Anzac Day in Australia – a public holiday of remembrance. This is what Tony is up to. Not the best photo angle with the sun glare.

This is Tony’s touring bike now in pieces. Khaleesi is watching, apprehensive and she is always the part of our travels that we dread – saying goodbye to her for a period of time, and hoping she copes ok. I cry each time I say goodbye, wracked with guilt.

So it begins – again – another trip after countless hours mapping, planning, plotting. Where?

Hint! Ragnar we are heading your way!

I love the series Vikings, stories filled with the legend of Ragnar Lothbrok and his Viking family and warriors including his brother Rollo, the first Duke of Normandy, wife Lagaertha and sons Ubba, Sigard, Ivar and Bjorn. Then there is our favourite Floki! Hoping we do not make it to Valhalla on this trip though!

Scandinavia has long been on our bucket list, but compared to many other European countries, it is not the cheapest to tour through. Whilst we are both still working, it had to be this year or likely never.

Accomodation has been trickier to organise. Numerous places charge for electricity used, reading the meters at the start and finish. Others tell you to bring your own sheets. I am hopeful that I have booked all-inclusive accommodation including power and bed linen!

It was very difficult finding our anchor location in Copenhagen. This is where we leave our bike bags (used to transport them from Tasmania). One place asked for the equivalent of three nights accomodation – or AUD $900.

In the end I found a very friendly guy, just a short distance from the airport, who sent me about 10 photos of himself with cyclists. His name is Chaudhry and he is our champion!

I share some of his comms below as he made my day and went above and beyond most – so if anyone reading this is looking at starting a ride in Copenhagen, check out Chaudhry, who is located in Kastrup, very close to the airport.

After many months of planning and plotting, this is our route. Five countries, 35 days cycling, 3,300 km plotted.

We will have 15 nights in Denmark, 10 in Sweden, 6 in Poland, 5 in Norway, 1 on a ferry travelling between Poland and Sweden, and separate to our cycling trip, 2 nights in Switzerland catching up with my son Ben and his wife Sharon, and hopefully friends Sandra and Ralph.

At the moment, our maps total 3,300 km but this always decreases due to bad weather and rerouting. Climbing is around 17,500 metres, but that is indicative as there is usually a variance there as well.

The proof will be in what we ultimately upload to Strava daily and tally at the end.

We hope to meet two Zwifters, Cecilia in Sweden, and Rudi in Norway. It is one of the privileges of cycle touring that we can get to meet people with similar passions to us. We treasure these catch ups.

The straight lines in the map are ferries. We have a few. First of all to get to Bornholm Island in the Baltic Sea – ferry to and from, then the long overnight ferry from Gdansk (Poland) to Karlskrona (Sweden). We ferry from Sweden across to Norway, then Norway back to Denmark, and another from one Danish island to another.

All ferries are booked – hopefully correct days!

An interesting point in the trip shows on the map, lower right – and out and back line to the Russian border, otherwise known as the Kaliningrad oblast (region) . It is the westernmost part of Russia and a province separated from the rest of the country by the Baltic Sea, Poland and Lithuania.

The port city of Baltiysk is Russia’s only port on the Baltic Sea that remains ice free in winter. The oblast is an oddity resulting from World War II agreements.

We are cycling towards the border, on a narrow isthmus – how close, not sure. If we go missing, start looking there!!

We hope to see some trolls – such as the one in suburban Copenhagen below. Thomas Dambo is a Danish “recycle art activist” globally known for his giant wooden troll sculptures, made entirely from recycled materials.

He has trolls in over 17 countries, including six in Mandurah, Western Australia. They are seemingly off the beaten track and possibly not suitable for us on bikes, but we will see….

We will likely start to pull the clothing out this weekend – we take a spare bedroom each to sort our gear out on – but we have this part down to a fine art. It is more the other little bits and bobs – like toiletries, making sure we have enough of our medicines and so on. As long as we have the correct riding gear with us for all climatic conditions, enough script medicines, most other things we can source armed with a piece of plastic.

One item that always make the cut are spare derailleur hangers – they are super hard to source as bike companies like to make theirs unique per model. So we will have numerous spare hangers with us. It is an insurance policy.

For non-cyclists, the hangers protect the derailleur (the mechanism that moves the chain from one sprocket wheel to another) in case of an accident/spill/damage to the derailleur – derailleurs are expensive and hard to replace. Hangers snap and if you don’t have one with you it can bring your trip to a screaming halt! We have had to replace hangers on previous trips. Once Tony had a spill coming around an oily roundabout just out of Paris. Another time, my bike just fell over in the wind when I leaned it the wrong way off the bike. When I broke my ribs with my spill in Switzerland, the hanger also snapped.

My bathers always come along, and seriously, they are the best travelled, most under utilised item on each trip. I feel if I don’t take them though, surely that will be the time I want them!! I am taking a newer, heavier weight jersey this trip – but will have two additional small panniers on the front too!

Idea there is to not put as much on my rear pannier so I do not have to swing my leg quite as high up and over (the cause of my accident in Slovenia last year was when I did not quite lift my leg high enough, and we both came tumbling down and I got the massive hematoma – and still have a small lump there).

The next fortnight will fly by – I have been under the pump at work with Estimates coming up in Parliament, then a politician decided under the Request For Information Act to ask for over 125 documents (1200 pages) of a grant program I manage, so worked a public holiday this week to get on top of that as we were given four work days….then I need to sort rollovers (financial adjustments from one financial year to another) out before I leave – in addition to my normal day to day work.

I will be ready for a holiday – but then there is Khaleesi – the dread, the guilt as she is so much part of our everyday life. The balance between loving your dog and wanting to do holidays is not easy. On our last trip, one of her hairs was caught on my handle bar tape – so as I rode I felt I had part of her with me – not planned, just the way it is with her dog hair flying around at home I guess when the bikes were being packed.

That’s it for now folks.

Ooroo!