Roadside truck repairs then North to Latitude 61


We got a call that our new cylinder head had arrived after only a couple of days. Unlike Albania, it appears the couriers here do not include the Donkey in their transport fleets. The heads arrival meant a move out of the camping ground to Einars Tyre Fitting yard next door to carry out the repair work.
For me, pulling of the engines head is a major undertaking at home. In a gravel workshop yard, that doubles as a turn around and shortcut for heavy transport to the service station fuel pumps, the degree of difficulty increases dramatically.
When you then shear the thread of an injector stud on the new twelve hundred dollar head you just had delivered, you wonder why in the name of Christ are you doing this. We don’t need this STRESSSSS.
But like my good neighbour and world motorcycle traveller Ron says, “its like having a baby, it only hurts while your doing it”.


A night in the workshop yard, with little sleep due to the trucks rumbling by within metres of your bed, does not leave one refreshed after ten to twelve hours labour. But with the help of one of Einars workers and his broken stud remover tool, we have a functioning truck again. Like our delay in Albania, our time fixing the truck again gave us the opportunity to meet some helpful locals.


Our next leg takes us over to the fjords near the west coast north of Bergen. Here the scenery is rugged and more like we expected to see in Norway. Fjords reminiscent of New Zealand, but here it’s on a massive scale.
We wake to the next day with the weather wet and miserable. Our initial disappointment is short lived however, as the mountains around the fjords turn up the level of water available for waterfalls another notch. For a couple of Aussies from the driest continent on the planet the shear volume of water is astonishing.
We also manage a few nights away from the small village type camping grounds. The Norwegian camper doesn’t compromise when it comes to their comforts. They all appear to have permanent sites in their favourite rural location, with the caravan ‘built in’ to a larger structure so it serves more or less as the bedroom of a more or less, well, house.


The average Norwegian must be paid at the level of your average financial planner in Australia. The cost of living here is well beyond the reach of your retired, traveling, Australian senior citizen, on a continuously reducing retirement income. As an example, four litres of average quality engine oil that would set you back forty five to fifty smackers in Australia will set you back about one hundred dollars in Norway. It’s enough to have you straining your old engine oil through a babies nappy, without the baby occupying it at the time of course.


Norway, like the rest of Europe, is a very busy place. For a place around the size of Tasmania, it has a population of around Twenty Three million, most of whom, like Tasmania’s half a million, live near the coast.


Another ferry sees us in Denmark, a flattish but neat country. That is compared to Norway, which is mountainous and neat. Apart from a very small section of coastal dunes in the top north west there does not appear to be a lot for the traveller to see in Denmark.


Next Holland, and yes, it is possible to have another contender for the neatest country of Europe award.
It does have the edge over Denmark however, in that being subject to possible inundation from a north sea tidal surge it has some interesting flood mitigation infrastructure. This gives the tourist a point of focus other than neat front gardens. And of course it has pushbikes.
It is interesting that THE land of the pushbike, appears to have no helmet laws. Although possibly the worlds best cyclists, you would think a large proportion must still land on their heads when they topple off.








With our allowed time running out in Europe (they give you six months for your vehicle) we are heading south again to the UK.


We wandered down to Southampton after arriving in the UK on a ferry from Holland. This ferry allowed us to avoid the drive through Belgium to Calais which like Denmark and Holland is also flat and neat.


We packed the truck in yet another shipping container on the 23rd June in Southampton.
As you would know, if you have been following our travels, that we have seen a considerable amount of Europe. In fact we have been, on and off, on the road here for over nine months.


Europe has a lot to offer the traveler. However it is VERY structured and VERY crowded with little opportunity to get close enough to nature to satisfy our needs. The closest we got to a wild animal was a dead badger on the motorway.


We are finally posting this from Toronto, where we'll hang out exploring east Canada waiting for the truck. The plan is to pick up the truck in New Jersey on about the 8th of July after its sea cruise. All being well we look forward to hitting the Parks over here that we didn’t get to see last trip, and experiencing all that makes the US a visual feast.