Rotten rides and lovely camp.

The train to Berlin rattled all night. It shook, vibrated, squeaked and slammed. No sleep for the weary. Bikes were unloaded for what proved to be our worst day yet. The ride to Sassnitz and the ferry to Bornholm. Miles begun this days little amusements by absolutely refuse to go one meter on the Autobahn. This triggered Lars-Inge to use his borrowed GPS to get us from the western suburbs of Berlin to the northern ones. This took us about an hour and a half. THEN.... We ran into a road block. Apparently the German police, or other authority, had stumbled on an American quarter ton air bomb from the second world war. Somebody had (and very wisely so) decided that US bombs are not something you play with, even after 60 years in the ground, so a HUGE area was blocked. Just were we intended to ride after the Berlin/GPS-ordeal. The world is a zero sum game, but since somebody else OBVIOUSLY always wins, you always lose. We had to make a detour. Then Lars-Inge did not realize that the detour had a detour. So we got lost again. Detour is UMLEITUNG in German and is symbolized by the letter U, a directional arrow all mounted to a yellow sign. Inspired by an enthusiastic greyed lady who claimed that Lowenburg (a town on the illusive route 96, which we were supposed to take) was ZAT WAY <-, while we were going ZE ODDER WAY ->, I overtook Lars-Inge and begun to actually read what the road signs said. And, you know, road signs can be quite informative.

Finally we were (more or less) on ROUTE 96. Directed towards (in a vague kinda way) towards Sassnitz and the ferry out of Germany. This very much sounds like a cheap Hollywood production, but it is not. It is a dead serious, real life, blood and gut, honor and boy scouts, thing. The ferry leaves tomorrow at noon, may we be on it or not. So, the tarmac was continued to be consumed by our wheels and the sleepless night on the train begun to show more and more. I have dozed off several times and when I woke up by the WHAM from the slip stream of a passing truck, I sobered up quite a bit. We all did and pulled over at an ARAL gas station, filled up and took a power nap. I must have looked quite ridiculous on top of the box on my sidecar, hands inside my pants, so that they were kept in place and did not fell down, my Nimbus cap over my eyes and my head resting on my rolled up gloves. Lars-Inge and Miles slept in the grass behind the car wash. We soon got up and started to roll again, since we found out that we could not find the Espresso coffee powder anywhere. Miles had suggested that we should have an Espresso to ensure that we stayed well away from the realms of Morpheus. But not so. The power nap had made its thing, though, and there were no more near death encounters.

Eventually we came pretty close to Sassnitz. So close that the concept of setting up camp became a reality more than a futile desire. So, we begun to look for a camp. And, as usual, the locals had very vague ideas of where to find one. Or, in deed, it seemed, what a camp really was. We rode back, forth, here, there but nowhere did we find a place to set up our tents. There WAS a notion about the illusive camp in the national park, vaguely to the north west of Sassnitz, but nobody really could say where it was. Or if it, in deed, existed at all. Miles gave up first and said that he thought that everything we had done so far was pretty silly, that he wanted to get a room, regardless where, and that he would, hopefully, meet us at the ferry tomorrow.

Lars-Inge immediately interjected that he had seen a motel, no less. I threw up my hands in disgust at this point and demanded the ferry tickets for me and Nimmer, my tent and then set out in pursuit of the mystical camp in the national park. I am happy to say that I did not do the bad choice. The camp is situated in a towering beech tree forest. The camp it self is pretty hidden, which means that people must be on a mission to find it. You pay a minimal fee and you can set up camp wherever you like. Your neighbors are ALL very interesting, which goes without saying since they actually FOUND the camp, and you can exhale and converse the VERY fit elderly man in the tent next to you and find out that he takes natural photos with a vintage camera of leather, brass, wood and precision ground lenses that he built himself. Or the family to the left who have come down from the middle of Sweden to this very place all for the magic of it all. Across are happy Germans who, perhaps, had a beer or two to many to drink, but they really like my motorcycle and went over the top when I fired it up for demonstration purposes. And everywhere are happy kids flying kites, playing catch or admiring the wonders of the beech tree forest. This was also a treasure to find. I will make a land mark in my trusty Magellan so that I know that I can find it again, should the occasion occur. A blackbird is upset a distance away, the low murmuring voices among my fellow campers gently fills the evening air, my organic wine is almost consumed and I am going to shut down for tonight. Do I want to swap for a motel? Naw... Not very likely...

Tomorrow we are going to the Nimbus meet in Bornholm. The entire meet will been compressed and condensed into one transmission, but with pretty many images.
It might be worth waiting for...