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I awoke in our little camping hut on Wednesday, the 19th of August as the sun was spilling over the horizon, lighting up another promising day. I took some photos without getting out of my sleeping bag and noted the westerly from the previous day still pushing enough to have the flags flittering atop their poles.
I drifted back off to sleep for an hour and a half, then rose full of energy for the day to come. I stepped out of the hut and was well and truly pissed off to find that the moderate westerly had been replaced by a roaring southerly. I checked the map and confirmed that our path for the entire day was in fact taking us directly south! For a whole bloody day of head wind fun.
Thinking back to our first full day in Denmark, I recall going past the hundreds of other cyclists on their organised tour, with their big smiles and fun and frivolity. I guess if the winds that were punishing us all of a sudden swung around to aid our endeavours, then I'd be pretty damn happy too.
The morning pack was taken slowly, as our German friends were bringing us their contact details and camping suggestions. There was nothing exceptional about the ride on this day; it was long, flat and straight, taking us past Nissum Fjord and Ringkobing Fjord, the last fjord we would see on our journey.
We stopped for bakery goodies at Sondervig and again at Hvide Sande, owing to the amount of energy we were using whilst heading into this ferocious wind. Nadia did most of the hard work of leading into the wind all day, as my right hammy was for some reason giving me a fair bit of grief. Maybe it was the extra 3 kilo's I now had to carry, thanks to 1 of our new German friends generously giving us his German road atlas, even though we protested that we already had enough gear to cart with us and we were still 2 days travel from Germany. On the plus side, now with the wind coming from the south, the temperature of the day was markedly higher than the previous days.
According to our map there was supposed to be quite a few camping huts around the Blabjerg area but we failed to find any, so for the first time in nearly a week the tent was erected. That night, beside a horse track through a pine forest I fell asleep to the sounds of the wind in the trees.
Right from the start the Thursday was going to be a hot one, and it became our hottest day of the
tour, reaching a whopping 31 degrees. It was also the end of our 3rd month on the bikes. The wind had changed slightly, now blowing from the southeast, and as you would've guessed already, the coastline today changed from running due south, into more of a southeasterly direction. So once again we were slugging it out against a tireless foe.
For anyone who might be interested in cycling through Denmark, by all means give it a go, as its a beautiful country and well set up for riding. BUT - go from south to north, DO NOT go from north to south. Its just not as much fun. But I guess the bakery treats probably taste a bit better if you've sweated for them.
We travelled away from the coast to the town of Oksbol for our now necessary bakery treats. Once on the road from Oksbol we were again following the #1 bikepath all the way into Esbjerg.
Esbjerg is the biggest town we rode through whilst in Denmark, but it still wasn't big. We stopped for a while to wander the town, mainly in the search of Souvenirs, of which we didn't find many. Of course there were postcards of the royal family, but that's not my thing, sorry Mum.
With our souvenirs safely packed we made our way out of town and onto the dyke wall which runs from here all the way to Germany, owing to tidal flats and a tidal variation of about 10meters. We were already on the lookout for a hut for the night, but as with the night before, the huts marked on our map were playing funny buggers and we were unable to locate any. Because of this we were still riding in the late afternoon when I glanced over my right shoulder and saw a massive storm rolling in from the west with clouds a few hundred meters thick. So this was the result of a 30degree day in Denmark. We picked up our speed and looked to the nearest town, which happened to be Ribe, a little bit inland from where we were. For the first 5 minutes we were holding to the hope of outpacing the storm, but then like a bushfire it jumped the containment lines and bore down upon us.
The beauty of the situation for me overrode my sense of urgency and I stopped for a photo or 2, whilst for Nadia, her sense of survival kicked in and she was off down the road and around the next corner before I'd even snapped the first photo. By the time I caught up to her again the storm was nearly overhead and it would be just a few minutes more until the rain would be lashing our backs. As I came alongside Nadia a magical thing happened – we received our first tailwind in Denmark. Buoyed by this development we went flying down the road hooting and hollering, passing a local man outside his house also taking photos of this natural phenomenon. With the change of wind the little Aussie flag flying from the back of my bike also took flight, came loose and ended on the road. Nadia noticed and told me, but was scared that if I went back I would be eaten by the cloud. Feeling energetic I wheeled back to retrieve the flag. Once I was heading towards Ribe again I pushed my chain onto the high gears and had the R.P.M's going off the scale. I found Nadia asking for directions and we were shown a short cut that had us winding past farm houses and scared cows. The rain caught us with 2 kilometres still to go, but with light covering from the roadside trees, and the full brunt of the storm not yet with us, we made it into town and found the hostel before getting drenched. Over the last half hour on a flat road we had averaged 32km/h.
We were lucky to arrive only 10 minutes before reception closed for the night, and even luckier that one of the bookings hadn't arrived. That meant that in the completely booked out hostel we got a room reallocated for us and were able to drag ourselves and our gear in for a night of peace. There was a massive school group taking up the rest of the hostel, so instead of trying to squeeze into the kitchen, we treated ourselves to pizza.
The receptionist was checking the weather on the internet and told us of the predicted 30mm of rain. Glad to be inside, I showered and shaved, going to bed feeling fresh, but knowing I had to put my dirty clothes on again in the morning.
Ribe is a pretty town, and the oldest in Denmark we learnt. I'm not a fan of towns, but I did like Ribe, with its cobbled streets and houses askew. We also learnt that the European wasp enjoys the Danish bakeries as much as we do, with several dozen wasps scaring a few potential customers away from our chosen bakery. We weren't frightened so easily, and bit carefully around the wasps who reciprocated by not biting us.
Further down the road we passed through Skaerbaek and Bredebro, but didn't stop until Tonder which would be our last town in Denmark. Our main aim in Tonder was to use up our remaining Danish Kroner. I spent 9kroner on a stamp for a postcard to Mum, which left us with 50 to spend somehow. We came across the idea of going to a bakery, and with the help of the bakery girl we managed to spend the entire 50kroner, which left us with only 1 of each coin to add to our growing collection of souvenir moneys. Once into Germany we would be in the land of the €EURO, meaning we wouldn't have to go through the exchange process for a long time.
We crossed into Germany 3km further on from Tonder and found that one of our numerous maps showed a wooded area with picnic table not far to our west, so that's where we went and that became home for our first night in Germany, the 5th country on our slow way home.
The Kingdom of Denmark (including Greenland and the Faroe Islands) has a reasonable land area of 2,220,093 km², with only 2.5 people per square kilometre. But Denmark proper is only a measly 43,094 km², making it about 5 times smaller than the state of Victoria. The population of the country is just over 5 and a half million people, which is about half a million more than the total population of Victoria. It is an old country with a surviving royal family. Apart from this it's a pretty nice place to travel through and apparently a very nice place to live. According to a few surveys, Denmark is 'the happiest place in the world', the second most peaceful country in the world (behind New Zealand) and it has the best business climate in the world. With my socio-demographical surveying background, I am led to believe that it all started going right for Denmark after the prince went and snagged himself a Tasmanian barmaid. I mean, who wouldn't be happy knowing your future queen delivers a quality head, atop your Carlsberg beer.
The benefits of the camping huts were on full show on the morning of August 17. With no tent to pack and no wet gear, the time of departure was 8.50am, which would have to be some sort of a record for us.
With this early start we had already ridden about 45km by midday, taking us past the 3,000 km mark of our tour. By comparison, if we had of ridden this distance up the east coast of Australia, leaving from Melbourne and sticking to the major highways, we would have just about reached Cairns.
The riding during this first session of the day took us back to the coast, then alternatingly following dirt tracks through pine plantations, open road stints and the occasional grass path through farmland. By 2.00pm we had already pumped out 75km and rolled into the town of Hanstholm where we decimated the bakeries display shelves, and made quite a dint in their reserve danishes also.
After lunch the coast changed direction. From our last camp to Hanstholm we had been travelling fairly westward, but after Hanstholm the coast drops and follows a very slow arc to the south, eventually heading straight south. Whilst heading westward for nearly 5 hours on this morning we had encountered a head wind coming from around every tree, at the end of every corn field and coming into and out of every corner and every twist in the road. After Hanstholm I was looking forward to a reprieve from this constant onslaught. You can imagine how disappointed I was to learn that the wind had also decided on a change and was now happily blowing its tits off from a south/southwesterly direction.
We followed the road out of Hanstholm, having no official bike path to follow. The road ran the border between the beach on the right and the low, grassy sand dunes on the left. Amongst the dunes were concrete bunkers and gun turrets, remnants from WW2; the German's having advanced to this northerly position in April, 1940. Today the bunkers serve as a good road side photo stop for tourists and something for the kids to climb on, to expend their excess energy.
The road followed this straight stretch of coast until arriving at the town of Klitmoller. There wasn't anything of note in Klitmoller; I just mentioned it as it sounds rather funny. From Klitmoller we followed back roads through forested areas whilst hunting for a campground marked on our maps. We eventually found the campsite, and also found it to be full of a school group consisting of 20 children who couldn't take their eyes off us. There was 1 free hut which we considered making home for the night, but before we unloaded we noticed that even the teachers were staring at us with the same blank look that the children were employing. Fearing a night time zombie attack we turned our bikes and casually walked back out the road, whence we jumped aboard and got out of there quick-smart. Our map showed another campsite not too much further down the coast, so this was where we headed. As we came back to the main road we reached the 100km mark for the day, and as a reward, the wind decided to ease up for the last half hour of riding. We had some trouble finding this camp, but eventually Nadia spotted the little sign we were looking for, and we followed a path into the woods where we were presented with an empty campsite. This was the most 'primitive' of the campsites we used in Denmark. Primitive only in the fact that it didn't come with running water, it still had huts, a toilet, fireplace and firewood. But of course, in classic Burke & Wills style, we had arrived at camp with our water bladders empty and our only water being what we had left in our bike bottles, wrongly presuming that this camp would have water like the last few. So dinner this night was cooked in a new style of 'minimal water' and it came out very nice indeed.
With our southerly path for the day we also had our nicest day of wind for our whole stay in Denmark. Today the wind was only mostly in our faces, instead of entirely. The day before I had been told that there was a high pressure system sitting above us and for the next few days we had been promised good weather. So accordingly, it didn't start raining until 9.15 on this morning, just after we had started riding for the day. We got out of the pine forest and had clear views out to the north sea where we could see a few patches of rain about the sky. There was 1 big rain heading our way so we legged it to the south and got ourselves away from that cloud.
The town of Agger gave us the chance to refill our water bladders and bottles. The unmanned tourist booth also provided us with pamphlets of the surrounding area. Not only is this area of Denmark the hilliest, but its also full of saltwater lakes and fjords. Just south of Agger we had to hop on a ferry for a short ride across to the next peninsular at Thyboron, and from here the road followed the coast very closely. The furthest we would get from the coast over the next 2 days was about 2 kilometres, over a journey of 200km.
After our now ritual danish pig-out at lunch we had a nice relaxing bikepath all afternoon to take us through or past the towns of Harboron, Vrist, Strande, Ferring and Bovbjerg. The bikepath took us on a winding way through sanddunes and farmland, where the corn was just coming into season. Baby corn straight off the plant gave us a juicy snack whilst on the bikes, and helped fill our cooking pot for the next few nights.
It was thanks to the Fjaltring Y.H.A that we found our next camp; it was another free shelter, this time right on the beach. There were other holiday makers with us tonight – 2 German couples, each in their campervans. With another evening of not needeing the tent we strolled along the beach and looked for amber, which can be found along the coast. I found a few pieces of something that sort of resembled amber, so that was good enough for us and we headed back to camp to find 1 of the German couples filling the air around the camp with hearty aromas coming from their German style grill. We got chatting and found them to be very friendly folk from the town of Hamburg, in northern Germany. Later we were also joined by the other couple, who also turned out to be from the Hamburg region, so friends were created and promises made to visit Hamburg on our way through Germany. Just before bed one of the men returned to us with a bottle of schnapps, which we happily drank from as we said goodbye to another memorable day on our travels.
The morning Nadia and I caught the ferry to Denmark was an early start. We were up at 6.00 to breakfast and pack, having to step through fresh puddles after an overnight deluge. Whilst waiting for the ferry we were joined by 4 other bike tourers heading in the same direction. The ferry ride was super smooth, with departure and arrival correct to the minute, which is pretty good for an international trip. On the ferry we got ourselves a window table and settled in with our books. We made ourselves some sandwiches and got told off by a worker, as apparently we were sitting in his bar and were meant to buy our lunch from him. We said o.k. and kept eating and he moved along happy with his handling of a potentially fun situation.
Denmark still uses it own currency so once again a stop had to be made to cash ourselves up, this time filling our pockets with Denmark Kroner, which were going for about 4.9 Kroner to 1 Aussie dollar.
Once we left the tourist bureau we headed north and found our bike path that would take us to the most northern tip of Denmark, only about 50km from here. Denmark really is a flat country which should have made the riding nice and cruisy, except for a fairly strong head wind that stayed with us all afternoon long. The bike path was great, very flat and smooth. It stayed close to the main road most of the way, but every now and then meandered further in to the pine and dunes that were surrounding us. The afternoon was sunny and other bike riders were enjoying the nature, with happy groups of people occupying most of the picnic tables we passed along the path. And why wouldn't the Danes be happy, knowing that their little country is in safe hands, with a beautiful young Australian lass to keep their future king in line, although by all accounts, a fairly easy task with his marathon running using up any of his excess testosterone.
We struck camp for the night in an area of grassy sand dunes surrounded by stunted, bent and wind beaten trees, a fairly ominous sign for the days to come. We made camp early, as we were close to the northern point, and with the afternoon sun we were able to dry our belongings off quite effectively. A barefoot stroll over the dunes brought us to the shore of the Kattegat where I skinny dipped with the jelly fish. On the way back through the dunes Nadia managed to nearly step on the only type of poisonous snake in Denmark, which would be a fairly ironic way to go for someone who leads tours in central Australia where there are just a few deadly snakes about.
My first full day in Denmark greeted us with clear sunny skies. The morning was spent at a casual pace, with our bike chains getting some T.L.C. Even still, we were away just after our usual starting time, which shows how much difference a warm sunny morning makes. Once on the road we ran north with the wind for the last few kilometres to Skagen, the most northerly town in Denmark. Now being as far north as we could go, that meant we then had our previously tail wind blowing hard into our faces. About 5 kilometres further on from Skagen is the visitors centre for the popular tourist attraction that is the north point of Denmark. We parked our bikes and got barefoot again for the walk to the end of the country, with the Skagerrak to the North West meeting with the Kattegat coming up from the South East. It is a very popular tourist spot, even offering a tractor ride along the beach from the visitor centre to the land's end for those tourists who have come so far, but can't be fucked walking the final 2 kilometres. After surviving the taxing walk and getting some photos of this memorable occasion we had a date with a Danish bakery. We charged back to a bakery in Skagen and I happily spent a long time choosing 2 danishes and a rum ball for dessert. It was all very nice, and pretty cheap. Nadia also had 2 danishes, and with this energy food in our bellies, we were away into the wicked wind.
We spent this day once again following beautifully made bike paths along the coast and across the country, with the trip from Skagen taking us along bike path #1. As we travelled on this day we had to not only fight the wind, but also weave our way through an onslaught of crazy, drunken, boisterous and extremely happy cyclists coming from the south. It was an organised ride, with lots of participants dressed in team uniforms, clown costumes and other fun things. One fella was so happy he was even showing his tackle to lucky passers-by and Nadia was lucky. I'm not sure if their happiness was due to Princess Mary, or that they hardly had to pedal, with a 60 knot tail wind doing all the hard work for them.
We made it to Hirtshals, where Nadia landed on her first arrival into Denmark a month ago. Here we stopped for supplies for the night, then continued on our merry way, finally pulling up stumps to the west of Hjorring, at a place marked on our map as Skallerup. Here we found what Nadia had discovered on her earlier trip; little wooden huts just for cyclists and hikers. They are spread out throughout the north of Denmark and are just small camping areas to the side of the roads, sometimes hard to find. There are 2 or 3 of these huts at each campsite and it seems to be a 'first in, best hut' situation. All the camps we used had long drop toilets and fire places, most had water and some even had a pile of firewood ready to be used. Whenever we were able to use these huts it made both our nights and mornings much easier, without needing to set up and pull down the tent and with space to keep all our gear dry. We found that we didn't need to unpack a lot of our gear.
The North West area of Denmark was awesome, with pine and oak forests covering large areas, with hiking and biking tracks running through the forests in all directions.
Late on this day the sky filled with low, grey sheet clouds that dropped the temperature by several degrees.
On the 15th of August we didn't get to see the sun. It was overcast and cold all day, with rain on and off. And added to this we were pulverised by a relentless wind that changed directions to be against us all the way. By the end of the day we had managed to grind out 60km, which took us over 4 hours. During the morning we came across a beautiful old lighthouse that was being enveloped by a massive sand dune that was slowly marching inland, taking over not only the lighthouse, but also the scrub forest to the east. At the town of Lokken we once again raided the bakery and feasted on very big pastries and a few danishes just because we were in Denmark.
Once again we were able to follow bike path #1 for the day, but chose to ride on the roads for a while instead of a 20km stretch on the beach where we would have been blown backwards in the wind, and cried. At this beach I chatted to the lifeguards for a while, who were sitting warm and comfortable in their vehicle, and with no swimmers due to the weather, I felt right at home. The lifeguards told me that the summer before they had a guard from Australia at this beach. They also told me of the great pay rates for lifeguards in Denmark, which could possibly see me returning in the future to sit in a comfortable vehicle and do not much; I'm pretty good at it.
We rejoined the #1 path just south of Blokhus, and were very happy when the track started weaving through the pine forests, keeping us out of the main barrage of the wind. We found our camp empty and awesome with shelters like the night before, but better ones. There was even a little hut with a table and pot-belly stove. We grilled up some steaks above the fire and washed them down with some soup. With the smell of meat around the fire, I was motivated to go and lay a snare to catch a rabbit. After this I flaked in our shelter and put in a good book reading session.
After covering 200km over the last 3 days we decided to give our legs a rest, so a rest day was declared for the 16th. On this day the rain continued to fall on and off and the wind to howl. I pottered about for the day, realigning my front racks and bull horns. Finding no rabbit in my trap, I wandered through the forest and stalked some deer for a while. When passing under a branch I was caught in the eye by a flinging twig and couldn't see much, so I made it back to camp where I slept for an hour. Nadia spent the day with her book and finished reading The Da Vinci Code just in time to get dinner on the go. After dinner I started reading my new book – The Pillars Of The Earth, and that brought another hard day in the life of Wally and Nadia to a close.
It seemed that we raced through Sweden. After 52 days and 1,573 kilometres around Norway, we only had a total of 13 days and 497 kilometres of cycling through Sweden, and a bit of travelling on trains.
Sweden was much more relaxing with rest stops in Slabraten, Stockholm and Goteborg. The riding we did was much easier than Norway, with our daily average rising to 62km. The weather was up and down, when it was good it was great, but when it rained it certainly rained, but thankfully most of our rest days were rain free, giving us good opportunity to explore, swim, relax and enjoy the sun.
Sweden was obviously very similar to Norway, and we were able, with a slight adjustment, to use our basic greetings and thankyous as we went. We found the same law with camping, and the same good recycling system in use. One thing that impressed me was the extent of cycling paths in and around Stockholm, and the amount of people using these paths was impressive. I imagine Melbourne could do the same thing, but that would cut into the budget of all the new highways and bypasses and million dollar tunnel proposals that the Victorian Government sees as a tax payers right and the way of the future.
Throughout the few days that we spent with our Swedish family the weather was very nice for riding – no rain, no wind and not too hot. Now we were riding again and the rain came to welcome us back, with the rain starting to fall as we arrived in Karlskoga. From Karlskoga we were heading east to the next big city of Orebro, but the only road between the 2 cities was the highway. So with the rain coming down and the prospect of balancing on the shoulder of the highway, we took the alternative option of catching a bus. This turned out to be a great move, as it saved us many kilometres of highway riding, which is never fun, and most of the way on the bus we could hardly see out the windows with the rain increasing to downpour proportions.
The Orebro library was a great place to get out of the rain when we arrived, and a very helpful worker helped me to find a road atlas of Sweden, and then let me copy off a few pages of our next day's destinations. After confusion on how to get out of town, we finally returned to some peaceful country roads, where we happily travelled along until we found a servo. Sweden doesn't stock the type of fuel needed to get our stove going, so we devised a system of hanging around the fuel pumps until someone used a pump. After they had paid and driven away we could get the last of the fuel out of the hose with the aid of gravity. After just a few hoses, this method gave us enough fuel to last a day or 2.
We finished the day by setting up camp on some high ground above a quiet road and cooked up a feast whilst the mozzies feasted on us.
As we were coming in to Vadsbro we could see a lake to the south of the village, but buggered if we could find it. We found we had gone right through the village and were on the road to the next town, before stopping at an intersection. A minute later the first car came and went through the intersection before stopping. The driver jumped out to offer some assistance and was able to tell me how to get to the lake, by going back into town, turning over the train line, up the long driveway, past the big red shed, around the locked gate and through the wheat field. Thankfully his instructions were correct, and thankfully I had listened well, as this lakeside camp, that we would never have found on our own, was brilliant. It was fighting for best campsite alongside the bothy on Hoy Island, but I think Hoy wins simply due to it being an ocean side camp. We were the only campers at this point of the lake, but during the long afternoon several locals came and went after a refreshing swim. We also had a good session of swimming and jumping off the platform. By the time we had properly set up it was dark, so we headed onto a rock outcrop above the lake and got a nice fire going to cook on. I got to bed on this day just before midnight very tired and very happy, knowing that to be a part of this journey was an experience that not many choose to do, but most regret later in life that they didn't do it, and here I am living it and loving it.
The day was shaping up to mirror yesterday's sunshine, and we were all undecided as to whether we should pack up and move on. We had decided to catch a train to Stockholm the next day, so didn't have far to go to catch the train. Whist trying to decide we all somehow ended up in our bathers and down at the jumping platform, so any thoughts of packing camp were put on hold as we jumped and swam for a long time. When we were finishing up and drying in the sun a local fella arrived and told us he knew of another nice beach at another lake only 20km away. We figured that this would get us a bit closer to our planned train trip to the capital, and so in the shade of the trees we packed up camp and got on our way at 2pm.
This little ride of only 24km should have been easy and relaxing, riding along shady dirt roads, surrounded by lush patches of blueberries bursting with juice, but for some strange reason, tension was running very high during the trip. It didn't help that when we arrived at the beach we had been told about, we found it was more representative of an overgrown paddock leading down to a small sandy strip crowded with families and crying kids, complete with a no camping sign.
There wasn't any talk of looking for another option and we got stuck in with setting up camp. As with other high tension days, it melted away as soon as the bikes were dropped at the end of the day, and a relaxing evening was had around the fire talking of the end of our 3 person adventure. Our team of 3 was coming to an end when we reached Stockholm, as from there Jon was heading off into his own sunset, just 1 man and his problematic bike, like a cowboy on a lame, mangy, sun-blighted donkey with a penchant for tequila.
Our last day on the bikes together gave us another great day of weather, with the light wind dying off by midday. Nadia was packed and on the road while Jon and I were still finishing up. We hit the road and cruised along, not catching up to Nadia until we reached the town of Sparreholm, from where we were going to catch the train to Stockholm. Before Jon and I arrived Nadia had made the interesting discovery that Sparreholm doesn't actually have a train station. This led us to the bus station where we found a glaring emission in the midday bus department, bringing us to our 3 way option of whether to: 1) wait for a few hours for a slow bus that might not be able to fit all 3 bikes, or 2) ride east towards Stockholm and to the train station at Gnesta, the next big town in that direction, but taking a long time to ride, or 3) to ride west to the town of Flen, the closest big town in any direction, but actually taking us away from Stockholm. I think it was mostly due to my charismatic smile that we ended up on the third option, going to Flen and away from our destination. The other 2 didn't seem to agree that going away from Stockholm was going to get us there quicker, and if it didn't work, I think this would have been not only the end of the 3 person team, but I might have found myself all on my lonesome.
Nadia didn't want to be late to get to Stockholm for our meeting with Suzie and her boyfriend, so she rode like a demon and pulled us into Flen where we quickly found the joint train station/tourist info. Here we got told that the next train wasn't coming for another 2 hours, until we realised that the 12.00 train hadn't arrived and it was now 12.01 so we bolted out the door and raced to the track to see the train pulling in, but the boom gates were down and we needed to be on the other side of the platform. But they do say that providence moves for those with charismatic smiles, and for some magically unknown reason the train pulled up well short of the boom gates and slowly the gate raised, leaving us sprinting down the platform to the train master standing at the far end of the train and he turned out to be a good bloke and after telling us the price and telling us to hurry the hell up he opened a door and we jammed all bikes and bodies onboard, with some drops of sweat telling of our relief.
The trip was saved, and just 55 minutes later we were unloading in Stockholm Central Station, the second national capitol of our tour (3rd for Nadia who visited Copenhagen). Jon took over the lead and had us weaving through the streets to the hostel he stayed in a month ago. He was looking for his towel that he left behind and they also had some very good city cycle path maps that got us from city centre all the way out to Suzie's apartment along very nice and very busy bike paths.
Stockholm is built on many small islands, so we were riding over bridges, along waterways and beside lakes where half the population were sprawled out on the grass and sand, soaking up the summer sum.
It took us less than an hour to arrive at Suzie's flat, where we were introduced to her boyfriend Johan. After all 3 of us were showered we wandered the area and ended up at a Thai restaurant for dinner and a cold beer. That night we nibbled on cheese, sipped on red and chatted away whilst looking through many amazing photos from Africa and our travels.
That night a beautiful dinner and desert brought our tour with Jon to an end. I'd had some amazing times travelling with Jon over the last 40 days, but I was also very excited to be back on the road with just Nadia and me, as the tempo changes and it's much easier to make group decisions with only 2 people. From here Jon was planning a week on Gotland, a small island with good nature. After that he would catch up with a friend in the Swedish town of Jonkoping, and then he was roughly planning to head into Eastern Europe and make his way to Turkey. He was still chasing hills, cheaper prices and friendlier people.
We had done the hills for now, and now for us our journey was to Denmark, a nice, flat country with bakery treats on every corner. To get from Stockholm to Denmark we rode back to the central station and caught a train to Goteborg, Sweden's second largest city where we arrived in the middle of the culture festival, which was pretty cool with lots to see. Here we had 2 days to wander about before we caught a ferry to Frederikshaven in Denmark.
Jon was fairly certain that his bike was going to break if he went much further so he made the decision to stay in Karlstad for the night, whilst Nadia and I pushed on to cut the distance we had to cover tomorrow morning.
We seemed to cover the kilometres very quickly this late afternoon, and arriving in Skattkarr we treated ourselves to a pizza dinner at a little Italian restaurant. We were able to watch TV, and saw the Aussie ladies swim team take out second place in the 4X100 medley relay at the World Champs, which was very nice. Another reason for eating out was that we wanted to keep riding a bit further and didn't want to worry about cooking and dishes, and so we were back on the road in no time flat. Leaving the suburbs of Karlstad far behind, we had bikepaths for a while, and when they disappeared we took back roads to the side of the highway, only reammerging at the small towns of Vase and Olme, before we headed bush on a short cut attempt towards Storfors. The sun was going down as we decided to take a dirt road pointing in the right direction. It turned out to be the road we were actually looking for, which meant we knew we only had about 30km to do the next day. By this stage we were very keen for a nice, flat, soft place to put the tent on, and checking the bike computer showed 117km of travel for the day. The forest was hugging the road very tightly and it took a few kilometres to find a seldom used dirt track heading away from the road, so that became bed for the night, and this day became the first day I had ridden over 100km, finally dropping the bike at 120 kilometres. The campsite turned out to be 'the' place to be for Swedish ants, and they came out in their thousands to tickle our feet.
As I mentioned in the last blog, Nadia and Suzie met whilst they were both working in South Africa. They only met each other a few times, and hadn't seen each other since then, but thankfully had kept in touch. So here we were meeting Suzie's family in the middle of Sweden, and Suzie herself wasn't arriving from Stockholm until the next day. They did the right thing and put food in front of us and showed us the washing machine.
Once refreshed we found out Jon was on his way from Karlstad, after having no luck with his bike repairs. He arrived just as lunch was served (bbq turkey and corn cobs), and then shortly after lunch we jumped into a car with Eva to head back to Karlstad, where we were appearing as surprise guests at a 60th birthday party, being the birthday of Eva's Mum.
After eating my fill at the bbq lunch I was now presented with a seat at a long trestle table that must have been struggling to remain on its legs with the mountain of food on top of it. I was staring at a smorgasbord of little lobster things and bread and cheese and softdrink and then dessert was huge stacks of pancakes topped with walnuts, and chocolate mousse. I stuffed myself silly and had a very good time meeting lots of Suzie's relatives, before Eva took us for a walk along the northern bank of Lake Vanern to aid our digestion.
The next 2 days were spent relaxing in a very nice style, with Eva looking after us way too much. The food kept coming too, and I'm sure we must have emptied the fridge a few times over. Pentti does a spot of moose hunting during the hunting season, so we got excited and set the alarm to wake us at 6.00am. All 3 of us headed out in the morning and found lots of blueberries, but no moose. Disappointing as this was, we were cheered up with a sauna later that evening.
Suzie finally arrived and spent a beautiful day showing us around the country that she grew up in. We saw her old school (also attended by the prince of Sweden), a nice church, a lake and lock and finished up at her Mum's work. We had gone a full hour or so without eating so Pentti took a salmon he had caught out of the freezer and delighted us with a demonstration of his home made smoker. The fish became our early dinner and tasted absolutely delicious. One of Suzie's old friends was also home for the weekend, so we went to visit her after dinner. We met her on the deck of her lakeside shack where she had freshly made blueberry pie and wine waiting for us. A very nice evening indeed that ended in a very enthusiastic moose hunt. I think that the moose were pretty safe.
I awoke in our little camping hut on Wednesday, the 19th of August as the sun was spilling over the horizon, lighting up another promising day. I took some photos without getting out of my sleeping bag and noted the westerly from the previous day still pushing enough to have the flags flittering atop their poles.
