Day 1 - across the UK.

With only one slight detour we rode across the UK from Liverpool to Hull to catch our overnight ferry to Zeebrugge. It got a bit chilly as we rode along the highest motorway in the UK. The detour was to Padgetts Motorcycle Dealership at Batley, this was our third visit! Padgetts is the longest established Yamaha Dealership in the UK and opened in 1958. They also own a very successful Road Racing Team that competes in the Irish Road Racing series and the Isle of Man TT with Bruce 'Almighty' Anstey being one of their riders. We wandered around the shop for a while and then went upstairs where we chatted with Cath Padgett, daughter of the owner, who helped Greg into a new pair of boots. Happy with our visit we rode on.

We arrived in Hull about 40 minutes prior to our boarding at 4:30pm. As usual we lined up patiently with the other bikes until called forward. After boarding we checked out the ferry - everything you needed for our overnight cruise including a cosy cabin. The ferry looked about half full when we departed at 6:15pm, 15 minutes early. The buffet dinner was great and the duty free shopping was reasonable.

Day 2 - Belgium and Netherlands

After a good night's sleep we arrived in Zeebrugge ready for the next part of our journey. Passport control took ages but eventually we rode off to Bruge for a late breakfast.

Bruge is known as the Venice of the north and is stunning! We rode in on the cobbled streets of the city to market square. We bought breakfast from the stalls set up for Market Day with the 47-bells of the 13th century belfry ringing in our ears. We walked down to the canals to watch tourists enjoying boat rides. We checked out the Cathedral and then wandered back to the Market Square for a coffee before riding on.

With our visit to Belgium finished (and the sticker purchased) we are spending the night in Arnhem, Netherlands. We rode in to the hotel carpark to discover that it is the same hotel that we stayed at in 2015 - bike parked in the exact same place. Arnhem is the location of the bridge from the WW2 movie "A Bridge Too Far". As the hotel is on the outskirts of town it was dinner in their restaurant - good but a bit pricey!

Before heading further north in the morning we rode in to Arnhem Centro to check out the bridge. We rode over it before rejoining the motorway to take us north to Hamburg.

Day 3 - Netherlands and Germany

The highlight of this day was lunch! It was only at the services but was a huge buffet restaurant built over the Autobahn. Greg said that he found today a 'difficult riding day'. The traffic was heavy with many trucks to contend with. On top of this road works added to the already heavy congestion. We arrived at our hotel - in the middle of the suburbs about 4:30pm after getting separated from Chris about 10 minutes from our destination. Chris arrived about 40 minutes later after the scenic tour of the local area. Greg informed us that the area we are staying in was right in the middle of the old East Germany. Our hotel is called the Sporthotel and is surrounded by sporting facilities - I wonder what implications this might have had for the East German drug fuelled sports stars.

Day 4 - Germany and Denmark

The ride today was split in half by another Ferry trip - only 45 minutes this time. We rode through the northern part of Germany until we reached Puttgarden where we checked out the largest Duty Free shop in the world. We went in to see if we could get a sticker - after a 20 minute walk (IKEA style) throught the 5 floors of the shop, four floors of alcohol only, we left without a sticker! We were due to take the 12:45pm ferry but were early so took the 12:15pm ferry instead - no issues at all.

After arriving in Rodbyhavn in Denmark we rode the 130 km to Copenhagen. Our hotel is 5km out of the centre, close to the train station so we will have a day off the bike tomorrow and go sightseeing in Copenhagen - I hope Princess Mary has morning tea ready for us.