Radio and Travel Inspired Ramblings

Then 4 of us from the Navy at Edzell rode and camped on the Isle of Man for the late-May TT Motorcycle races.

Above - Bruce Wheeler at the IoM TT races

 Later in May I packed up the bike for a 5 month trip and left Scotland, heading south to England where I took a ferry from Dover to Calais, France.  I started riding and camping north to Scandinavia.  Getting to the Nordkapp (North Cape) of Norway, way over the Arctic Circle and the farthest point north you can get to in Europe, was my goal :-)  The Nordkapp was 900 miles NORTH of the Arctic Circle, driving by (mostly gravel) road !

My DX adventure that summer took me through 23 DXCC countries via motorcycle. I met many hams along the way, stopping whenever I saw big antennas, and rode 45,000 miles (72,500 km) on the BMW in Europe and Great Britain.

 While riding north up the Norwegian coast in 1977, one place I camped in was Tromso, Norway above the Arctic Circle.  I was getting low on money (VERY low, only $10 or so left) and called my parents in Minnesota on the telephone to WIRE me some of my money that was in a joint bank account with them. I had already talked to the local bank manager and I gave my parents all the bank info.  Every day for a week I went to the bank in the afternoon to see if they had my money, after a few days everyone there knew who I was :-)  Day after day, never any money, I had run out and was getting really worried, until finally it showed up at the bank in the MAIL. My mom later told me they mailed it to save the bank wire fees, but I was out of money for a week while waiting for it! 

When I was hanging around Tromso with no money I met a German and his girlfriend, also riding a BMW motorcycle.  They told me about a local motorcycle club HMCK that had a clubhouse (Harry MC Klub, named after Harry the club founder).  I could stay there for free for a few days, the German couple had stayed at the clubhouse for the night. The club members didn't live there but did party at night, they were friendly and it was great that they let me stay there for a week! 

With much of Norway, Sweden and Finland remote and forested it was easy to find places to camp free most of the summer, although I was chased away once in Sweden.  Sweden is a very organized and regimented country and didn't have the same laws or traditions as Norway and Finland when it came to public use of forests (or Scotland and England, for that matter).  I continued riding and camping north.  The road across the open tundra was made of crushed rock, about the size of a baseball.  Even with the steering damper of the bike on maximum the road was so rough that I couldn't go faster than 30 mph for days at a time.  It was a constant battle to keep the front wheel from suddenly veering right or left.

 Photo above, reindeer crossing sign in Lappland (Sweden), 200 miles north of
the Arctic Circle. Millions of mosquitoes, and roads across the
tundra made of crushed rock the size of a baseball.
I carried two spare tires with me.

One day I came across two young women in far northern Norway, hitchhiking south on a gravel road (well, the ONLY road up there was gravel) in the middle of nowhere on the tundra! I was going north up to the North Cape, but I stopped to ask them what they were doing there because it was so isolated and remote!  I couldn't have given even one of them a ride as the back of my bike was packed with camping gear and two spare tires. We talked for a bit and they said they were cousins, traveling to see their own country for a few weeks.  The older one gave me her parent's address in southern Sweden and told me to stop and see her later in the summer.  A month or so later I stayed at her family's house for a few days, it turned out that she was a former Miss Sweden.

While at the Nordkapp I met Norwegian Richard Bekklund and his girlfriend, also traveling by motorcycle.  He gave me his parents address in southern Norway, I stayed there for a week later in the summer, his parents took the 3 of us (Richard, his girlfriend and me) to see lots of tourist and historical things in the area where they lived. 

After camping at the North Cape (Nordkapp) I rode east to Kirkenes on the Norway - Russia border.  I couldn't go into Russia because of the job I had while in the Navy.  Going south on a back road 80 miles or so into Finland, I camped along the shore of Lake Inari.  The sun never went down all "night" as it was still far above the Arctic Circle, and the lake looked VERY prehistoric in the low shadows of evening.  This was a spooky setting and I was quite uncomfortable camping there, but like most places where I pitched my tent in the woods it was free.  It was quite an eerie place to see.

Lake Inari, northern Finland near Russia

 I continued riding and camping south through the forests to Helsinki on the Baltic.  I had been there in 1973 when the USS New, a Navy destroyer that I was working on for 2 months, stopped there for a few days.  I wanted to see Helsinki again while I had more time to spend sightseeing.

From southern Finland it was possible to take a big car ferry across the Gulf of Bothnia to Sweden, but it cost a lot of money and I wasn't in any hurry.  I continued riding and camping north from Helsinki up the coast and around the Gulf to Sweden, down the Swedish coast and stopping at the Swedish girl's house for a week, then across to Norway to the Bekklund's home.

(work in progress)

  After riding through Germany into Austria and Lichtenstein I ended up in Italy.  Instead of riding across the Alps mountains on the Simplon Pass, I decided to take the car-transporting train through the mountain tunnel.  

What the heck, a different adventure, right? 

  Welll, being a motorcycle, not a car, they directed me into a small box car.  Hmmm, I almost changed my mind but I had already paid for the ticket.   Probably safer than being on an open flatbed, right?  The side door was left open a bit, it was light in the boxcar, I put the BMW on the centerstand and leaned against the bike.

Small boxcar for motorcycles and bicycles through the train tunnel

   Eventually the train started moving, jerking a bit and slowly gaining speed, poking along into the mountain.  And then it got DARK!  In a boxcar, swaying side to side and jerking a bit front to back, with absolutely NO light, it was instant vertigo!  I almost fell over, having no reference to up or down.  Very near panic, I suddenly remembered the bike running light, turned on the ignition to the first position and had a dim light to see the walls and floor of the boxcar, that was a REALLY close call...  I probably should have ridden over the mountain pass for the scenery, but the train ride WAS different, hahaha.

  Stopped at the BMW shop in Andorra, between France and Spain in the Pyrenees Mountains, they put on my spare tires, did valve job on BMW, changed suspension springs, installed helicoils in the heads and new valve cover studs, did major service and tuneup, all for $125 !!! 

 To be continued :-)