everyone else!

Up to bed time we continued with our Yahtzee championship and enjoyed a couple of beers. (not the price though!)

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The centre also had an aquarium with some bearded seals who were being fed, entertained and examined by a couple of rather scrumptious handlers. If it wasn't for the fact that the water was 4 deg C we'd have bally-well joined them! (I think all the Blackadder we watched in Stockholm has affected us!)

No sign of the northern lights yet - a friendly local last night told us the air had to be cold and dry. The cold had arrived but not the dry yet!

The northern lights - a lovely photo someone else took!

The following day we were at a bit of a loose end and the bar lady in the local pub must have got bored of the sight of us, but we found the cinema and watched Slumdog Millionaire in English!

We boarded the boat in blizzard conditions in the evening and sadly it was considerably smaller than the one that had docked the other evening that we looked around, so there was no jacuzzi and only about 10 other people! We settled down in our cabin above the engines and were shaken to sleep!

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This morning we bought a couple of tickets for the coach trip up North to Tromsø. As we had lunch and waited for the bus we also made a detailed plan for our final few weeks on the back of a receipt.

On the bus we bagged our seats, unfortunately within smelling distance of a rather startled looking smelly bearded bloke. It looked like he was a tramp, so maybe he'd found an open door and made the back of the bus his patch and this evening finds himself 150 miles North!

Narvik looked very impressive as we left in the glorious sunshine twisting around the waters edge in the shadow of mountains and the views just got better as the journey progressed.

Despite the comfort and views we missed being on the bikes as this was the section we could have ridden if we'd have been able to get them on the train the other day. We felt a little like we'd lost our identity and were just another number on the bus.

Anyway, we got to Tromsø which is a small island in the middle of a valleyed sea inlet and the world's Northern-most University town. We food our apartment quickly and headed our for food and a drink. Hopefully the Northern Lights will be on in between bars!

155 miles (on a coach).

Day 69 remains copyright of the author EdAndJames, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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As it brightened up a little the clouds had that snowy yellow/peach colour to them. Halfway through our journey North and there's no way we could have tackled it on the motorbikes without studded tyres, a side car or a very long time indeed. Which got me thinking, how is the train running then? Back in the UK the trains stop if the temperature approaches zero and here we were tearing through the tundra. Well, when we stopped to change trains we saw that they have big snowploughs on the front and presumably other tricks.

Anyway, it's an extremely civilised way of doing 988 miles in 20 hours!
Further North still in Lapland people were getting around using either skis, snowmobiles or husky-pulled sledges and the terrain opened up to reveal huge frozen lakes and impressive peaks, some of which had lifts and skiiers on.

We alighted at Narvik and in typically organised style had nothing booked, no idea which way to walk, no words in the local language and no local currency. We looked for a hotel but a lot of them were closed for Easter (hotels closed for Easter? Eh?) but eventually we found a really expensive one at the foot of some ski slopes and stopped there. We immediately used the Wi-Fi to book a much cheaper place for the next two nights!

Had a couple of lovely pizzas in town and went over the road for some beers in a pub with a guy playing some Neil Young tunes.

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With the train tickets booked we had an afternoon to kill. After a lazy lunch we tried to catch a film, but had issues with the listings and ended up in a couple of pubs for some beer instead!

We got on the train in the nick of time and found our way to our double cabin. More James Bond thoughts, but there was no-one hidden inside. We read and went to sleep hoping Jaws wouldn't burst in in the night . . .

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Later on we saddled up and rode 2 miles to the ferry port and parked on-board amongst the cars and lorries. It was a huge ferry with 11 decks and was the first boat that we had been on with electric doors and lifts! The sailing was a long one to Stockholm, so we had a James Bond style folding-bed cabin as well. We set sail at around 17:30.

The ferry was surprisingly presentable as well and we had some dinner in a nice restaurant before taking in the dodgy dancing at one of the clubs. After that we found a pub to sit at and enjoyed a guitar man playing classics. Finnish people seem to be very easily pleased and they can definitely handle their drink too!

We woke up pulling in Stockholm, 300 miles later, passing the small gaps between the hundreds of islands dotted around.

As we got off the ship the local police were breathalysing every driver which I suppose isn't a bad idea. We rode the 6 miles to Jamie and Paulina's place (Jamie is the good friend of a good friend of Ed's!) through central Stockholm which we both thought straight away was really nice. After lunch with our hosts we went into town to explore and took in the sights at the waterside and visited the modern art and architecture museum.

When we got back their young daughter Emelie was pleased to see us and found our level very quickly by shouting poo and wee-wee at us in Swedish for an hour or so.

Jamie and Paulina cooked us a lovely meal and we took Jamie out for some beer with Paulina's brother Erik and took in the 'sights' before returning home to bed.

308 miles in 2 days felt easier than normal!

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We were off on the road at 12pm but knowing we would gain an hour going into Finland! So 11am really! We navigated through St. Petersburg fairly successfully until there was a slight misunderstanding as to the direction we should be going and we sat waiting for each other for 20 minutes 1 mile apart!

The weather was fairly bitterly on the road and didn't climb much above 4 degrees and when your hacking along on a motorbike at 70mph it feels a lot colder! The road was in far better condition than coming from Estonia to St. Petersburg much to our relief.

We stopped for some petrol quite soon after leaving and are still quite surprised at the price......20p/litre. A quick bite to eat as well and then to the border.

The border was smooth enough both getting out of Russia and getting into Finland. We arrived at 4.15pm and were on our way by 4.30pm. We had altered our clocks as well mind you!

Then we sped to Helsinki without drama, (except perhaps for the extra 1 Euro on the petrol!) arriving at around 7.30pm. A quick face wash and we headed out to eat. The hotel receptionist recommended if we like garlic we go to a restaurant around the corner called Kynsilavkka, which is Finnish for Garlic! Some very nice food though, but the smell may last with us for some time!

255 miles ridden today.

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After breakfast we packed up and as we were about to leave noticed the F1 qualifying on the telly, albeit in German. We delayed our departure!

After a lunch at the hotel we headed for the Russian border. It was all quite methodically laid out and we were a dab-hand at filling the forms out, but it still took around an hour an a half to get through.

We kitted up an headed off East only to be stopped at a police checkpoint 500m down the road and asked to show everything again. 10 minutes later we were on our way again.

The Russian countryside was in a word broken. Brown, bleak, frozen and with a horrific road surface. No worries about speeding tickets for most of the ride as we couldn't do more than a few miles an hour picking our way around enormous potholes, cracks, and completely broken tarmac. Straight into the top 3 for contention as the worst road we've experienced.

We got to the sprawl of St Petersburg and spent a fair while homing in on the centre and despite the frustration finally found a part of the city to appreciate and shortly after that another helpful biker at work in his van who guided us in the right direction.

Helsinki is the plan for tomorrow then, starting back West, but it has started to snow quite heavily outside as we eat our dinner . . .

110 difficult miles makes 11 119 miles total.

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I spent a frustrating half hour or so trying to put a replacement bulb into my headlight assembly this morning. I was getting angry with myself for being so inept at clipping it in until I realised that part of the assembly was broken off and there was nothing to clip it in to. I settled for the previous bodge and we set off from Pärnu into the sunshine and a noticeably warmer air.

Stopped in Tallinn for a very healthy lunch and spent a while outside talking to the porter who spoke about 7 languages and was dressed in period costume apart from his trainers sticking out underneath!

As we headed East along the coast passing more ice lakes it started raining and getting cold. Passing a place called Püssi it was getting quite wet, but rather than stop for a cuppa we carried on to Narva and our hotel just a few miles shy of the Russian border.

We had a nice dinner downstairs where there was some sort of function on and a guy placing cheesy guitar along to his backing tracks!

222 miles today.

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