used to visit a Scandinavian girlfriend so i suppose yes! thats it i promise not to hijack anymore!! on a relative note i dont mind heights as long as i dont look up!!                                                                                                                                                                             

I went to Sweden in 2004 for 2 weeks and saw more custom Harleys in Stockholm and Guttenburg than i'd seen in a lot of cities in the USA ..i'm sure they must have great routes through the forests etc , did'nt notice many mountains down south where i was though.

I seem to recall that there are a few fjords where they base jump and I may be wrong, but one of the highest bridges?

Just had some pics come in from a friend riding the carritera del morte in Bolivia. I squirmed in my chair just looking at some of the pictures.

I'll save them somewhere and see if I can import them here in the right size. Very frightening, especially as going down it, which would have been my route, means you are on the outside and there isn't an outside to be on!

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/bMzdC_jbl53lH64m3J...directlinkhttp://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/_EYq0chBThPW6BnvC4...directlinkJust no way I'd have felt anything but fear riding this and you have to give way to traffic coming up and it's 50 miles or there abouts (may be out there, but after a few hundred yards my eye's would have been closed anyway). If this was the UK, they'd have speed, sorry, safety cameras on it.                                                                                                                                                                             

Lamble those passes i would'nt want to walk up !never mind ride or drive them , how the hell do they make roads outa these goat tracks??                                                                                                                                                                             

Just for you and your tunnel phobia:

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/CB1i9BudISvGa246qo...directlink

Seems that when not hanging on an edge you are encased in a rock channel with nowhere to go if something comes the other way.                                                                                                                                                                             

Stupendous , absolutely mind boggling , but not for me and i'm not faint hearted ..i do know where to draw the line though!                                                                                                                                                                             

I was full of trepidation about getting there. I was sort of hoping a different route would crop up, but if it had been unavoidable, I'd have given it a go. Sometimes there's no alternative other than to go ahead, really no alternative.

As it worked out, I didn't get that far.

Moonstone posted a few pages back about the Bikers Farm in Germany and suggested that I should give some more information. We stayed there with friends over the late May Bank Holiday weekend and had a thoroughly enjoyable time. It's located near the village of Buldern on the Bulderner See with the nearest big town being Dülmen in the area between Duisburg and Münster. Being less than 300 miles from Calais, the Bikers Farm is easily reached. While food, drink and accommodation is not expensive, think of it as an upmarket  Squires. The rooms are fairly basic but comfortable, camping is available, the food is good value and served in German quantities, a good variety of drinks including a dark wheatbeer is available and on some evenings there are live bands. It's popular with local bikers stopping off for refreshments as well as guests from throughout Europe but from the Netherlands and the UK in particular.

When we stayed there we went for rideouts to the Mohne and Eder dams but Sauerland and the North German coast are both within reach. On a previous visit, we travelled to Bremerhaven to see the U-boat. If you like travelling in Western Europe, you won't be disappointed.  

Cata, is it all doable in a long weekend, or would you say there's enough there to keep you occupied for longer?                                                                                                                                                                             

I did the Rhine Valley in a long weekend which is the same sort of area, but I wish I'd had longer.                                                                                                                                                                             

well jealous as i am of all ye farmyard folk, i am gonna do some miles tomorrow, derbyshire, onto cheshire, cat and fiddle on ther way home too.                                                                                                                                                                             

Although the immediate area around the Bikers Farm is very pleasant, you do need to travel a bit to get onto interesting roads for picturesque scenery. It also takes the best part of a day to get to taking into account riding to the Channel ports and the crossing time since even with the Chunnel, with checking in, etc, it still takes well over an hour, unless you get an overnight ferry to Holland.

I would say you need slightly more than a long weekend and more still if you want a day off riding to enjoy the ambiance. We went there on a Thursday and returned the following Tuesday and could have done with a couple of extra days.   

Well just had a weekend where I went from Africa to Asia before popping into Australia and all within Ripley. Horizon's Unlimited world travellers meet up. Rode the Cat and fiddle for the first time on Friday and again today...can't see what the fuss is, or how you can kill yourself without acting like a complete berk.

Met with Ted Simons, Dan Walsh, Sam Manicon and the guy who did Terra Circa, plus a few others and lot's of wannabe world riders and that fruit and nutter who races around the planet on an R1, he's disturbed, or heavily medicated. A Harley that has been to every country on the planet and some real lash ups of bikes.

Taught how to prepare and cook road kill...tasted okay too.

The continents were the conference rooms by the way, although the topics covered in them did cover even more than just those three continents.

Matlock Bath'd and Cat and Fiddled back. Tried out some new video mounts on the way and will see what the outcome looks like later in the week, when I've time to down load.

Looking for somewhere to ride next week and happy to take a pillion if anyone wants to come somewhere, at sometime, for so long.

You could always have tour of North Yorks an call in at mine   If you are at a loose end I'm havin a party from Thurs to Tuesday     Em                                                                                                                                                                              

I'll bear that in mind. Scarborough and Whitby coast, there's a thought.

Thanks for the offer.

What's the party for...do I need to bring flowers?                                                                                                                                                                             

                           60th     Bring flowers, If thats what you eat   Em                                                                                                                                                                              

Nick Saunders, that's the R1 guy. Loopier than a packet of polos and totally chaotic. Lord only knows how he finds his way around a window box, yet alone the planet.                                                                                                                                                                             

I've spoken to him quite a few times and found him saner than many - even if he has got revolving eyes!                                                                                                                                                                             

He's just so unco-ordinated and random though. And apparently his tours are a complete shambolic bodge job, as told by people who had been on them.