Fifteen minutes by ferry from Helsinki lies the fortress island of Suomenlinna.

A fort and naval base created as a bulwark against Russian aggression in 1748, by the Swedes, now a UNESCO world heritage site for its military architecture.

It took me some time and many steps to try to understand the place. Probably because I don’t know the land, the people,…

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I’m writing this from a terraced bar between two cobbled streets in the old city of Tallinn. A local beer sits in front of me, almost begging me to drink it. I slow down, savouring the time I have in this place.

It’s been one of those weeks.

Stockholm

Stockholm is a nice city. Largely western, with a great waterfront. There is an island 15 minutes from Stockholm by ferry that has an interesting story. I’m letting that one sit for a bit.

For me Stockholm was mostly an unavoidable stopover on the way to somewhere I’d been thinking about for a very long time.

I was at the ferry early. Front of the queue.

A dozen or so motorcycles pulled up behind me. As is often the case, Lagertha drew attention.

That’s how I met Jonathan, who was piloting an Africa Twin. Just by the way he pulled up I could see he was a real rider.

Jonathan undertook a solo round-the-world motorcycle trip in the early 2000s. He spent nine months in New Zealand in 2008, earning some money to fund the next stage of his journey.

His face lit up when I told him where I was from. The same way Isaac’s had in Iron Bridge so many weeks ago.

He insisted I have an espresso. Not from a café — from the flask and cups he carries on his bike.

Talk about prepared.

I walked the line and looked at the bikes. Most were heading down to Italy and back over a few weeks. Some were well overloaded, but at least they had someone to help if they needed to pick them up.

Two and a half hours later I rolled off in Estonia. I had to pinch myself. I had actually made it.

Haapsalu

I went straight through Tallinn and out to a small town in the west called Haapsalu.

Why?

Estonia has been in my consciousness for around forty-five years. A childhood friend’s grandfather came from here.

Back then it sounded like an exotic place. So far away that the chances of ever getting there were approximately zero.

It went into my subconscious as somewhere I wanted to get to.

Before I left New Zealand I found out a little more, including the fact that his grandfather was associated with a church in Haapsalu.

I said I would go there.

So here we are. Commitment made, commitment kept.

To be honest, it was more to me than to him. Still, a commitment is a commitment.

The church is still there. Still in good condition, though the cemetery is not that tidy. A weed-eater would be handy.

Haapsalu is a small town. A local cafe did a great burger. I amused myself watching a couple of local lads strip off their t-shirts and dive into the lake. Tough buggers.

The plan was to stay the night but the hotel was locked with nobody there. There was a message with instructions, but I’d already left.

I ended up in a modern hotel a few metres from where I'd ridden off the ferry that morning. A long day - first of many I suspect.

Narva

The next day saw me riding 230-odd kilometres to Narva, on the border with Russia.

The only interesting thing on the way was a Miami Vice speedboat and a white stretch limousine, parked in a field next to a ramshackle wooden house.

Weird.

The highways have moose symbols painted on them. A warning I assume, though I have yet to see one.

I had been told the border with Russia was closed, and it’s true that no vehicle traffic crosses the bridge over the Narva River.

There was, however, a constant stream of people with suitcases, clearing customs and walking both ways over that bridge. I watched them for a while, crossing paths near the middle with no acknowledgement, just walking on to their destination.

On the far bank stands the Ivangorod fortress, built to face Narva castle across the water. They have been staring each other down since the 1400s.

The Russian side.

I could see Russia. Russia!!

I could take photographs of it. I could have swum the river — though if I had, the cold would have been the least of my concerns.

It all looked so normal. I desperately wanted to explore that fortress.

I waved at some tourists in the tower on the far side. They might as well have been in a different world.

I walked the castle and the museum on this side and headed back to Tallinn.

One day…

Russia

Tallinn

Estonia has a population of less than 1.4 million people in the entire country. Fewer than Auckland.

Geographically it’s similar in size to Switzerland, or the state of West Virginia.

It’s flat. It’s empty. There are an awful lot of trees.

It’s also highly digitised, a world leader in information technology, with a strong manufacturing base. Tourism contributes almost 5% of GDP.

Almost half the population lives in Tallinn, a city that is officially around 800 years old, but one that has been settled for more than five thousand.

The old city is probably my favourite city of this trip so far.

The photos can’t possibly do it justice.

City walls. A grand view out over the rooftops to the harbour. Cobblestone streets and colourful old buildings. Restaurants, bars, museums and Amber shops.

The people are friendly and helpful and seem genuinely pleased to see you.

It’s an old city with a modern vibrance. Clean, functional, old, beautiful.

Under a clear blue sky it’s breathtaking. Just when you think you’ve seen it all, you turn a corner and it’s extraordinary.

I could write paragraph after paragraph and still not do it justice.

Put it on your list. You will not regret it.

On the motorcycling front — did I mention it’s flat? The only thing to note is the driving is less… restrained… then Scandinavia.

Still. New tyres, new chain and sprockets for Lagertha.

We are good to go.

Goodbye Tallinn, goodbye Estonia. You have been wonderful.

I head south. The highway is fast, even though I pass kilometre after kilometre of road works. I estimate somewhere around 80km in total, new highways being built next to already perfectly good highways. Not just the one I am on, but joining it from east and west as well. An absolutely massive investment for a small country. My assumption is that it’s a requirement for the privilege of being part of NATO - to allow tanks and troops to traverse the country quickly.

The night is spent in another old city, with narrow cobblestone streets that I am never certain I am allowed to ride down and absolutely no parking for Lagertha. I sneak around a barrier for a small public carpark as the barrier won’t open. The pay machine won’t recognize her number plate. Oh well, I tried.

The city is Riga, the country Latvia. Another wonderful city, full of life. Some of the buildings here need a little maintenance, that doesn’t detract from the vibrancy and charm though. I spend a few hours wandering the streets and then challenge myself to find the hotel without using google maps. Failure. I know I am close but in the end pull out my phone. I am a mere 100 metres away yet could have walked all night and still not found it.

I would have liked to have spent more time in Riga but I have a schedule to keep so move on, again, heading south.

I ride over another border, yet another country, my 15th on this trip. Lithuania. I had been told about the “Hill of Crosses”. A place of worship and defiance. Over 200,000 crosses adorn a small hill, placed by locals and visitors alike. The tradition began in the 1800s after rebellions against Russian rule. The Soviets bulldozed the hill and removed the crosses on multiple occasions, but the locals kept rebuilding it. It’s famous enough that The Pope visited it. I paid five euro for a simple cross and walked to the hill. It’s an interesting sight. It speaks to the faith, nature and resilience of the people. It’s rather weird though. I walked through, took some photos, placed my cross and left. I’m glad I went but there was no emotion there. Just a morbid fascination.

My plan had been to get to Vilnius however there was a music festival on and hotel prices, for the few that were left, were extortionate. Instead I made for the riverside town of Kaunas. Riding in didn’t fill me with hope. It looked like a rather rundown soviet era city. I figured all I needed was a bed and some food. All I had had was a couple of jam buns so was getting rather grumpy.

The town was larger than I first thought. I crossed the river and followed the instructions on my phone. I parked around the back of the hotel thinking it didn’t actually look too bad. Inside, modern, spacious, a restaurant and a bar. I unpacked, changed and walked down the road, turned the corner and….

A boulevard stretching away in front of me, further than I could see. Two rows of trees, cafés, bars, people enjoying the mid-afternoon sun. Freedom Avenue — a mile and a half of it, all pedestrian.

Freedom Fountain, A magnificent white church with grey domes at the far end, a mint-green 1956 Cadillac parked on a side street.

So much for the rundown Soviet city.

The Baltic states have been one surprise after another.

Lagertha enjoying the view near the most northerly point of this trip.

Rebecca and I spent some time looking for moose in Norway and Sweden. We looked for them in the forest as we rode. No luck. We even went to a park where there was a specific moose enclosure, but no moose were to be found.

Before we left Gothenburg we had an opportunity to visit Kviberg Cemetery. There are maybe 80 Commonwealth war graves here. I walked amongst them and read each one. A name caught my eye and led to yet another interesting connection.

Pilot Officer
W.G. Campbell D.F.C.
Royal Air Force
29 July, 1942. Age 32.

The name caught my attention first. Another Campbell. Then the D.F.C. (Distinguished Flying Cross). Then the date. The same date as my uncle.

Time for more research.

On the 28th of July Bomber Command hurled 256 aircraft against Hamburg. Due to incredibly bad weather and ferocious enemy action only 68 aircraft found and attacked the city.

Thirty bombers failed to return. Six of them from 75 Squadron, RNZAF, which had put up eleven. More than half.

I can only imagine the ground crew and the squadron personnel waiting back at base as it dawned on them how many were gone.

W.G. Campbell was in an aircraft piloted by Wing Commander John “Moose” Fulton, DSO, DFC, AFC, commanding officer of 419 Squadron RCAF.

Moose grew up in British Columbia and earned the name at high school. He was a lead-from-the-front character. He was on his second tour, his 66th operation, and did not have to be flying at all, but when a difficult target came up he would often relieve a rostered pilot and take the trip himself. His men called themselves Moosemen.

Wellington X3488 reached Hamburg and was on the way home when night fighters found them off the Frisian Islands. The last message from the aircraft, just after four in the morning, was: “Wounded... fighters... five hundred feet.”

When word came through that Fulton was down in the sea, the crews of 419, who had just flown the same operation, asked for permission to go back out and search. They were told it was a job for Air-Sea Rescue and ordered to bed.

Only two of the crew washed ashore. Campbell and the second pilot, Flight Sergeant Monroe, RCAF.

Campbell was posthumously awarded the D.F.C. He had almost completed his first operational tour.

In a few weeks I have visited the grave of my uncle in Becklingen, the grave of another Kiwi on the island of Öckerö that my uncle quite possibly knew, and another grave in Sweden of a man who shared his name and died on the same mission.

Interestingly there was also an Alan Campbell Williams who died that night, shot down by a German night fighter before reaching Hamburg.

It’s a bizarre connection of names:

Alan Campbell (RNZAF — died 29 July)
John Charles Williams (RNZAF — died 18 August, coincidentally my birthday)
William Gordon Campbell (RAF — died 29 July)
Alan Campbell Williams (RNZAF — died 29 July)

We never did get to see a moose.

We had a couple of nights in Copenhagen before Rebecca flew out. The more time spent exploring this city the more I came to appreciate it. A wonderful place full of old buildings and old stories.

People don’t generally look up when walking. Rebecca does. She notices architecture. Windows, adornments and cannonballs.

Yes, you read that right. On the walls outside Christiansborg Palace a cannonball is lodged in the brickwork. It had enough inertia to get halfway in.

It’s a British cannonball. In 1807 the British were busy fighting the French (yes, really) and were concerned that the Danish fleet would fall into French hands. Denmark was neutral at the time and most of their army was based on their southern border in case the French attacked. The British attacked instead and captured the entire Danish fleet. Following this the Danes joined the French in their fight against the British.

Talk about making friends and influencing people.

I dropped Rebecca at the airport for her long flight home and headed towards Stockholm.

This arranged itself in my head as I rode in England, weeks before. I couldn't wait for her to arrive. I already knew what the leaving would feel like.

An orange and black butterfly fluttered at my feet as I climbed the outer stairs to the promenade deck on the Gabriella. We were in the Gulf of Finland. On the starboard side somewhere was Estonia, though it was too far away to see. To port was Finland, visible but a long way away.

Why and how was the butterfly so far from land?

I was torn between trying to get a photo and just watching it. Deep black and vibrant orange. Amazing at any time. Here, where it had no right to be, astonishing.

I watched it until it fluttered out of sight.

I had been shown a road that I simply had to do while waiting to board the ferry in Helsinki. A Finnish couple, on a BMW S1000RR and a Triumph Tiger 800. Mid-fifties, children grown, enjoying the summer months when they get to ride their motorbikes. Just back from two weeks in Norway.

I filled up with fuel and headed north. Eighty kilometres up the highway before reaching the turnoff, and the road that stretched like a tarmac ribbon between the lakes, joining the islands. A lake on either side, only metres away, a small row of trees and the tarmac.

Seemed to be a day for minimalism.

I reached Sysmä and stopped to take a photo. This is the farthest north I will get on this trip, roughly 300km further north than Oslo. There is a large part of the planet further north that will need exploring some time, but not now.

It was colder than it has been when I got to the hotel in Helsinki. I reached for my woollen jacket in my bag.

It’s not there.

I remembered I had worn it to breakfast on the Gabriella. It was warm in the dining room so I hung it over the back of the chair. Where it remains.

Less to carry. More minimalism.

I should be annoyed at myself, but why? I won’t freeze to death. In a couple of days I will be in Estonia. New tyres for the bike, and maybe a new jacket for me.

Plan update

For a number of reasons, I will be home by the end of October. That’s not the end of the adventure and there is plenty more to see and do on this trip yet.

I have learned a fair amount about myself, what is important to me, and the importance of sharing experiences. My itinerary has therefore changed. I will be seeking the best roads in Europe over the next couple of months.

After that? More projects, more adventure and more writing.

Sweden has the most islands of any nation on earth. Apparently there are 267,570, though who has counted them is anybody’s guess.

On one of those islands, Öckerö, near Gothenburg, is a cemetery and a church that dates from the 1100s. In that cemetery are war graves that the islanders have been looking after, from the Great War and WWII (that’s World War Two, not World War Eleven).

On August 18, 1942, two Wellington bombers crashed into the North Sea, somewhere in the vicinity of Skagen, while returning from a bombing raid on Norway. The cause of the crash was not determined. Maybe it was enemy action, maybe they crashed into each other. Whatever the cause, their bodies ended up in the sea. Some were never found. One ended up on an island on the Danish/German border and is buried in Kiel. Four of them are buried in that cemetery on Öckerö. One of them, Sergeant J.C. Williams, 411230, is a New Zealander, from the RNZAF. He was 21 years old, an Air Gunner, on just his third mission.

There is a chance my uncle, Alan Campbell, knew, or even trained, Williams. Campbell was ‘rested’ by being posted to No. 23 Operational Training Unit at RAF Pershore in mid-1941, where he remained until April 1942. Williams undertook his UK-based operational training at Pershore in early 1942, while Alan was there.

It will require further investigation and cross-referencing of log books to determine if they actually flew together, if that information is even available. Given they were both Kiwis, both at the same unit at the same time, it’s almost impossible that they didn’t at least know each other. One a seasoned veteran, by all accounts resenting being off active service and determined to rejoin the fight. The other an unbloodied rookie. Separated by a single year in age, a lifetime in experience, and twenty one days in their tragic ends.

It was an extraordinary privilege seeing those graves and making those connections. Thank you to the people of Öckerö. British, Canadian and New Zealand airmen. German sailors. All of them washed up on your island, and all of them looked after.

Before we went to the islands though, we headed north. First to Lysekil, a small Swedish town whose name we have been butchering for weeks, then to Norway, and a town with a much easier name — Fredrikstad.

We stopped for a much needed coffee at a garage / supermarket that appeared in the middle of nowhere, seemingly for no good reason. A Lincoln Premiere, faded yellow and slightly rusty caught my eye. What a machine. The big V8 took some starting and then purred like a kitten as it effortlessly glided out of the forecourt and onto the road. Electric cars will never be that.

I was watching the GPS and looking for an indication of the Swedish/Norwegian border. There is a line on the road ahead. A perfect line, perfectly on the border. It’s a change of road surface, from workmanlike grey to flashy black, as though Norway is making a point to their Swedish neighbours. I wonder if the road crews talked to each other as they laid it, each careful not to take their machines across the border.

Further north we ran into more American Muscle. A gathering of hundreds of old cars at Halden. Apparently, it’s a thing in this part of the world. From Corvettes to Mustangs, GMs to Ford pickups. Beautiful cars that are obviously owned with pride and driven with passion. Surprising and oh so much fun.

Fredrikstad was once a walled town. The original town remains, with markets and restaurants. Ferries run along the river like buses. Free of charge, they provide a fantastic service. Less than a minute to cross the river, backwards and forwards, managing the winds and the movement of the water. No time to tie up — just unload the passengers, reload, power across the river and repeat. How many trips in a day? Impossible to tell. Other ferries have longer routes, with multiple stops. What a way to travel.

We headed up to what I thought would be the most northerly point on this trip. Oslo.

Oslo is fantastic. Obviously affluent. The Opera House is brilliantly designed and built. A drink in the bar on level 13 of the Munch Museum was an experience, and the burgers were almost worth the NZ$60 each that we paid for them.

We headed south again, back to Gothenburg. Not on motorways but rather the backroads. Forests and lakes turn every corner into postcard material.

Suddenly my lane is blocked by a large yellow barrier and a sign, which we cannot read. We go around and continue on our way. Eventually we come to a roadwork site. The road is blocked but we get around it by riding through the carpark where there are more machines and the workers’ cars. Feeling clever, we ride on.

Even more machines. A hole — more like a canyon — right across the road. Even on Lagertha there is no way through.

A man in a vest shakes his head and walks towards us. Not because he wants to help but because it’s afternoon tea time and he has to go past us to get to where they rest.

Luckily, like almost everyone in this part of the world, he speaks English.

“Did you not see the Road Closed signs?”

Agh. So that’s what they said.

We study my GPS together and he points out a small road that will take us around the works. I turn Lagertha around and we are off, back through the temporary carpark, past the men and their machines and that sign that clearly says Road Closed.

The road around is maybe 5 km of easy gravel. How wonderful to be two-up on a fully loaded adventure bike riding a gravel road in rural Sweden. An absolute treat that had me grinning from ear to ear.

We have been extraordinarily privileged to see what we have seen of Sweden, of Gothenburg and the surrounding areas. A private tour of the World of Volvo. A ride on Paddan boats to see the city from a different viewpoint. A tour of the outside of the massive works that will one day be an underground train station. Actually it’s three things at the same time. A tunnel, a bridge and a railway station, deep underneath an existing canal. It has a small New Zealand connection and is known in some circles as the ‘no woops waka canal’. If you want to know more, just ask. It’s a magnificent project.

All of that followed by a private boat trip around some islands that I won’t even attempt to pronounce, a wonderful lunch, some robust conversation and some bloody good whisky.

Sweden and Norway have been awesome.

However, everything ends, and we now head back to Copenhagen. Rebecca will fly home and I will head north, solo again. Towards Estonia, and another commitment I made back in New Zealand.

Three nights in Copenhagen. Two of them alone in a cheap motel, waiting.

The morning of the third I walked to the bus stop, determined to be at the airport on time. The bus only took cash, of which I had none. The temperature was in the mid 20’s centigrade. I walked to the ATM and back to the bus stop again. Her flight was forty minutes late, which was just as well.

I messaged her and waited. Leaning on the balustrade, watching people come through arrivals. Or not come through. She hadn’t seen my messages. I had no idea if she was even off the plane.

I checked my phone.

“Hello.”

Suddenly she was standing there, in front of me.

Another chapter of the trip could now begin.

There are bridges in Denmark. Spectacular bridges that span kilometres. Two of these bridges we travelled over multiple times.

Not that that was the plan.

A laptop charger packed in the wrong bag and left in storage at the hotel. Odense back to Copenhagen. Eighteen kilometres of bridge each way, three times over.

Fortuitous though, as it provided an opportunity to stop in at the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, Zealand.

Time spent on a replica Viking ship, with exquisite detail. A tour of the five actual ships they pulled from the harbour and put back together, sort of.

A reminder that Viking is not a people. It is a job description.

Real life pirates.

That got me thinking about these Vikings. Men, and women, whose lives were an adventure.

Not that they would have thought of it as an adventure. It was a job. It was just Tuesday. Just another day of sailing and plundering.

Only those that have a safe harbour, and a secure life, can go on an adventure.

For everyone else it’s just life.

I understand a little about why they had to go Viking. Having spent Danegeld on a meal and a couple of drinks, I was ready to go Viking as well. The New Zealand dollar does not go far in this part of the world.

Denmark is mostly flat. Not the greatest motorcycle playground in the world.

Rolling hills, though hills is generous term, and paddock after paddock of wheat. Wind turbines speak to the nation’s sustainable energy aspirations, while truck after truck showcases the reality.

In places it is pretty. And as already mentioned, they do know how to build bridges.

There is history here of course. Its been inhabited for a very long time.

This trip seems to run in themes. One of these is authors.

Shakespeare — no first name needed — weeks ago at Stratford-upon-Avon. Jane Austen of Pride and Prejudice fame, not so long ago in Bath. And Hans Christian Andersen in Odense.

We walked the old town and visited the exhibition and his birth house. A small yellow building on a corner, in a street of small houses, where a poor cobbler’s son was born in 1805 and went on to write stories that gave him the immortality he sought.

Anyone that has seriously read, and I lament that so many no longer do, or picked up a pen, will know that that’s not a bad trio.

A couple of nights in Silkeborg, which is a particularly engaging place. We rode through the cobbled square to get to the hotel, built in 1848, very nice, with a bar downstairs and seating out in the square for patrons to either enjoy the sun or sit in the shade of an umbrella.

The land had changed as we approached. Evidence of rain. Forest and lakes. This is the largest forest and lake area in Denmark.

The forest provided a few corners, dappled sunlight filtering through the trees, lakes as a backdrop. Up what passes for a mountain here — the Monument to Frederick. Some nice views. Again, not spectacular.

A storm that night, lightning flashing through the hotel curtains and thunder drowning out the church bells. A decent storm, not magnificent, not terrifying. Just a storm.

Parts of the riverfront are a delight. Swift currents and special canals just for kayaks. A paddle steamer billowing black smoke and hordes of ‘elderly’ folk lining up at 7.30pm, on the dot, for the largest ice-creams you are likely to see. I can only assume the price is reduced after 7.30.

Never have I seen so many clothes shops in a town this size. I am still puzzled by that.

I ordered a large Heineken Pilsner. Three quarters of a litre and half my arm.

The next day we headed to Frederikshavn and the ferry to Sweden.

I think that sums up Denmark. A place that exists between Germany and Sweden.

Except, it is more than that. The people are wonderfully friendly. Copenhagen is delightful, and the countryside grows on you. It's easy. It's not rushed. It's not overbearing or touristy. Denmark is a place to slow down, reflect and be thankful for.

Today has been an uncomfortable day. There was a visit to a dentist, relief at being able to be seen, disappointment that the only offer was antibiotics, to which I added painkillers. 34 degrees, on the motorway, standing still in traffic. Still better than my Uncle Alan 84 years ago today.

If you have read some of the early posts in this publication you will know that in some ways this journey is a pilgrimage. To test myself, to pay my respects to my uncle, and to one more thing that is not written and won’t be until the end.

Introducing Alan

My uncle, Flight Sergeant Alan Campbell, was an air gunner in the RNZAF.

He went from danger to danger over the course of 52 combat operations. He lasted longer than most of his compatriots. Served as a gunner in Boulton Paul Defiants during the Battle of Britain. At the time they were being shot out of the sky by the Luftwaffe and were soon withdrawn from daylight operations.

He served a tour on Wellington bombers, spent time instructing other gunners. He was engaged. He had done his duty and, barring unforeseen accidents or simply bad luck, he had a future, a life to lead.

He then volunteered to do another tour, and 84 years ago today, as I sit writing this in the former enemy state of Germany, he was preparing for his final mission.

Flight Sergeant Alan Campbell, 391857

Weeks before I crossed the Channel, I stopped in Lincoln at the International Bomber Command Centre. Alan is one of 55,573 names engraved on the memorial there. Panel 140. I ran my finger across the rough steel. I did a small video. My voice broke.

So many names. So many lives impacted. Not just then. Still now.

Then I rode south.

Every pilgrimage has stations before the destination. The road to Alan continued through Le Quesnoy, Ypres, and Langemark before it turned toward Germany. Through cemeteries of a war 25 years before his own, one that his father had been part of. I hadn't planned it that way. That's just the way it unfolded.

Le Quesnoy

My first night in France was at Le Quesnoy. Le Quesnoy is a walled town with a fascinating history going back to the medieval period. Le Quesnoy was occupied by German forces in August 1914 and liberated by the New Zealand Division in their last major action of the war. It was done without the loss of civilian life or wholesale destruction of the town.

There are many references to New Zealand in the town. I spent the morning walking the ramparts and finding the spot where the Kiwis used a ladder to scale the wall, exchanging fire with the defenders. 122 New Zealand soldiers were killed before the remaining Germans surrendered — this just seven days before the end of the war.

I drank Campbell Clan Whiskey and laughed with the operator of a café as she tried to understand me. Early morning coffee in the quiet town, watching locals start their day with a beer and a brandy.

Ypres

Then I packed the bike and headed to Ypres in Belgium, some 120 odd km north-east.

On the way I spotted a sign for a Commonwealth War Grave and headed down a narrow road through some farmland.

Oak Dump Cemetery.

Oak Dump Cemetery. Not exactly a fitting name.

The name comes from the war itself. Oak Dump was a Royal Engineers ammunition and materials dump near Vlamertinghe. When men were killed working the logistics chain, they were buried where they fell. The cemetery grew around the dump.

There are graves at Oak Dump, as there are in every War Cemetery, marked simply:

Soldier known only to God.

The photograph: seven identical stones in a row. All Royal Garrison Artillery. All killed 26 March 1918. Corporal A. Wells. A/Bombardier G.R. Hawkins, age 32. A/Bombardier J.P. Smith. Gunner J. Hulley, age 29. Bombardier G.H.J. Smith, age 30. Gunner W.D. Fraser, age 34. Gunner T. Mitchell, age 27.

A row of seven headstones caught my eye. Same unit, same day. Operation Michael, the German Spring Offensive, was five days old. The British Fifth Army was falling back. An entire artillery position — seven men on a gun crew — killed together.

Hmm.

Anyone that has read anything about WWI will know about Ypres, the Ypres Salient and the industrial scale slaughter that took place there.

Ypres too is a town that remembers. Even the wifi password at the hotel was ‘wewillremember’.

I wandered the town, looked through the WW1 museum and in the evening just before 8pm I made my way to Menin Gate.

I was surprised by the large crowd already there. Gathered under the gate, waiting, some quietly reading the names on the wall. They have been playing the Last Post there, every night, 365 days a year at 8pm, since 1928. A service that was only interrupted during WWII.

The service is brief:

Call to Attention

The Last Post

Exhortation — from ‘For the Fallen’ by L. Binyon which many of you will be familiar with.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

Reveille.

Perhaps 15 minutes in total. Complete silence from the crowd, except for the quiet sobs as people gave way to the emotion. A man beside me, crying, comforted by his partner. He too had a story. Loss.

As the crowd dispersed I walked past every panel, inside the gate and out on the upper ramparts. Nearly 55,000 names is overwhelming. I was struck by how many Australian names were carved into that stone. Row after row, representing young men from the other side of the world that died in that place and had no known grave. British, Canadians, South Africans, Indians. From all over the world they came.

My thoughts went back to Oak Dump. The graves of the unknown soldier there. Did my eyes linger on his name here? How many of those names have been read, really noticed, thought about, since they were carved on that stone?

No New Zealand names are on that memorial. I checked every panel twice before pulling out my phone to understand. The New Zealand Government decided that we wanted the names of our fallen to be where they fell, not on a grand memorial. The names of our boys, given over to the mud in Belgium, with no known grave, are not listed next to their comrades in arms at Menin Gate.

I’m still not sure how I feel about that, not even after visiting Tyne Cot and Messines Ridge. It also led me to another question, and another war cemetery — what about the German dead?

I backtracked my way to Messines Ridge next. This is a relatively small site, with the remains of 1,534 allied soldiers, names carved into the memorial that you walk around to get to the cemetery. This includes over 800 New Zealanders who died at or around the area in 1917 and 1918, and who have no known graves.

You stand on that land and look over the surrounding countryside. The few metres in height that it offers explains why it was fought for so hard.

Tyne Cot was next. This is a large and one of the most well-known Commonwealth War Graves. There are 34,991 names carved into the walls and 11,954 graves to walk around. A woman’s voice solemnly reads the names of the fallen. 520 New Zealanders are on those walls. Wellington, Otago, Auckland, from towns and cities all over the young nation of New Zealand.

Commonwealth graves, for all their horror, have a certain grandness about them. They honour the dead, the individuals who gave their lives. Unto God, Never Forgotten, We Will Remember. These are the phrases that make these places familiar. They are invariably beautifully kept. A fitting tribute for the men that sacrificed their lives.

Langemark

Langemark is a German war grave. More than 44,000 German soldiers are buried there, almost 25,000 of them in a single mass grave. Langemark is different. There are no individual headstones here. No honouring. No, ‘we will remember’. No God. Just a few simple stone crosses scattered amongst the dark foreboding trees, which strangely provide a sense of peace.

Mass grave after mass grave. 68 bronze panels, names engraved either side to mark the largest.

No glory. No honour. Just the dead.

What makes these young men different from ours? Simply that one side won and the other lost. A loss further complicated by the horror that was to come just a few decades later.

Still pondering the last few days, I rode to Amsterdam. It was a relief to spend a few days in this vibrant city with its canals and bars. I spent half a day riding around on a pushbike, which reconfirmed for me that motorbikes are the superior form of transportation. Then I headed south again, to a city I had read about for years.

Cologne

I arrived late afternoon and wandered to the river. The Rhine. Walked across the bridge, over 400 metres. The centre fence that runs parallel to the adjoining train track is completely covered with padlocks upon padlocks. An enormous amount of steel. I wondered if the structural engineers had accounted for that when they designed the bridge.

I found myself having a beer and then an Aperol Spritz on the far riverbank, looking over the river at the Cologne Cathedral.

My uncle probably saw the spire. If not the spire, he would have certainly seen the river on his six bombing runs against this city. One of the most targeted cities in Germany. The Cathedral hit, blackened and still standing defiant. A Cathedral that took 632 years to build, survived the deadliest conflict in history and now provides a backdrop for me while I drink my Aperol.

I thought about it some more. Alan and so many others fought and sacrificed for simple moments like this. So that people could sit in peace, enjoy a drink, go about their lives without fear.

I like what I have seen of Cologne so far.

A modern city with antiquity at its heart, a museum and the cathedral and a river. A river whose name is endemic through history books about Europe.

The train station has an entire shop dedicated to Moleskine journals.

Imagine that.

The next morning is cloudy. Only the slightest hint of the sun. It’s still, just the faintest of movement in the leaves of the maple trees that grow amongst the tables where people eat and drink on the banks of the Rhine, a few hundred metres from the Cathedral.

It’s warm, even though the waitress asked if I wanted to sit near a heater. I politely declined.

Continental breakfast. Meat, cheese, buns, jam and liverwurst — which I tried but didn’t especially enjoy.

A big cup of black coffee — double shot. The waitress surprised when I asked for another.

Of all the places I have been, this is the most significant and probably the most pleasing. The easiest.

I feel comfortable here. Why would a Kiwi feel comfortable in Cologne? I have no idea.

Later I took a boat ride on the river, learned more about the history of Cologne. It goes back to Roman times. WWII was just a passing moment for this ancient city.

From Cologne I headed to Bremen, another city that featured in my reading.

Bremen

My notes simply say:

Two days I have spent in this place. Pleasant enough though there has been rain, and it’s cooler than summer should be.

Bremen has its share of street sleepers, beggars and drug addicts.

Despite being targeted for bombing during the war it also has its fair share of old buildings and churches in the centre.

The walk along the river is charming, a good place to get a coffee and slow down.

Bremen is a mixture of old-world charm and modern living.

My uncle flew at least two raids against this city. I am privileged to have enjoyed a couple of days here.

From Bremen, to one of the reasons this trip took place.

To Becklingen War Cemetery

8:45am, riding out of Bremen.

I am riding out of Bremen after a couple of days off the bike. It feels good to be moving.

It’s 19°C. A cloudy day. Some blue sky but no heat in sun. A small breeze rustles the trees on the side of the motorway.

I am cruising literally. The cruise control is on. Lagertha is beautifully balanced, and for once my packing seems to have worked. I take my hands off the bars and she stays straight and true. Almost. There is the slightest tendency to wander left. Maybe it’s the breeze, or the camber in the road. Riding at 100 km/h with no hands is wonderfully refreshing.

I am catching up to trucks, caravans and campervans. I play a game. Can I get around them without using my hands, without touching the bars, not having to speed up or slow down because of cars racing behind me in the fast lane?

Often I need to overtake to allow room for following cars, accelerating into the left lane and then back into the right. Sometimes they don’t come quite fast enough and I am forced to slow down to let them past, before swinging in behind them to pass whatever is blocking my way.

I whisper to Lagertha that since we are in Germany she should identify as a BMW. She agrees, so I don’t even have to use the indicators.

Stupid, dangerous? Not really. A stable bike, good roads, minimal risk.

Satisfaction factor very high.

And Lagertha — the Husqvarna Norden 901 Expedition that is my companion on this journey — engage your Jeremy Clarkson voice:

“What a machine!”

From Becklingen War Cemetery

I ride through the forest and back on to the autobahn. Destination Stade.

I am doing around 110 km/h. The truck in front of me is doing maybe 5 km/h. Distance closing rapidly.

My brain is still processing as I move the bike to the left, seeking salvation in the fast lane.

Traffic in the fast lane is screeching to a halt. Not something I want to get mixed up in.

Two fingers on my right hand are squeezing the brake, hard but not yet to its full extent. I want to save something, and I don’t want the ABS to engage. Not yet.

Already I have squeezed the clutch, jammed the gear lever from 6th to 4th and released the clutch. The engine howls in protest, but we are a team and need to work together.

The front forks are compressing, a lot. I have the rear brake depressed as hard as I can. I want the rear stable, low, not lifting, and putting more weight on the few square cm of Continental rubber that is gripping the tarmac as the front tyre does its job.

I shift the bike to the right, looking for the shoulder or run-off. Distance still closing.

The bike has a small tail light and my rackless Mosko bags do their best to hide it. My right thumb jabs the hazard button, lighting up all the indicators. It’s a practiced move rather than instinctive, but I’m pleased how easy it comes.

I can see the big red station wagon in my mirrors. Probably an Audi. He must have seen the situation fractionally before me. His nose is down, obviously braking hard, but he has increased the distance between us. Good man. I see his hazards come on as well.

At least I only need to worry about one direction now.

A quarter of a second later I have more options, including the one I should have always had — being able to stop before I slammed into the truck.

The traffic ahead starts to move, gaps open on the left. I am down to 10 km/h, back to accelerating and working my way through the traffic.

The moment is over.

I ponder how amazing the human mind and body is. We are not made for the speed of the machines that we control, yet millions of times every day drivers react fast and decisively to avoid catastrophe. It’s pretty cool.

Of course, sometimes we aren’t fast enough. But that’s not me. Not today.

I laughed in my helmet. Dying this close to Becklingen War Cemetery would be somewhat ironic.

Note for Mum: As dramatic as this sounds, I was always confident that the big brakes and Bosch ABS system would pull me up in time if I really needed it to.

Becklingen War Cemetery

The cemetery is different to what I expected. But I didn’t really know what I was expecting. It’s in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by farmland, a single farmhouse opposite. Becklingen is the final resting place of 2,086 souls. Many of them, like my uncle, in common graves. He lies with the crew that flew with him that night, 84 years ago to the day.

I am possibly the only person ever to have specifically visited Alan Campbell’s (Flight Sergeant 391857) grave.

Dad travelled many years ago, but I don’t know that he came here. I never asked.

There’s lots that doesn’t get said between fathers and sons. Can’t live your life with regrets, but you can learn lessons.

It’s been a long time getting here. Years really.

I sit on the grass in front of Alan’s headstone. He is flanked by the headstones of those that he flew and died with. All young, the eldest just 28. Three of them, including Alan, 22 years old.

I had a bit of a chat to him, asked him some questions.

Why did you volunteer for another tour? You had done your bit, you were safe.

It was a rather one-sided conversation, but in my heart I knew the answer anyway. I have always known it.

I sat there for a while, before wandering the site to read some other names.

I wrote in the visitors’ book.

I went back to the top of the cemetery and sat at his grave again. I felt lighter. I left a Ride It Home sticker on his headstone — the only thing I had to leave, with a small note written on it. And that was that. I left. Promise fulfilled.

Thank you, Alan, for your service and your sacrifice. We do remember.

Stade

The final stop on this pilgrimage part of the trip was Stade, a medieval German town.

Why Stade? Well, apart from having a gorgeous town centre, Stade is where Alan and the crew were first laid to rest. They were buried here by German townsfolk before being reinterred in Becklingen after the war.

It seemed a fitting place to end this part of the trip.

We remember those who sacrificed, we cry and marvel at the horror and loss. It is right that we do so.

Do we remember the reason why?

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I’m writing, strangely enough, from a Pub in Southwest England, near a town called Devizies, not too far from Tidworth and Towbridge, and very close to Bishops Cannings.

There, you now know exactly where I was. By the time you read it I will be somewhere in France, which will present a whole new set of linguistic oddities.

England are out of the World Cup. It’s time for me to leave. Correlation, not causation.

I have spent quite some time here, yet have barely scratched the surface of this land and its people.

Almost every day has been clear blue skies. Every interaction with the English warm and friendly. I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that a New Zealander feels at home here.

I figure I have completed over 7000km in the UK. On roads that have been mainly decent, where you can travel at reasonable speeds, where the police presence is sparse at best. That 7000km was enough to wear to wear out a set of brake pads on the rear wheel. Which is interesting, and just a little disconcerting.

Lagertha, my Husqvarna Norden 901 Expedition has performed flawlessly. What niggles we have had have all been mine in the making. She deserved a service. She got one, courtesy of one of the few Husqvarna specialists I could find. My faith in this bike grows every time I turn the key.

Unfortunately, Mid-West Racing was unable to source a lowering kit. This makes it highly probable that there will be more photos of her lying on her side.

It is time to leave. This trip needs to be an adventure, it needs to test me (just a little), England has been a jolly good show, a decent warm up, but England was never The Trip.

France will present some new challenges. Germany too. More time in Denmark than planned for reasons I won’t disclose - two weeks that I am looking forward to more than I can describe.

And then? And then the trip changes. The goals shift. The story moves. From one of wandering to one of travelling, with purpose, at pace. Yes, there will be some time for contemplation, places visited just for the sake of being there and experiences off the bike.

First though, France, Germany, a grave and two weeks that I wish were eight.

The Saxon Church of St Laurence

A slightly different chapter this week. Sometimes a place slows you down enough to write differently about it. Bradford-on-Avon did that.

I had allocated thirty minutes to Bradford-on-Avon. I am still here three hours later, drinking a beer in the shade, and Bath, which was the point of the day, has quietly given up on me.

Bradford-on-Avon is a small town in Wiltshire, flanking the River Avon in the valley below the grand estate-like hotel I am staying in. It has a bridge and a river and a pub on the river and a square in which the buildings shade the tables from the afternoon sun. It has, around every corner, a picture. I have taken more photographs here than I have taken in some entire countries. Most of them will be no good. The town does not photograph; it presents itself, and by the time you have raised the camera it has already moved on to the next arrangement.

The plan had been simple. Walk around. Have a massage. Go to Bath.

The massage happened. The therapist worked on a body that is, I am told with some regularity now, no longer twenty-four. I did not argue. Then I sat down for a coffee and looked around the square, and thirty minutes became forty, and forty became an hour, and I ordered another coffee, and then a beer, and here we are.

The problem with English towns of a certain age is that they do not respect your schedule. They were arranged by people who did not have one. They were arranged, in many cases, before anyone had one. Bradford-on-Avon has been here since the tenth century, at a minimum, and possibly considerably longer, and a man in a hurry is not really the sort of person it is designed to accommodate.

There is a street here called The Shambles. I had assumed, before I saw it, that the description was atmospheric, that some clever guidebook writer had called it that because it reminded them of the more famous one in York. It turns out to be its own street, properly signed, running up from the market square between buildings that have been leaning affectionately toward one another for several hundred years. In the medieval sense, Shambles meant butchers' benches. The word survives in modern usage to mean a mess, because a medieval butcher’s street was, in fact, a mess, and every English town of any size had one. Most have lost the name. This one has kept it.

I walked up The Shambles slowly. There is a sign on the corner and above the sign a small plaque I could not read from where I stood, and above the plaque a lamppost of the ornamental Victorian sort that the twenty-first century keeps rediscovering.

Window boxes everywhere. Petunias in the pink-and-white striped variety that look like they were drawn by a slightly manic child, and geraniums, and something red I couldn't name. They provide a contrast to the browns and stone-coloured hues that dominate everything else.

Everything else, that is, apart from the greens of the river.

You come down into the town and there is a bridge and beyond the bridge the Avon runs slow and green between banks that have buildings built to the edge on one side and a tree-lined walkway on the other. There are water lilies. There are willows. There are, on the water, what I believe are ducks, though from the bridge they were only motion. Somewhere in the middle distance a swan, which had presumably been placed there by the tourist board.

I stood on the bridge for some time.

The river is not spectacular. It is a river running through a town, which is a category of thing England does better than almost anywhere else in the world, because so many English towns began where the river was fordable (the town was originally called Broad-ford) and then stayed there for a thousand years and now have a stone bridge and a walk along the bank and a pub with tables looking out over the water. It is not a landscape. It is a domestic arrangement made with a river.

The town streets frequently alternate between empty and logjammed with cars.

I resent the cars. I know I'm not supposed to. But this town was built before cars were imagined, and you can see the cost most clearly at the moments when a modern hatchback tries to negotiate a corner a fourteenth-century mason cut deliberately narrow because he didn't want carts blocking his window.

I walked back up into the town and found a church.

This is where the thirty minutes I had allocated became a lost cause.

The Church of St Laurence is small and Saxon, according to the sign that literally said Saxon Church. There is no other information, no other signs, no plaques, no guides. This meant that I had to resort to Wikipedia, a contrast of old and new that seemed a travesty. The church may have been built in the early eleventh century, when King Æthelred the Unready gave the site to the nuns of Shaftesbury Abbey, who were refugees from the Vikings.

Read that sentence again. That is one sentence. It contains four questions and no information at all.

King Æthelred the Unready. What a name to give a king. The Unready part is an Old English pun that has been slowly bleeding out of the language for a thousand years — his real name, Æthelred, meant noble counsel, and his nickname, Unræd, meant no counsel or ill counsel. His own subjects were making fun of him, in Old English, in real time, and the joke has survived. He was king from 978 to 1016 and he spent most of his reign trying to buy off the Vikings with an annual payment called Danegeld — literally Dane-money — which established, for future taxpayers, the immortal principle that once you pay the Danegeld you never get rid of the Dane. Kipling wrote a poem about it. Æthelred is one of English history’s great losers and one of its most interesting figures precisely for that reason.

Shaftesbury Abbey. Thirty miles from where I am standing. Founded around 888 by Alfred the Great — Æthelred’s great-great-grandfather — as one of the great female religious houses of Anglo-Saxon England. Alfred’s own daughter was its first abbess. By the time our sentence takes place, the abbey has been standing for over a century and has become a wealthy institution with land and books and a library. The nuns are not a small group of women in habits. They are one of the political and economic centres of southern England.

The Vikings they are running from? Not a raiding party. By the late tenth century the Vikings are coming inland in armies, under proper commanders, with proper plans. The one who would have been on Æthelred’s mind in the early 1000s was Sweyn Forkbeard — I promise this is his real name — who was harrying the south of England systematically and who would, in 1013, briefly be king of it. The nuns would have been running from Sweyn Forkbeard, or from his subordinates, or from the general knowledge that Sweyn Forkbeard’s people were in the country and one wanted to be somewhere they were not.

None of this is written at the site. A single sign is all you get.

The Saxon Church of St Laurence.

And then there is St Laurence himself, to whom the church is dedicated.

St Laurence was a third-century deacon of the church in Rome. In 258, during a persecution under the emperor Valerian, he was executed by being roasted on a gridiron. According to tradition, at some point during the process, a process I do not want to think about very much, he told his executioners that they should turn him over, as he was done on that side. This is the earliest recorded example of what we now call gallows humour. It is why he is the patron saint of comedians. He is also, for more obvious reasons, the patron saint of cooks and firefighters. There is a certain grim logic in all three, and one is grateful for the comedians because otherwise the logic would be too grim to enjoy.

Why the church at Bradford-on-Avon was dedicated to him, I do not know. Nobody, so far as I can tell, does. Sometimes a church is dedicated to a saint because a founder had a personal devotion, or because a relic was available, or because the local bishop preferred him, or because a Roman-era foundation on the site had been dedicated to him first and the dedication was inherited. In this case the reason has been lost. It is one of the many things about a very old English town that no longer has an answer, and that is part of what makes standing outside a small Saxon church on a summer afternoon such a strange and pleasing thing to do.

I have finished the beer.

Bath, on the whole, can wait. Bath has been waiting for two thousand years and does not, I suspect, mind. The road can wait. My thirty minutes ran out about two and a half hours ago, and I have decided to stop apologising to myself for it.

The town, if it noticed my plan at all, was gracious enough not to laugh.

Here is what Rudyard Kipling wrote, on making a payment as a way to avoid conflict.

Dane-Geld

It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation

To call upon a neighbour and to say: --

“We invaded you last night--we are quite prepared to fight,

Unless you pay us cash to go away.”

And that is called asking for Dane-geld,

And the people who ask it explain

That you’ve only to pay ‘em the Dane-geld

And then you’ll get rid of the Dane!

It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,

To puff and look important and to say: --

“Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.

We will therefore pay you cash to go away.”

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;

But we’ve proved it again and again,

That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld

You never get rid of the Dane.

It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,

For fear they should succumb and go astray;

So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,

You will find it better policy to say: --

“We never pay any-one Dane-geld,

No matter how trifling the cost;

For the end of that game is oppression and shame,

And the nation that pays it is lost!”

Rudyard Kipling, 1911.

I turned around to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.

A narrow country lane. A downhill left-hand corner. I was travelling. Not fast, but not dawdling either.

A man was walking toward me on the road, close to the hedgerow. A farmer, I took him to be.

The bike moved toward the centre. That subconscious movement that happens before you even realise it. Motorcyclists will recognise it.

A blue hatchback came around the corner. Shit. They were enjoying the drive too.

I was almost past the farmer so I threw the bike hard left. Then I saw the dog. A border collie. Lying on the side of the road. Just lying there. Almost where my front wheel would roll. And then my back.

Please don’t move, dog.

Then it was gone. The farmer, the dog, the hatchback. All gone. I rode on.

Ireland has been bog and fog. Two weeks of it.

There are some absolutely stunning landscapes here. A bubbling brook over mossy stones and under an ancient stone bridge that I had to turn around for to have a proper look. It was genuinely breathtaking.

I followed country lanes where the GPS said I could get through, but the roads and the farmhouses at the end told a different story. Past lakes, sheep that slept on bridges and refused to move for something as insignificant as a motorbike, and ancient ruins. Just there. No signs, no entry fees. Just in some farmer’s paddock. Over mountain passes that could challenge a heavy adventure bike, and through small towns with small shops and small lanes that the traffic somehow managed to traverse.

I stood and watched for a while — the patchwork of greens and browns, farmers’ paddocks running up the gentle hills of Ireland.

This is where I got lost.

I dropped the bike because I was stupid. Have I mentioned she’s quite tall?

The Atlantic coast, just south of Lauragh, on the Beara Peninsula. The camber wasn’t quite right and instead of getting off and moving her, I tried one more time. Twenty minutes earlier I had filled her with gas. Even empty she is heavy.

Helmet off. Gloves off. Jacket off. I took a photo.

Five cars passed in the next twenty minutes. None of them stopped.

Take all her luggage off. Lift from the rear and slide a bag under. Handlebars, one, two, three. Brute strength — well, all my strength — and ignorance were the order of the day. The wall she’d almost hit meant there wasn’t room for a more finessed technique.

I managed to lift her, on the fifth try, to a point where there was no way in hell I was going to let her back down.

I don’t think I could have done it again.

Brute strength and ignorance called for.

Ireland has been a mixed bag. From 30 degrees and stuck in traffic one moment to 22 degrees and deep fog five minutes later. Plenty of main roads, plenty of traffic. Some wonderful lakes, farms and valleys to get lost in.

From Dublin north to Donegal. Down the west coast — Galway, Doolin, Dingle. East to Cork and Wexford. Two weeks of Ireland.

I have mixed emotions about it. I was excited to get here. I am not disappointed to be leaving. That’s not Ireland’s fault.

Travelling solo is harder than I remembered. Harder than I planned for. The richness of the experience has as much to do with who you’re with as where you are.

Rebecca is meeting me in Copenhagen in three weeks.

I’m counting the days.

I’m writing this from a bar in the hotel in Galway. Not that I have really seen Galway yet. I’m not sure what I expected from Ireland, or what it might yet deliver. There’s not much to write about really.

Rode on to the ferry in Holyhead after showing my passport. Does that make it my first real border crossing? It all seemed a bit formal for a ferry from Wales. Rolled off in Dublin. Got my passport stamped. Yes really.

Rode north to Slane. Small town. Some wonderful old buildings, a decent hotel. Slane was named after a king, so legend says.

Then west toward Donegal — after a detour to Brú na Bóinne, the passage tombs that predate the pyramids by a thousand years. Then east again, because I’d left my backpack with my passport in the café. Sixty kilometres of unnecessary riding to correct a five-second lapse. Ireland was fine about it. Someone had kindly placed the bag on the window ledge behind the table where I had enjoyed my coffee and fruit tart.

A quick stop at Tara Hill, a place where kings were crowned. Ireland seems to have a thing about kings. The view was… large. I don’t really know how else to explain it. I spent some time leaning on the the Lia Fáil - the Destiny Stone, taking it all in, thinking.

It rained. Then it rained some more. The roads were fine. There wasn’t much traffic. It was chilly and it was raining. I laughed.

A week ago I was in a field in Warwickshire with 20,000 other motorcyclists in 40 degree heat, listening to a woman on stage say the way to feel proud is to do something really hard and finish it. Now I was pulling my neck warmer up in the rain in Ireland.

The lodge was old. The woman that ran it looked like she had seen it being built. Still, nice enough, and once she realised I was booked in she was happy to let me out of the rain.

“Terrible day. Breakfast at 8. In there.”

I woke up to a cloudy day, but at least it wasn’t raining. I had high hopes for the day. Some decent Irish roads. I found the Atlantic Ocean. I explored some B roads. The riding was uneventful and mainly on two-laned ‘main roads’, complete with trucks and locals that all seemed content to be 10 km/h below the speed limit. I admit, the Kiwi rider came out as I took the opportunities to pass that were presented.

You can take the Kiwi out of NZ, but…

Anyway, I might as well have been in New Zealand. In the Waikato. Between Pirongia and Otorohanga. Rolling hills, flat paddocks, fences, cows, green. Apart from the signs having weird names and the odd building that was obviously older than New Zealand, it was hard to tell the difference.

A stop at the grave of WB Yeats the poet.

Cast a cold eye
On life, on death.
Horseman, pass by!

It seemed appropriate to stop at the Yeats Country Inn. The best cold meat, potato and beetroot salad ever.

“You don’t sound like a local” I said to waitress.

A laugh. “I thought I was getting good at hiding it”.

Figures. She is from Taranaki. The chef is also a Kiwi. She has been there ten years.

We are slowly taking over, she confided.

I told her where I was from.

“One of those.” A slight smile. It felt good to be ribbed for being an Aucklander in the middle of nowhere in Ireland.

On to Galway.

Conversations. Laundry. Planning.

More on that later.

For now, I have a couple of weeks left in Ireland. Let’s see what she offers.

I left the Ye Olde Robin Hood Inn in Ironbridge around mid-morning. The night before had been a long one — Paul and Gail from the pub, a red haired woman and her husband from a nearby village, a man with tattoos asking pointed questions. By the time I’d packed Lagertha and headed south, my head was full of conversations I hadn’t fully sorted yet.

I walked to the Iron Bridge first. Built in 1779, the world’s first cast-iron bridge. Paul reckoned the riverbanks are closing in and they’re waiting for it to snap. Probably an urban legend, though I couldn’t help but recall his words as I stood in the middle. Would there be warning signs?

Then the road.

While exploring a nearby town (I swear I was not lost), a car came up fast behind me with its lights flashing. The driver was waving me over. I pulled over and kept watch in my mirrors. A young man jumped out, no older than mid-twenties.

“Mate. I saw your plate.”

His name was Isaac. British-born, had been living in Christchurch, came back to join the British forces, was thinking about going back to New Zealand to join the police. He was lit up — the kind of excited you only get when you’re a long way from somewhere you love and suddenly you see a small piece of it in front of you.

We talked for ten minutes by the side of the road. About New Zealand. About Christchurch. About what it’s like to be in two countries at once.

I hope Isaac makes it back. He seemed like a fine young man.

A few miles further on I saw a sign for Lilleshall Abbey and pointed Lagertha down the little gravel road. Twelfth-century ruins, partially standing, the kind of place England has scattered across its counties like loose change. I walked around for half an hour. Empty grounds. Birdsong.

Coming back to the bike, a man on crutches was looking at it with his wife.

“Nice bike.”

The standard introduction of motorcyclists everywhere. I returned the standard reply. You ride?

He used to. Big accident in 2000 — hence the crutches. His wife let him have a scooter, then another, then a third. I doubted it would be the last.

“You back up. You don’t give up.”

He told me about another ruin worth seeing further south. Used the QR code on Lagertha’s tank and took a couple of photos. His wife was patient. Good couple.

A few more miles down the road I stopped to set up the camera for some bike footage. I was walking on the verge back to Lagertha when a red Africa Twin pulled up beside me.

“All good?”

I nodded. Nice bike.

He switched the engine off and we got chatting. He was on his way to work. We talked about my trip and about his. He mentioned the ABR (Adventure Bike Riders Festival) — the big rally we were both heading to. I told him I probably wouldn't recognise him in the crowd but I'd recognise the bike.

He waved and rode on.

I stopped for a coffee in a forest car park a little later. A golden retriever that lived in the cafe came over and put his head on my knee. He was decisively committed to being my new best friend.

I tore a piece off my sandwich and gave it to him.

Don’t tell anyone, I whispered.

He looked at me with what I took to be genuine love.

Then he wandered off to another group at the next picnic table.

Oh.

I see.

I sat with my coffee and thought about the night before. A tattooed man had had asked me a leading question. Of all the people who have helped you on this trip — what culture have they been?

I thought about the morning. Isaac saw a number plate. A man on crutches admired a bike. A rider stopped to check on a stranger. A dog wanted a sandwich.

In America it was Americans. Scots in Scotland. English in England. New Zealanders and people who knew about New Zealand everywhere. In Estonia it’ll be Estonians. In India it’ll be Indians.

Whoever’s around is who helps.

The road kept going south.

I rolled into Luib in the late afternoon with rain coming sideways across the glen. The Luib Hotel sat on the side of the road like it had always been there, which it more or less had — almost five hundred years, by John’s reckoning. They don’t know exactly. The paperwork only goes back to the first time it was sold.

Inside it was warm, low-beamed, and quiet. The bar opened at six. Scotland were playing football that night. There was controlled excitement.

The bartender, I never got his name, which I regret, was an older man working alone. We were the only two in the room for the first half hour. He pulled my pint and we got chatting. He’d been in 2 Para in the Falklands in 1982. Went back ten years later to work. Got into a bar fight there at some point, copped a £400 fine, was politely asked to leave the island and never come back.

He’d been married four times. The last one twenty years ago. Still married.

He told me he’d had the chance to move to Australia once. His wife at the time wanted to stay near her mother.

He asked where I was riding. I told him: London to Auckland, ten months. Europe, Middle East, India, Asia. He thought about it for a moment.

“Just don’t ride in a straight line for more than two seconds in Israel.”

I’m still thinking about that one.

I went to bed after Scotland scored. Good decision. It was the only goal of the game.

The next morning I came down early to call Rebecca. The wifi was better in the bar than upstairs. John, the owner, was already there. He made me coffee and breakfast before the kitchen had officially opened.

John is also ex-2 Para. Watching the two of them the night before, you could see they had a friendship forged in something I wouldn’t ask about. The kind of friendship that doesn’t need explaining.

Another motorcyclist came down to the bar while I was eating. We all started talking. John has stories, a lot of them, and tells them at volume.

There was a woman from Tennessee who’d stayed there a few weeks earlier. She’d asked where the air conditioning was in the room. It had been 21 degrees Celsius that day. John laughed. AC in Scotland. Then she’d asked when the rain was going to stop. He’d asked how long she was staying.

“Three days.”

“Then it’s not stopping before you leave. This is Scotland.”

He told me about the building. Nearly five hundred years old. A drovers’ stop, back when the Highland glens — Glen Coe, Glen Dochart, all of them — drove cattle west to Fort William for shipping. There was a stop every twenty miles. Luib was one of them. The drovers came through here in their thousands, year after year, generation after generation. Cattle, sheep, men, dogs, weather. The same building, watching it all.

He talked about the glen. Seven people live in it. Two of them live in the inn.

The road outside is the Scottish equivalent of a motorway, he said. That made me laugh. It’s all it needs to be. There are seven people in the glen.

He has views on single-track etiquette. Strong ones. He’s had run-ins with tourists who refuse to reverse to the nearest passing bay — the bay they should have stopped at in the first place. He talked of locals locking their own vehicles in place on the road and walking across the fields to wherever they were going, leaving the offending campervan with no way forward.

He told me Rob Roy wasn’t a villain. He was just trying to survive. The cattle he stole he stole to eat. You keep people under the thumb for long enough and eventually they find a way to fight back.

We talked about Trump. The Russians. The Iranian regime. John has views on all of them. I mostly listened. And laughed.

Eventually I stopped laughing and got on the road. The rain had paused for the morning. I rode east through the glen without navigation, exploring. Dochart Falls. Rob Roy’s grave — the same Rob Roy John had been telling me about an hour earlier, which made it feel different than it would have otherwise.

Endless views of lochs. A few dead ends. Eventually, late in the afternoon, I rolled into Pitlochry. A humming village. I checked into the Pitlochry Hydro Hotel — a grand Victorian building, magnificent in its way.

It’s not Luib.

I sat with that for a while, with a pint in the bar.

There’s a particular kind of place that holds a country’s history. Luib is one of them. Not because of the building, though the building helps. Because of the people who run it. Because of the conversations that happen in it. Because John and the bartender will be there next week and next month and next year, telling the same stories to other travellers, who will arrive in the rain and leave in the rain and remember it for the rest of their lives.

I’ll remember Luib. Not for the road. Not even for the glen.

For the people.

I arrived at Housesteads before it opened. The car park was empty. The walk up the hill to the castle lonely. The gate was locked. I sat on a low wall and looked east along the ridge, enjoying the view.

I video called Rebecca, Sophie and Harrison. The signal was decent. The sky was grey but not raining. Some sheep wandered into the paddock and made their way toward me with what looked like genuine curiosity.

I felt every one of my years walking up that path. Motorcycle boots are not made for walking.

I sat on a stone wall, alone.

After a while a man came along the path from the museum, carrying a shovel. He was scraping sheep shit off the stones as he went. I watched him work his way toward me.

“Thankless job,” I said.

“I don’t mind, really,” he said. “Not a bad way to start the day, if the weather is OK.”

It was hard to disagree.

We got chatting. His name was Ian. I showed him my English Heritage pass. He didn't have the keys but knew how to jiggle the gate open. He let me in early.

“Best preserved communal latrines in England,” he said, pointing. “Twenty metres that way.”

He was proud of the latrines.

I think a lot about that.

Housesteads is one of the forts on Hadrian’s Wall, which runs seventy-three miles across the neck of Britain. The northern edge of the Roman Empire for almost three hundred years. From here, all the way to North Africa, was Rome. North of here, was not.

I walked through the fort for an hour. The barracks. The hospital. The oven. The commandant’s house. The communal latrines, which were, in fact, impressive — not my thing, but impressive all the same. The wall itself runs from the corner of the fort eastward along the ridge, and it is genuinely magnificent. You feel the size of what was attempted here. The edge of an empire that ruled from Rome.

Three hundred names of soldiers stationed at Housesteads have been identified.

No stories are readily available.

That number sat with me as I walked. Three hundred names. Where did they come from? Other parts of Britain? Somewhere else in the empire — Gaul, Spain, North Africa? Did they choose to be here, or were they sent? Did they make friends with the locals or hold themselves apart? Did they die at this fort, on some forsaken hill, or on a beach somewhere on the way back?

Did they get home?

The tingles up my spine were not entirely about the Romans. Standing on the wall, with the ridge running east and the sky low overhead, I felt strangely emotional. Maybe it was the men tied to this fort, serving an empire whose capital was further away than they could imagine. Maybe it was that I'm a long way from home too, even if mine is a softer kind of distance.

I rode the same road twice. Back to Chesters. More ruins. A magnificently preserved bathhouse. More stark stones with no stories attached.

Vindolanda was further south. A steep walk down from the car park. My knees were not appreciative. The museum is enormous.

And there, finally, are fragments of stories.

The writing tablets at Vindolanda are small pieces of wood, written on in ink, preserved by accident in the wet ground. They survive because someone threw them away into mud that didn’t let them rot. The fragments are tiny. A few lines each. A man called back to the fort to account for himself. Another man deported, for reasons unknown.

Tantalising and sad.

It is a reminder of how short a time we have, and how little will be known about us in two thousand years. From the camp commandant to the slave who fetched his water, they have been washed away by history. At least the ruins of the fort remain. How much of what we build now will last a fraction as long? The freeway I rode here on will be gone in two centuries. Most of what we make will not outlast us by much.

I rode the rest of the day to Portinscale. It rained. It was cold. I didn’t have enough layers on and spent the last hour shivering. I didn’t mind.

I thought about Ian. The Wall. The three hundred names. The man called back to account. The man deported.

The Romans were on the edge.

I’m not. I’m on a trip — chosen, planned, paid for, with a partner who knows where I am and a way home if I need it.

But riding alone across a continent does put you a long way from anyone who knows your face. That part I felt for the first time at Housesteads.

Did they get home?

The first two days of Ride It Home are covered, more or less, in Dispatch number 4. The short version: I dropped the bike before I left the suburbs, the GPS wouldn’t talk to the Sena, the pub was closed, and I booked the wrong date at a hotel. By Tuesday night I was sitting with a beer asking questions I hadn’t planned to ask for another six months. I’m only in England.

On the morning of Day Three the suspension was finally dialled, Lagertha fired up willingly, and Wales was waiting on the other side of Shropshire.

The road over Long Mynd is one to write home about. You come up out of Church Stretton, it’s misty, raining in places. The hills are almost imposing. The road; steep and narrow. Then the hills open up a little, and you can see the tarmac in front of you, cutting a path through the sheep-strewn paddocks.

The bike, Lagertha, with the adjustments made, felt lighter, more responsive, more fun, than she had all week. I let her go. Standing on the pegs. The road was a little slippery in places. I don’t care. I put my trust in the bike and the Continental Road Attacks that had been fitted back in New Zealand.

I didn’t stop grinning for an hour. Somewhere up there, on Long Mynd, in the rain and the fog, I forgot I had been doubting any of this. That’s what I came here for.

Half a pint of Estrella in Shrewsbury before crossing the border. Shrewsbury is Charles Darwin’s hometown. The market building dates from 1598. New Zealand didn’t have a permanent European-style building of any kind until the 1820s. Sitting in a 400-year-old market with a cold beer is the kind of thing a Kiwi notices, and never quite stops noticing.

Then Wales.

The Pontcysyllte Aqueduct is the highest in the world. You walk along a narrow towpath above the Dee Valley with a canal on one side and a 38-metre drop on the other. I got talking to a man, 76, with two Triumphs at home. A Bonneville and a Tiger 800. He does regular Wednesday runs to the pub with his mates. He told me the towpath used to be for horses pulling the boats, and that the place has a darker side that I won’t write about here.

I think a lot about that man. He’s me in twenty years, if I’m lucky. Two bikes in the garage and a regular pub ride with mates. This trip is mostly about getting home, but it’s partly about meeting that version of me on the way.

Stayed the night at Cambrian House, said to be the oldest coachhouse in the region. Reportedly haunted. Slept fine.

Day Four started gently. I walked into town and found the working horse, Tobias, who pulls the canal boats — he had his day off but seemed keen to be out of the stable anyway. I knew the feeling. On the way out of town I stopped at some abbey ruins and walked through them slowly. A green lane that I scouted on foot before committing Lagertha. Coffee and soup at a place I forgot the name of by the time I’d finished. I have all day.

Then it rained.

Then it stopped.

Then it rained again, properly. I rode through the hail and thunder on roads that turned, somewhere west of where I had intended to be, into the kind of Welsh single-track lane that has a personality all of its own. Six feet wide, maybe. Hedgerows so tall you can’t see what’s beyond them. Blind corner after blind corner. And locals that drive them at the speed they have always driven on them, because they know the roads and they don’t know I’m on them.

Four or five times that afternoon a car came around a blind corner and stopped skidding somewhere between 2 and 10 metres from my front wheel. I was keeping the speed down, riding wide to create as much visibility as possible. It didn’t matter. The single track does not care how careful you are.

I spent half the day terrified. Exhilarated but terrified.

The corners were what they were, and Wales kept producing them, and I rode on, because the alternative was to sit on the side of the road in the rain and, and what?

By the time I reached Bryn Derwen B&B in Conway I was wet and ready to find a pub. It rained as I walked into town, my previously dry clothes now not so dry.

I found a Snowdon Lager. They didn’t do food. I went back out into the rain to find some.

I’m in Wales, I wrote in my notes that evening. What a privilege. Now, if only it would stop raining.

I’d planned to spend the next day exploring the north Welsh coast properly. I didn’t. The forecast wasn’t great. I had an 8-hour ride on the GPS to get to York looming. Around 1pm I called it and took the motorway. Three hours of intermittent rain and grey road took me to an English town, a hotel with broken wifi, and a pub with a perfectly good burger.

The bar lady was lovely. The beer was good. The wifi could be figured out tomorrow.

The thing I keep coming back to, sitting in an English pub, having left Wales prematurely, is that I should have given it more time. The country offered me Long Mynd, an aqueduct in the sky, a horse on his day off, abbey ruins, single-track roads that scared me, and roads that were mind-blowingly beautiful. The coachhouse, the man with the Triumphs, a bartender who had lived a year in Queenstown.

I should have given Wales more time.

Those immortal words come to mind.

I’ll be back.

By the time I sat down to a beer that evening, I was asking myself questions I hadn’t planned to ask for at least six months.

Can I actually pick this bike up if I drop it again?

How the hell will I cope in India?

Here’s what I’ve learned in the 24 hours since, on a much better day in Wales:

1. The bad day is not a verdict.

It’s a Tuesday. Long trips have them. Every rider’s journal has the Day 2 or Day 3 entry where they wonder if they can do this. The ones who admit it in writing are the honest ones. The ones who don’t are tidying up after the fact.

The brain, wet and cold and jet-lagged after a dropped bike, is not a reliable narrator. I can’t do this on a bad night is almost never a real assessment. It’s a tired body talking. Don’t make trip decisions from inside that state. Sleep, eat, decide tomorrow.

2. The stack is the problem, not any one thing.

GPS, Sena, voice calls, offline maps, rain gear, hotel booking, bike too tall, gear too much. Eight problems at once. Each one is a 20-minute fix. Together they feel like the system is broken. The system isn’t broken; the list is long.

Pick one. Solve it. Tomorrow pick another. Do not try to fix everything in one evening, especially the evening after a hard day.

3. Some questions have answers. Find them before they become fears.

Can I pick the bike up if I drop it? Looking back, it’s almost a silly question — I’ve picked up plenty of adventure bikes in the past. But on Day Two, in the rain, after just dropping mine, it didn’t feel silly. That’s how the bad day works. Real fears wearing the costume of real questions.

Ten minutes of how to pick up a fallen adventure bike on YouTube, mentally rehearsed, and the fear stops being a fear and becomes a procedure. I already knew the technique. I just needed to refresh it.

Two days later I found myself in the same position — same wrong-angle slope, same problem getting weight onto the left side. This time I knew what to do. Got off on the right, braced against the bike, and held her. Not elegant. Didn’t drop her.

That’s the difference. Not strength. Knowledge.

4. The trip you can’t yet imagine isn’t the trip you’re going to do tomorrow.

You’re not riding into India on Day 2. You’re riding into India after months of being on this bike, dropping it, picking it up, repacking it, fixing things on it. The rider who arrives at the Indian border is not the rider you are tonight. The fact that you can’t yet picture doing the hard parts is not evidence you can’t. It’s just evidence you’re at the start.

5. Make tomorrow’s ride short.

If the bad day was a stack-of-everything day, the cure isn’t a brave 400-mile recovery ride. It’s a short ride to somewhere easy, somewhere you’ve actually booked correctly, somewhere with a pub. Reset the system before you ask anything more of it.

The morning after my bad day, I rode over Long Mynd in Shropshire. The bike, suspension adjusted after a deliberately slow start, was finally dialled in. The road was a dream. I forgot I’d been doubting any of it.

The bad day was real. So was the good one that followed.

Don’t make decisions from inside the bad day. Make them from a hotel two nights later, after the better one.

She’s mine.

Keys handed over. Screwdriver to reconnect the battery. She fired up immediately.

Relief.

Fuel, then packing. I still have too much gear.

I can’t get the GPS to work. Fuck it. I’ll use Google Maps today and worry about it tonight. I want — I need — to get on the road. At least three passers-by comment on how awesome she looks.

Yep. She does.

I get on the road. Two kilometres later it’s clear I can’t see the phone, and I’m not getting voice instructions through the new Sena.

Sigh.

I stop to see if I can come up with a solution.

Okay. Think we’re good. Damn — my sunglasses have dropped on the ground. I put the stand down. I’m on a slight slope and there seems to be too much weight on the right. She’s a tall bike at the best of times. I can’t weight her to the left.

Over she goes.

My first fall.

FUCK.

A kind passer-by helps me pick her up.

My phone magically connects, and we’re off. Somewhere.

I stop at a gas station for a drink and to get my bearings. The plan was to get to The Farmer’s Dog — Jeremy Clarkson’s pub. I check my phone.

Closed Mondays.

FUCK.

I decide I need to sort my gear out and repack, so I book a hotel. M4, M25, A-this and A-that. Not pretty riding. Functional.

Bike covered and locked.

Unnecessary gear dumped. There will be more.

Not the day one I planned.

I’m alive. The bike’s okay. I’m thirteen miles from The Farmer’s Dog and I’ve got the GPS working.

It ain’t a holiday, is it.

That’s the official start of Ride It Home.

Except - is it?

Six months ago I wrote down that I was going to do this. I told people. I made it public, which is what made it real. That’s a contender.

Three months ago I booked the tickets. The first money that wasn’t coming back. That’s a contender too.

Weeks ago Lagertha, the actual bike, the one I’m picking up tomorrow, went onto a ship. She’s been crossing the world without me ever since. That’s also a contender.

Twenty-one days ago I picked up a different bike, a CF Moto in Denver, and rode it through Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and Arizona. Two close calls. One Uber driver with views. One stranger at a bar. The American shakedown. By any reasonable definition, that was riding, and it was in service of this trip, so, also a contender.

Twenty-three days ago I landed in Houston and felt something I hadn’t expected. Not relief. Not nerves. Just the simple, physical fact of finally moving. That felt like a start.

Tonight, London. The hotel is not five star. The shower is decidedly average — probably not the worst I’ll have on this trip. It’s warm outside. Somewhere down the road, in a freight warehouse, is the bike.

I keep being asked when the trip starts. I keep giving different answers depending on the day. Tonight, in a budget room near Heathrow, the honest answer is I don’t know. It started in all of those moments. It started in none of them. The line you cross is only obvious in retrospect, and the people who tell you exactly when their big trip began are probably tidying up after the fact.

What I do know:

The American leg taught me that the people I expected to be wary of were kind, and the moments I’d planned around weren’t the ones that mattered. The bike I’d never ridden held up. The body I’d worried about held up. The partner I came with made every place better.

Tomorrow I meet Lagertha for the first time as the bike she’s about to be — not the bike in the showroom, the bike in the garage, the bike on the ship.

The one that’s about to do the actual job.

Some part of me thinks the trip starts when I see her.

The rest of me knows it started a long time ago, and I just didn’t notice.

Either way.

Monday at ten. Three-minute walk from the hotel. Key turns. Throttle opens.

First job: find a petrol station.

The UK first. Then Europe, eventually east through the Balkans and Türkiye, and home from there.

Home is east. Eventually.

Google said the pass might be in the 30s Fahrenheit. Two degrees Celsius. Seven in the morning to eight at night if we did the whole loop.

We balked. We only had summer gloves. Only so many layers.

Then — crunch time. We came here to see Telluride and Ouray. When were we going to be back? We could manage some cold. Harden up.

Decision made. I’ll admit I thought about it a few times in the night.

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Colorado City sits just inside the Arizona line. Two thousand people. The kind of fundamentalist town that gets documentaries made about it.

We rolled in late afternoon and checked into the Desert Sage. After a shower we rode three miles up the road to the bar — American towns are geographically larger than they have any right to be. Upstairs, on a deck looking out toward the cliffs.

The bartender came out to take our order.

“No mixed drinks. No salad.”

He turned around and shuffled off.

Welcome to Utah, except we were in Arizona. Throw a stone, you’re in Utah. Throw a stone, I thought, and you’d hit nothing else.

A man with a beard at another table guessed our accent. Australian. Not a bad effort. He was there with his wife and two small children, who were very interested in our motorcycle helmets sitting on the bench beside us. He told us he knew everyone in town. He told us the best hike was an oasis, forty-five minutes’ walk. He mentioned multiple mothers, in passing, the way you might mention a job.

I didn’t ask.

We talked a while. The kids kept looking at the helmets.

After a while, he and his family stood, said goodnight, and headed down the stairs.

Maybe thirty minutes later, Rebecca went to settle up. The bartender told her the first round was already paid for.

He’d quietly covered us, and left without saying.

Rebecca ducked into the supermarket downstairs for some ice. The man behind the counter picked her as English. When she corrected him to New Zealand, he didn’t miss a beat — recommended Cardiff Castle and Kidwelly Castle for the next time we were over. Wales, as it happens. Two strangers in a row, in one small Arizona town, giving us things we hadn’t asked for.

We left some money behind the bar for the next time the man came in for a drink.

That was it.

We rode out the next morning. The road was decidedly average. The destination had been the adventure.

What a place. What people.

Most of the ride was ho-hum. The endless straights that seem to make up much of the roading network in these parts.

Then came Monarch Pass. A climb. Some real corners. Snow down to the road.

That's better.

Over too soon, and now more straights. I need to turn somewhere to reach my destination. I move to the centre — two lanes each way. Is this it? I glance at my phone. Google Maps. Yep. A car ahead of me is making the same left turn. I crack the throttle and follow him across.

Beep.

I can still see the quintessential white pickup bearing down on me.

Across the oncoming lane I hadn't checked.

Left turns are safe in New Zealand.

Got to be more careful.