The rain poured down and visibility was zero in my completely fogged up helmet after several kilometers with heavy rain. I’ve been driving in the Harz area the whole day in sunshine until the rain started when I was heading towards Lübeck in Germany. I had to drive with the visor up to even have a chance to see the dark slippery road in front of me. Suddenly white crosses appeared in the woods by the narrow forest road I was driving on. I have never felt so afraid to travel all alone on my bike, very late in the evening, as I did then. I promised myself that night if I got safe to the hotel that I won’t do this again.

After been driving many days on my own since I started my motorcycle travel to Europe in July 19th in Gothenburg, Sweden, I saw myself as a pretty confident traveler by now. I have been driving a lot on my own both in Sweden and Denmark before but this was my first longer travel all by myself down to Europe.

Anyway, this day started as all the others with me picking myself together, packning all my stuff into the panniers of my bike at the hotel in Goslar, Harz. Now I really could do this fast since I have been on the road for many days and got my system for where to have my stuff working very good.

It was a long day driving lovely roads in the Harz area, you can’t get enough really of all curves, drive up and down the mountains and seeing all the small cute towns.

Did I mentioned it was a Sunday as well? In Germany almost everything is closed on Sundays. Even the gas stations I found out the hard way, as I almost was running out of gas late in the afternoon. For me, as a Swede, use to have all shops open it was an odd feeling. I got lucky the closer I got towards Hamburg that gas stations were open so I stopped and fuel up in the last minute. Got a nice chat with a guy that driven his old Honda CB200 from Hamburg to Harz and now on his way back. I was impressed by that and mentioned the DGR 2023 might be something for him to attend in Hamburg since he was nicely dressed up to match the bike in the era of time. He loved the idea and definitely would check it up more at home. After we said goodbye I continued to drive the roads passing lots of smaller towns and farmland on my way up north.

As the evening was getting later, I thought I should stay and have a look for a hotel soon. I had 3 options in my head for where to stay this night

• Drive to Hamburg
• Drive to Lübeck
• Stay somewhere in between

Soon it started to pour down rain as it never had rain before this summer…. Wet got a new meaning I can say. So I stopped again, this time close to the town Uelzen at a gas station to get some to eat, get hot coffee and to book a hotel.

I meet great curious staff and hanged around for a long time talking; getting one free pizza extra and lots of free coffee. I guess they were pretty bored working on a Sunday with no people coming there to talk to.

I decided to book a hotel somewhere in between and found the Hotel Waldhalle in Mölln that looked ok. A quick look at the time said 19:45h and I should be at the hotel according to Mr Google at 21:30h at the latest. Late but still ok I thought.

How little I knew of my upcoming adventure when I drove off from the gas station with Mr Google showing me the way to Mölln.

I thought I had; or let’s say I’m pretty sure of that I told Mr Google that now we drive main roads and if he found Autobahn we’ll take that to get to the hotel in the fastest way to get dried up and jump into a nice hot shower. I was tired and a bit frozen from the rain; just longing for to get inside and get into bed.

I went out to Ocean, my motorcycle, geared up and was soon on my way. It was the first rain for more than 10 days so It felt ok after all. I knew I had some place to sleep and it shouldn’t be too far away.

The first part continued as it had done the whole day passing small towns and farmland until I passed the river Elbe then it started to get smaller and smaller roads until I found myself close to the reservat Schaalsee on very small roads in the woods.

I was going the small road up and up in the woods with serpentine curves and saw I was getting closer to the hotel on Mr Googles map. Then roadblocks occurred in the middle of nowhere and I was forced to turn around going back on the wet slippery roads down to the mainroad again. Now trying to find another way to the hotel and I was pretty happy it wasn’t totally dark yet…

Mr Goole found a new route. By now I was more than happy to just get to the hotel asap when the darkness lower itself around me and made the woods not that nice place to be all alone.

So I hit the roads again; trying very hard to stay positive and thinking come on you’re soon there. Not far away now!
After driving a long time, with darkness surrounding me in heavy rain and the only lights I could see was my motorcycles lightning up the road in front of me, my helmet totally fogged up – visibility zero! NOOOOOO!

I tried to see the route at my phone placed at the handlebar. And also at the same time trying hard not to slip with the bike on the roads with big frogs constantly jumping out in front of me. Suddenly I got out to more open landscape after turned very sharp. The road went into a tree alley with paving stones even more slippery to drive on. Then Mr Google suddenly lost all contact, he started to spin not knowing where he was and where to tell me to drive… So I stopped and realized it was very slippery at the road when I put my foot down. By now I lost it and just started to cry. I was so tired and in the fucking of nowhere. Then a car came towards me and as a woman all alone my mind starts to think; Is this good or not? Who am I meeting? What can happen to me? Will anyone ever find me if something happens?

The car came closer and closer. When it stopped by my side I was near to be a wreck inside due to tiredness, not knowing where I am and also a bit alert if this was not a nice person in the car. It was a nice person and he was asking me if I needed any help with my bike in German. I do not speak German but understands some words. I manage in my own way to tell him no problems with the bike but where the hell is the road to Mölln?

He told me, a bit confused, that I should take the even smaller road into the woods I just missed in sharp turn I just had done before entering the tree alley. He also said it was a very odd way to get to Mölln I had driven so far since it went through a park area. Not a nice area to drive in when it was dark and no people around that could help out if something happens, no shit Sherlock! He said I was close by and just had that small road left to get into Mölln so he wished me a good contine and safe travel before he started the car and drove off.

I started to turn my bike around, slipping with my feet pushing it back and slowly driving forward, totally concentrated to not make it fall into the ground. I managed and started my travel again. Now with no visibility in my helmet vizor but drove with an open helmet drying off the rain in my face instead. I just wanted to get out of there asap.

I turned into the small road I missed before and the dark wood surrounded me, only my bike lightning up the road. Warning signs for frogs and deers keep coming and the frogs I saw plenty off trying not to crush them with the bike. Then I saw them, the white crosses standing in the wood, like a monument of death.

I think it was 3 but it looked like it was several behind the ones my bike lightened up. With the words still in my head from the man in the car this was too much for me and I now was really terrified. I just kept driving and didn’t care if any frogs died or not. I just wanted to get out- out of the woods! Out of the darkness! Out of the rain! Out of the fear that had its grip on my body and mind!

I think this drive took about 15-20 min before I finally could see the lights of houses and get onto normal roads again taking me into the town of Mölln and showing the way to the hotel. The last part was also going into woods, make me feel like noooo not again, but this time the signs from the hotel was showing me the way.

I got to the hotel very late 23:00 h ish and was totally exhausted. As I was talking to the staff about the roads I got from pressing the link in Booking.com taking me to Google maps they was very confused of the road Google had chosen for me. They understood my feelings and said that it’s a nice drive daytime but for sure not in the evenings or at this late hour. And of course there was a very easy road to get there if I just had got that one instead of the one I got from Mr Google. I went straight up to my room, into a hot shower for a long time, opening a beer and then calling my daughter to share my upset feelings and the happiness to finally be at the hotel.

I can clearly see that Mr Google has a really bad sense of humour sometimes taking us drivers on travels we sure not wished for but maybe need to take. To learn something about ourselves along the roads we drive forward in life. I have learnt to look more than twice at Mr Googles suggestions for routes, clicking out all ideas of route alternatives for late in the evening drives and to stop my travel in time to avoid this to happen again.

I guess we all have our stories to tell when we felt like this and ended up in strange roads, what’s yours?

The end