Safe Return Doubtful

It’s been a few busy weeks of work but still possible to spend time with Rua for some basic training and socialising. 

On a typical work day he has had a walk in the morning, often down to the river, especially when it was hot, then time playing in the large garden before being on duty to receive guests from 3 pm. Rua is happy is his cage, though most days some guests will play with him. He even got taken for a walk by an Aussie lady a few weeks ago. We’re usually finished by 10 pm. I’m in for breakfast, but he dozes in the van for those couple of hours.

He swims now confidently, but after the first time when he just ran directly in, it took another couple of visits to be confident. 

Good news on the testicles front also, as they have begun to appear. The vet had said they were unlikely to, when two vets hadn’t found them on his visits in May. 

The van has been into the mechanics, as well as for some internal tweaking at GV Conversions. 

At GV I had a new heater put in. I use 5KW Chinese heaters which are less than a hundred pounds, aware that I will replace them every three years. I wasn’t sure this needed replacing, but when we took the old one out the rubber connection to the diesel tank had almost completely withered, so the timing was fortunate. 

I had a new Starlink mount fitted. The previous was flat and had a problem getting a signal in rain, as water pooled on the surface and caused interference. It seems they are designed to be moved around, and in such conditions placed on the bonnet for example. My Starlink needs to be fixed, as its power connection is fed through the roof. The new one has a slight angle. 

I picked up a new regulator for the LPG tank. I’ll carry it as a spare, which the engineer advised me to in Iceland when I had a problem with it, the air holes were congested with snow and ice. 

At the mechanic the van needed a new tyre, an oil change and an MOT. The battery has had a slow drain for almost a year now, not enough to be an urgent problem, but one I wanted to sort before heading away. I got an auto electrician out and after a thorough check he pinned it down to the connection on the sliding door. As the door spend a lot of time open, he expects that the connections, on either side, have slightly corroded. I got new ones from eBay and they were straightforward to fit. 

When Rua was small, in late April, he crawled though into the passenger footwell and bit through the wire of the reversing camera. The mechanic tried to repair it, unsuccessfully though, and told me it would be necessary to replace the whole cable, which would have been very difficult, as it is behind the wooden walls of the van. By chance, an electrician was working in site last week, and I asked if he would have a look at it. The problem was that the repair attempted by the mechanic was shoddy, a section of wire was loose. It was repaired quickly this time. 

Otherwise, the van has had a good clean, though it is soon messy again with a puppy on board. I have managed to get a Norwegian Flyt tag, which gives 50% off road tolls and those ferries that do cost. It’s prepaid, but what isn’t used is returned. 

It’s a particularly busy week in the Lodge this week with a full house each night, and at least ten campers each night. I’m away after the breakfast service on Friday, down to my brother’s, Nick, in Norfolk for the weekend. I’ll then drive to Folkestone on Monday morning to collect an Animal Health Certificate and take Le Shuttle which arrives in at 3 pm. My plan then is to drive through Belgium, with a stop to stock up with beers, and into the Netherlands to spend the night. 

I’m on the night crossing from Frederickshaven in the north of Denmark to Gothenburg in the early hours of Thursday morning. A few hours sleep during that hopefully, then a couple of days driving up through Norway. 

I’ve been to Norway a number of times. I led two mountain bike trips there from Lytham driving a minibus and trailer and using the old Newcastle-Bergen ferry in 2001 and 2002. I did a solo bikepacking course, flying into Tromso, and cycling back, with few add ons in Germany, and returning on the Amsterdam-Newcastle ferry. That was 2016, the journal is here.. https://safe-return-doubtful.com/category/from-the-trail/pining-for-the-fjords-norway-2016/

In 2022 I visited Norway but from Denmark, Sweden, and Finland first, starting out in late July, and getting stuck in snow in central Norway in the autumn. That journal is here.. https://safe-return-doubtful.com/category/from-the-trail/solvitur-ambulado-2022/

Two years later I headed up the Norwegian coast steadily, over several weeks, and then south from Hammerfest, the most northerly point, through Finland, and across to Estonia and west. That journal is here.. https://safe-return-doubtful.com/category/from-the-trail/islands-of-norway-and-baltic-return-2024/

This year I want to spend as much time on the Norwegian Arctic coast as possible, trying to visit wild parts of the coast and islands that I didn’t do two years ago. Hopefully, after just a week away, I will be in the Arctic, not far from Tromso. 

The summer is short that far north, though there will be midnight sun until the end of July. By the end of August it will be well into Autumn. I’m planning to be up in the far north until the second week of September, before turning south. I intend to extend my visa in Lulea in Sweden about that time, then spend the next four months in Finland. From November I have researched some cabins to use, they are basic, and at a low season price. 

That’s a structure at least.. some things may change of course. 

I’ll blog every few days, basically when I’ve got something interesting to say..