After a couple of days rest, we realised the tents were too thing and were not keeping out the cold at all well and in any case camping season officially ended on 25 Sep, so we wouldn’t be able to use the camp sites anyway.

So on we went heading north – but then we got an amber flashing light on the dash about the Coolant. As it wasn’t red yet the RAC directed us to a local VW dealer and they gave it the once over and told us lots of the electrics are a bit ‘crap’. So that’s good news!

Anyway, after using up a few hours on that we headed towards the relatively nearby Nordens Ark, a famous zoo in Sweden, which has some wonderful countryside surrounding it.

That evening we were feeling like we deserved something a bit special after the car issues, so we headed to the only restaurant the hotel recommended us.   I decided to try some Deer and Shaun – well I’m not sure what he had as I was so busy chewing, but I do know he tucked into a Creme Brulee for dessert!

This man was running a Quiz in the restaurant…. but only in Swedish – boo!

Here is our first taste of something really Viking, with some extra special features such as people working in the Ribe Viking Center, dressed up as Vikings and actually having the original skillset of the person they are portraying!

Whats more – They can speak to you about it in English, explaining the processes they go through just as a Viking would have.

Anyway I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves…

Farm workers, the first two keep chickens, the others have cows and a bull

Food is prepared in this house, the actors eat the food the prepare.

A weaver shows off his colour making skills, and another house is being constructed!

The dock area around the boat is all done using original tools, Shaun’s favourite Shaman!

After we left Hannover behind…

We headed north towards Ribe, Denmark. But not before we stopped off at this little known Viking historic site, Viking Museum Haithabu, which now sits within Germany but would have been part of Denmark originally.

A very good re-construction of and we were happy to make it our first visit on our trip.

Onwards to Ribe and Denmark….

As we got there we needed some water in the coolant again!

Lovely night time photos of a truly gorgeous city.. expect more in our Gallery section once we return home.

Oh… and there was a Ghost Walk, needless to say ‘brave’ Shaun and I quickly got back to the hotel 🙂

Well well well… As it happened next day after being booted out of Brugge for ‘No Cars Sunday’, we finally got a chance to push the car on the autobahn!

We did get up some speed but then started to hit roadworks and this left us with only one option but to cut short our proposed final destination (Hamburg) and make a detour to Hannover. Neither of us had been here before but we both believed it to be worth visiting.  So we arrive late in the evening in Hannover and almost immediately find a good cheap hotel for the night.

(Sorry thought I’d taken a picture of the City Hotel Thuringer Hof)!

We decided to pop out for a quick Currywurst, and for me a Craft beer which was pretty disgusting!

We then walked around the old town before it got too dark

We had such fun waking up at 4am and just catching the ferry while the car was broken down – see here.

Once we arrived in Dunkirk,  Shaun took his first turn in the car and we quickly moved up the gears. A few stalls later and all was well as we motored up out of France and into Belgium.

Clearly the excitement of the day took its toll and we decided to stop over in Brugge and then make a move early next day to reach hopefully Denmark. Let’s see tomorrow how we got on.

Having not been to Brugge for a while it was a lot of fun to be back there again and we enjoyed a good meal and a pleasant nights sleep.

So we set off on our Norway Dry run, leaving London at 4am and heading south to Dover, famous for its white cliffs. Simon was driving.

We thought we’d have a bit of fun and create a temporary team logo for the Norway dry run – and here it is, Thanks James!

So just as we arrive at Dover, a little red flashing light pops up on the dashboard of the car, Shaun hurriedly looks through the manual to see what it means.  Coolant is low.   How that happened we have no idea as it was good a month ago. Anyway called out the RAC to make sure there wasn’t something more serious and he confirmed all is well…. so on we went.

Thank you to the RAC for helping us make our ferry on time!

Shaun’s reaction to the car breaking down 🙂

White cliffs of Dover

Lovely English Weather on the ferry crossing.

Please donate here if you’re enjoying our Norway dry run, more blog posts and soon some photos for the gallery!

See our next post for where we got to once we arrived in Dunkirk!

Sorry for the relative silence, Simon was away travelling in the Philippines on another venture and just didn’t have time to update things here.

Anyway, as you may have heard, Simon only got his driving license in July so we’ve planned to go on a dry run rally up Norway to the Arctic Circle. This will take place from September 17th until sometime in the first week of October. We have been stocking up on what we need, and hopefully most of this stuff will make the real journey on the Mongol Rally in 2017!

We will be doing some Blog entries during the trip, and will be updating the Gallery page with some stunning photos so please do follow us on twitter (@footiemadnomads) for those.

Please don’t forget to Donate if you haven’t already, we are working hard trying to achieve a good result for our two charities and hope you will help us along the way.

Some of the things we hope to see…