We’re (almost) outta here!

We’ve made a big step in our journey by… moving to Worcester - 6 miles down the road from our (old) house!

A generous friend has opened up his home to us so we can rest and organise ourselves before we leave the UK. A huge thank you to Lars for his hospitality and kindness. You’ve really helped us out.

Arriving at this point means that we have successfully completed on the house sale and Sam will be sharing a bit more about this in due course. The process to empty our lives of almost all our possessions has been an intense but surprisingly cathartic experience.

Now that this large and key part of our plans has been completed, it’s on to thinning down the last boxes of sentimental items, bike maintenance bits and other kit, clothes and belongings to what will fit in our panniers. This has been a mixture of posting items to friends, arranging for parents to store photographs/scrapbooks, and visiting friends and family to pass on the few remaining outstanding items.

Then there’s the exciting bit! Trip planning. I have said before that I love a map and it’s been great to start imagining our trip in a digital form before we get our wheels on the ground. Current plans are to leave the UK in mid-June by catching a ferry over to The Netherlands, getting a FlixBus (we’ll share with you how that goes) to Denmark and then another ferry to Norway where we’ll start pedalling proper.

After drafting this blog, we had some enlightening discussions with our host Lars about sights to see in Denmark so we’ve added a day or two here into our rough itinerary.

Plans will be flexible (around firm bookings on public transport) but we aim to cycle up the west coast of Norway, building our confidence and adjusting to our new life on the bike.

With this adventure being in the offing for a little while, we cannot wait to get going. Just a few final bits to sort in the coming days. The countdown to our departure begins.