So where have we been?

It has been days, if not weeks since I last updated.  I feel like it is an age, and yes – I am going to use the excuse that we simply haven’t been able to find internet, mainly I use that excuse because it is true.

The internet populous land of Estonia seems far away and in Latvia, passing along roads that are barely surfaced with lonely old women picking their own food on either side, the modern world could not seem further away.

After passing through the lovely city of Riga, with its grand buildings we start to get the feeling that it is, in fact, no greater than most European Cities, it seems to be missing the medieval splendour of Tallinn, the quaint feel of Stockholm or the veibrant alternative culture of Copenhagen.

After a night out on a few very reasonably priced beers and, in the warmth of an evening, watching young lovers dance to the live band I decide that I really didn’t care about how backward Latvia was, how I will probably be paralysed in the next few hundred kilometres of bad roads nor how certainly unscrupulous campsites mangage to turn just a few Lati into 20 euro, I really don’t care about that anymore.

We have ahd some real shi t-hit-fan times on this trip – the van breaking down, not being able to find places, the sat-nav having directed us in the almost complete opposite direction and so forth.  Yet every single time it seems like things are just destined to continue upon the road of pain, discomfort, misery and short tempers something comes along and makes everything ok.

It comes in just such a slight form, you allow yourself a little smile of recognition as suddenly you are in full realisation of the fact that you are many miles from home, in another country, another culture (and another bloody currency) and you find yourself attempting, in no more than five universal words and unlimited hand actions, nods, waves and expressions, to explain what we are doing and what the other person, sat on the table across from us is doing in this town, this bar, this moment.

That pretty much sums up our whole trip to this extent, Drive, have a few problems, loose where we are, eat, sleep, meet people, regale upon them our stories (which by now are approaching voluminous sizes) and listen to their stories, go for a few beers and start again.

A life that, on the whole does not sound exciting, but yet in a way it is.  From the morning to the evening we have no idea how our day is going to go, no idea what events lurk around the next hairpin bend that the sat-nav has decided is the fastest route for us, nor any idea as to what state the food will be when it is served from a small roadside cafe that does not have a menu in English, nor we have any idea what the food is, (it was delicious by the way, though the meat was quite possibly fried donkey.)

I know none of the above answers the question of where we are now.  We have also visited Warsaw and Berlin in the meantime, but all of this is seemingly inconsequential.  Buildings are buildings, streets are streets, we are glad that we have seen, no, experienced them – but truly we are all in search of that holy grail, those few minutes of learning about and from other people and then attempting to relay our story, perhaps the greatest challenge on this trip is being understood.

It’s only a matter of a few miles, in fact the country shares a border with it. But, whereas Estonia seems to have broken free and become rather westernized – in its own way – Latvia still seems to have Russia firmly attached to it.

Point number one is the roads.  Now Estonian roads are nothing to be proud of, but atleast they only provide a few (albeit continuous) vibrations they do not require you to swerve halfway across the road to miss a pothole through which you could probably see the internal goings-on of the world. It’s like a joke that has gone too far.

Another thing you may have noticed is the lack of Internet hotspots.  We have gone from a land that is completely full of places to connect to; petrol stations, parks, campsites even town squares and all of them handily sign-posted – to a land where we have so far passed one sign indicating that there was a hotspot available, only the cards we needed to buy to get access to the Internet were not in stock, nor had been for months.

Latvia seems to have come on little since the days of the USSR.  One noticeable difference is the currency.  For the first time on our trip, and I believe also for last, the currency is more valuable than that of the British Pound.  It isstrange not having to devide everything by 10 (Sweden) or 18 (Estonia) and instead having to times everything by 1.12.

This had caused us slight worry – wondering whether prices were going to reflect the strong currency.  Yet our arrival heralded a different story. Passing a petrol station (where many drivers will get an idea of how much things are) we saw a sign advertising fuel for just 0.60Lats for Diesel. After a quick fill up, which led to the only smile from me on the whole of the Latvian roads experience, we headed down to our stellplatz.

We passed small farmsteads and villages that could barely pass as such for mile after mile.  Not only does very little look as if it had changed since the USSR it looks as if nothing has changed for many centuries before this.

Unlike many Western European towns – where this lack of change would be seen as quaint – in Latvia it seems like a disease to which no answer has been found, windowless and roofless dwellings seem as much a part of the landscape as forests and lakes did in Scandinavia.

Upon reaching the outskirts of Riga we headed towards our supposed destination and rest place for the night.  Which didn’t exist.  At all, we drove for a few kilometres before stopping to check at another cheap fuel station, then drove back the 20 kilometres to where the woman had suggested it would be, only to find another fuel station where the woman had no idea, instead asking a man who, had he smoked, could have probably lit his breath on fire with the amount of alcohol he already had in his system – he, unsurprisingly had no idea where our place was, nor where he was as he clambered back into his clapped out Audi, with another bottle of strong cider clutched in his hand.

We also haven’t gotten rid of the rain yet, it has been following us since we decided to move off from Estonia.

We eventually abandon plan A and go for plan B, another stellplatz, back the way we had just gone whilst getting lost – atleast we had seen this place already.

Now I don’t know about you, but when you order food and it comes out of the invisible kitchen and looks better than you thought it also seems to taste better. And when my steak with field mushroom sauce and french fries appeared on the table I honestly thought it could be the meal of the gods.

One thing going for Latvia is that even late at night, when you are absolutely shattered and have been unable to find anywhere, the place you do find is pleasant and the chef can cook an awesome meal, I mean it is 11pm and there seems to be no end to the food service, nor the German folk music coming out of the speakers on the small stage in the corner.  Luke and I are worried that another Karaoke night may be happening shortly, linger around just long enough for a glorious ice cream and head back to the van.

Our journey from Scandinvia into eastern europe begins with another ferry crossing, this time on the Tallink ferry – Baltic Princess.

The sun is setting as we arrive, dipping slowly below the horizon, yet the light takes longer to fade.  We are slowly getting used to this, as the light up here in the Northern part of the Northern hempisphere hangs around for just that little bit longer.

We’re camped up in Pirita harbour, just a few kilometres east of Tallinn centre.  We’ve cleaned out the van, somehow it managed to get dirtier than ever, despite the fact we have been in a hostel for four days in Helsinki.

Our drive from the ferry port to here took us past some of the strangest constructions I have seen.  The all concrete construction casts them instantly as Soviet structures, the crumbling edges and mossy roofs tell a tale of a time forgotten.

The two structures, on either side of the main Pirita road line up to look out over the Baltic, back to Helsinki and Finland.  Sitting behind one of the structures is a large column, a soviet memorial to the war dead.

Across the harbour resides the facade of a monastry, it’s single remaining wall contains holes where windows once were but little else.

Yet if you look closely you start to see the real Tallinn, modern constructions are springing up, barely visible through the pine trees and internet access points are signposted everywhere.  For a country that has only been free for two decades it has already, in some respects, over taken some of the grand old powers in Europe.

The clash between old and new continues as we walk towards the old town of Tallinn.

Modern wood and glass clad extensions site atop old stonework foundations and buildings.

Tallinn’s old town is it’s real gem.  Hidden away behind stone walls complete with round towers and gatehouses it instantly grabs you, despite the fact that McDonalds has prime location just inside the city gates.

Here the contrast between old and new stops.  There is only one new building here and it makes no attempt to be sympathetic to the old. Yet here, unlike in the suburbs, it feels out of place.

The Town Hall is our destination to meet Sarah and Valerio, two travellers with whom we have arranged an evening, again the couchsurfing network has come in useful.

Over 500  years are contained in these brick walls, the cafes and bars are lively yet, if you manage to shut them out, or just peer down an alleyway or up one of the small streets you could quite believe that this city has changed very little since that time.  Until of course the small blue vans of the litter pickers arrive to keep this small piece of World Heritage clean and tidy.

A newspaper lying on the floor, it’s headline proclaiming something in a different alphabet, reminds me just how close we are to Russia.

After a few fairly reasonably priced drinks in the Hell Hunt, Estonia’s first bar, established in 1992 – we travellers disperse again, agreeing to meet Sarah tomorrow for some sightseeing.

If ever you want to get to know a religion the key thing is to look at its buildings. The sparse Lutherian church near the east gate, with its walls covered in coats of arms – deep brown wood and fading gold lettering to the immensenly white and gold Orthodox Cathedral sat high above the city.  Sarah insists that we see three of them, and she left the Lutherian interior as a surprise for us, so I shall leave the final church as a surprise for you.

After that we head to an unassuming restraunt entitled “Kompressor” where Sarah informs us that they do the best pancakes – and we are not dissapointed, the taste and the quantity suppress our appetite for ferry buffets for now.

Our evening walk leads us out to the park on the east side of town, past the art museum and it’s pretty garden and out to another memorial on the edge of the ice blue Baltic.

Estonia has lost its Soviet feel, what remains are now more quirky artifacts that concrete monsters, the drive towards modernism is surprising though here the people are noticeably more reserved than the Scandinavians.

Coming into Tallinn is like no other city I have been to, it is a complete melting pot of different cultures, different times and different architecture.  A truly unique city that should be on every one’s “to do” list.

…

We stayed at Pirita Harbour Camping.
Camping cost us 200eek (11gbp) per night including electric hookup and toilets, but no showers.
Wifi access is included but you have to send a text to the council run system to gain access for a 24hour period.  The SMS will be charged at your normal rate and there are no other charges.

Please leave a comment, even if just to say hi!

It’s Friday, we are all fully recovered after a relaxing stopover at Del’s place and from this campsite, situated right on the edge of a lake.

We are ready to tackle the onslought that will be Stockholm, a complete weekend of meeting people (via couch surfing), walking around, having a look at what is going on and so on.

For once we are actually up reasonably early (about 9 am – ok well it is early for us!) The bright red van is packed, ready to go, we’ve got 50 litres of fresh water and nothing stopping us from the 300kilometre journey that will take us to the vibrant capital of this strange country.

I say strange country and actually I do mean it.

Sweden is probably one of the few countries where they almost “expect” you to visit at only certain times.  Every person we have met says that we should come back in the summer, apparently the biggest party is the midsummer celebrations, where the partying continues into the next morning, noon and even night.

Yet, travelling at this time of year we have seen not many campervans about really and the few youth hostels we have looked into are only open if you have booked them, not the “rock up and book in” type of hostels that exist almost everywhere else I have been.

These issues were about to play havoc with us.

So stockholm yer – er no, well maybe not right away.

We usually have to muck around a bit to get the van started, using a bit of full throttle and patience, but she will eventually start.  But not this time.  There was nothing.  The battery was turning the engine over but the engine just didn’t want to kick in.
Phone call number 1… breakdown company to arrange a truck and techie to come out to us.

Luckily for us the campsite guy seems to know what he is doing with engines, the old (antique) volvo digger in the background takes about 30minutes to start he tells us as, dressed already in workman’s overalls, he heads straight under the bonnet of our stricken van.

After some prodding, poking and more attempts to start the van we have completely exhausted our battery, but our man in blue overalls thinks that it is most probably air in the fuel system – I had changed the fuel filter just a day ago and, although she started first time then, it seemed to be the causing a problem now.

Phone call number 2… What is an LDV Convoy?
Of course once I had rung my breakdown company and told them I was broken down abroad they had transferred my “file” to their european call centre, who had no idea what an LDV Convoy is, strangely enough not many people outside of the UK have – it had already caused a stir amongst the repair garage in Germany, from where we had bought the fuel filter.

So after trying their systems one final time we (the lovely sounding Emily and I) decided it would be easiest to call it a Ford Transit, as that is the engine we have.

The campsite guy returns now with a battery charger and promptly plugs in the van before heading off to help an older couple with their awning – is there no end to this man’s talents?

Phone Call number 3… Ok Mr Gardner, we have a truck on it’s way to you, but where are you?

Yes – I have no idea how that can work either, but between a few postal codes, Nei’s (no) and Ja’s (Yes), from the campsite guy-turned-navigation-system and the lovely Emily looking on Google maps we manage to find our precise location, down to the last tree.

Around half an hour later the truck arrives, almost as red as our van – but not quite, our campsite guy has now turned into translator and is explaining as well as helping the techie from the recovery firm.

Both conclude that it is probably air in the pipes and that – with a bit of persuasion, a jumpstart from the truck and a heap of luck that the van should eventually turn over.

An hour of fiddling, a half hour of looking and fifteen minutes of head scratching later and we are still not moving, nor starting and with the weather having turned from a fairly fine morning into and afternoon of rain that would embarass even the most powerful of showers it was decided that the van will have to go to the workshop.

Now this would be fine if we were in England, most workshops are open until 5pm on a Friday, and probably open saturday morning at least, alas we are not in England, we are in Sweden – meaning that the workshop has already shut and that it will not be open until Monday morning… Crap.

The journey to the workshop takes us into the town of Skovde… pronounced “Hurvdur” apparently.

Chatting to our recovery driver on the way it turns our that he is a busy man.  His normal job is in a factory that makes shop furniture, most notably for the UK retail chain “Next”. He is also a fireman whenever his pager goes off and the recovery driver every third weekend and he has an interest in classic American cars, owning a Pontiac himself, although my memory fails me as to which.

Phone Call number 4… Mr Gardner, we were just wondering how things were going with your car…

Well yes, that was that, we had no van until Monday, we had gathered a few belongings, plus our sleeping bags and headed out of the workshop (which was being locked up) and into the Preem fuel station around the corner where we took up temporary residence.

We find a seat in the Preem shop and grab a quick coffee, the friendly attendant informs us that some of the small packets of sweets on the font of the des are “free samples”, but she had that look in her eye that just seemed to say it all, pity.  Still Ihave never been one to pass up a free bag of sweet goodness and dig into a meatball baguette, that unfortunately wasn’t free.

Phone call number 5… Mr Gardner, we have checked your policy and you have a hire car available, will you be needing it?

Well hell yer – the same thing applies to free cars as it does to sweets, offer it to me and I will take it.  After double checking the location of the Preem garage the lovely Emily tells us that our car will be here shortly, I jokingly ask for a Ferrari, knowing full well that the Toyota Yaris that I am entitled to will not be the most thrilling ride in the world.

Phone Call number 6… Mr Gardner, Emily here, your Saab will be here shortly…

My What?!  How on earth did… that’s not a Toyo… don’t ask questions, just accept. OK I say and await our luxury car (and yes, in comparrison to an LDV convoy anything is luxury, but this was like proper nice.

A few minutes later the guys and gal from Avis turn up with a gleaming Saab 95 Turbo, running on Ethanol… certainly have to remember that when we fill up.

Somehow Luke and I have turned into a family of four with a heap of luggage, and I, dear readers, am now mysteriously Dr Gardner.

I told you “Emily” was lovely…

So off we shoot towards the vibrant capital of this strange country – well we will do once I stop reaching down the wrong side for the gear stick, Luke is worried that at some point I will just open the door and eject myself whilst reaching for 4th gear.

That’s all folks, till the morning!

So, since we last spoke to you guys we have managed to get the waste tank sorted, well kind of sorted… It still bubbles up now and again but not so much anymore.

Also we are now in Denmark, having left Germany later on yesterday.  We’re heading further north and strangely, it’s getting warmer (although this may not be weird to those living in Australia!)

We left Germany after staying the night in Flensburg, a nice little harbour town.  Our overnight stop was on a small spit of the harbour, which we only found out in the morning was next to a sewage works!  It didn’t smell at all, which was lucky, for in this heat any smell rapidly turns horrible!

Sunsetting in Flensburg

The town of Flensburg itself dates back to the 1200′s and the town has a bit of a time warp feeling to it.  One moment you could be standing outside of the througholy modern invention of McDonalds, the next you are negotiating yourself through a small alleyway and into a small side street, with bright yellow buildings either side.  This old world architecture hides another modern invention, the internet cafe!

The sunset was absolutely beautifully on this evening.  Our “next campervan neighbour” described it as being almost as good as the sunsets he had seen in Africa, although he also pointed out how little the sun looks up here in the north, something I had never thought of!

Well after that night we headed off in the morning (or mid-day ish)  to find some more bits for the campervan and we also plugged in our two door speakers that we have been waiting ages to do.

Then we shut the vents, turned the coolbox on, turned the isolator to the “on” position and off we went to Denmark.

As if in anti-climax Denmark was only a couple of kilometres away. So – hello and welcome to Denmark it was for us… we had our new course plotted and set for Dalby, on the central island of Denmark.

Stay tuned to hear more tomorrow (yes, I’ve figured out how to do delayed posts)

Happy travelling

and please leave a comment, even if just to say hi!

Yes after many many kilometres I have now arrived back in the UK. Damn.

So how are you all? Anyone make any New Years Resolutions? Anyone broken them yet? Good, join the club. I hate new years resolutions, they never really work for me, I usually end up just doin whatever it was I resolved not to do in the first place. So this year I decided my resolution would not be to give anything up, but to actually go out and do something. Hence I shall now be attempting to spend every weekend doing something or going somewhere different.

Which might actually make this blog interesting… Nah, probably not.

Anyways im off for a few hours of sleep.

Oh and Happy New Year to all