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In Which I Finally Get Underway

July 26, 2006 by Mike

On board the ferry to Denmark

This, finally, is the day I finally get underway. At last. Finally, in fact. It's ben a long time coming (five years, almost to the day, since I first thought of this trip while driving a car on the coast of Mallorca, which is a bit smaller than Europe.)

Even in the planning, it seems that I've been edging closer to this moment with all the speed of a particularly slothful sloth, fast asleep and manacled to a gatepost in a huge tray of sticky toffee.

(If you know me, and have followed the tortuous days, weeks, months and years that i've been wittering on about getting away - I apologise. I can assure you that I'm currently, genuinely and yes FINALLY, getting away as fast as the MS Dana Sirena can take me. And given that I'm heading for Arctic Russia, the chances are I'm heading in a different direction to you, for which you are doubtless even now giving thanks.)

No guff here about the why's and wherefore's of the journey. I can supply about a million reasons if you want to GET IN TOUCH (please do) but this diary -- I can't bring myself to call it a BLOG -- is going to be more about the here and now. At least that's the plan.

So how did I get to the Sun Deck (attention Trade Descriptions Officials) of the MS Dana Sirena this fine day? Well, by motorbike...

Having finalised my packing about 20 minutes after I'd planned to leave, I was able to get away from my parents' house at about one o'clock. Lawdy knows what I've forgotten; I am acutely aware of how much crap I've brought. I have enough electronic cabling and gadgetry to put a man on the Moon; I expect to be mistaken for a full-blown Kraftwerk concert every time I open the panniers.

The only thing that went wrong was the helmet camera failing to work. So that's one scene you won't be able to see on the DVD -- but I'm glad it was kept private. My parents and sister have been incredible in the aforementioned days and weeks (as have many other people) and I cherished the moment of my leaving.

Pa managed to shoehorn more pathos, generosity, thought, love, emotion, insight, feeling and meaning into a note just EIGHT WORDS LONG than I will manage in this entire blo--- I mean DIARY.

Ma managed to convey her feelings, of love and apprehension and pride and care, with a twinkling, bittersweet smile and a kiss.

Sis managed to operate the camera - and believe me, she was more surprised than anyone!

[pictures]

I'm not really on the trip itself yet, just getting in position. 80 miles down the A11, a road I've ridden two or three times a week for the last six months, then branching east through the freshly harvested corn fields of Essex en route to the port of Harwich.

I love the roads leading to a busy port: lorries from many lands trundling, belching and burping their way to a single spot on the coast. For many, it's the first introduction to a new country and we know how important first impression are. Sadly, England does its best to ruin the experience, and the A120 is a single lane traffic jam running through unluvverly Colchester on the way to the sea. It makes the road from Heathrow in to London -- the award-winningly ugly M4, a gash ripped through the non-stop, pee-stained concrete of west London-- seem like a walk in the park.

But I digress [better get used to it, folks]. Even with the panniers on the bike I managed to white-line past a horrendous jam on the A11. I must have eased my way past 7-8 miles of stationary cars, vans and trucks in and around Newmarket. I managed to smile apologetically at most of the drivers, and take the opportunity here to apologise to the rest for the fact that my bike is sooooo much cooler and quicker than their silly old cars.

In Great Dunmow, I stopped off at Ongar Motorcycles [LINK] to stock up on yet more bits and pieces for the bike. They must be the friendliest bike shop I've ever seen (that's not many, in fairness) and I picked up, amongst other things, a little clock that fits on a bracket on the handlebars. It has made me stupidly happy - that, of all things on a day like this, has given me enormous pleasure. Little things please little minds, as my grandfather used to say, (and little britches fit little behinds... something that hasn't been said of my behind in a verrrrrry loooooong time.)

Rod, Steve and the rest at Ongar Motorcycles were genuinely interested in my trip. They showed what I'm coming to see are fairly common reactions from men of a certain age: half- impressed and thinking 'gah, I should be doing that'; half-thinking (sometimes out loud) 'you're off your tree, sunshine, and it won't be on my head if you never come back.'

I suppose I'd be the same way.

A few miles outside Harwich, I saw my first seagulls. Better get used to them.

And here I sit, on the MS Dana Sirena. There's a man in a brightly-coloured waistcoat, the kind even a snooker player would hesitate to wear, with a moustache that looks like he's borrowed it from Joseph Stalin. He's making a model of Donald Duck from coloured balloons. All the kids on the ship are sitting at his feet watching. I figure that's my cue to go and find a bar.

For now...

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