may not always be the best or fastest way around ;) but it is MY way around
Given the following weather forecast, is there any better thing to do than oder waffles?
Especially if they’re covered in lemon curd sauce, honey, strawberries, nuts and vanilla icecream..
The cake is for ‘later’ which is a shame because ‘now’ cake comes with custard..
This is cheating a bit – I forgot to take the picture until I got back to the tent ;p
Sometimes you make sure you have enough food to get you to the next supermarket.
Sometimes you crash and don’t make it to the place you were aiming for.
Sometimes you take an extra day to hobble, wince and recover.
Sometimes you really don’t fancy another round of currants and nuts and sweetcorns.
Sometimes your nearest shop is a campsite kiosk..
Just got an ‘encouraging email’*:
“You’re cruising along on the way to your awesome goal… and then along comes a sudden storm warning…
What do you do?
Do you complain, sulk and get angry about your *uncontrollable* situation?
Or do you relax, accept the fact you’ll be delayed for a little while, and enjoy the challenge?
We all face unexpected storms. Sometimes metaphorical, and sometimes real ones!
Remember: “The obstacle in the way, IS the way ” – Ryan Holiday”
It was written by someone who was given an actual stormwarning last night. Kind of fits for my crash too..
I’m going to embrace not going anywhere today and alternately sit in the sun and on my swing and catch up with uploading pictures to the blog. And later I’m going to take advantage of the kitchen and make a campsite shop dinner special.
* I signed up for a newsletter a million years ago. Sometimes he has great things to say.
Found (and left) on the way back from the loo block
…because beachcombing is so last season ;p
My phone was almost dead (7%) and my powerbanks all empty when I woke up (the second time) this morning.
-> time to find a plug…
The ‘kitchen’ has a microwave and a 2-ring hob, and therefore two plug sockets -> I put my phone and a powerbank on charge and went to sit in the sun. I didn’t want to leave them and go too far away, and an hour isn’t that long…
I watched the grasshoppers and the ants and the dragonflies. I moved between the sun and the shade on the bench, then went to the log pile. I stretched a bit, looked around a bit, went to check on the phone…
“12%”
Joy.
“2 hours until full”
More joy.
I went back to my woodpile.
And then people appeared on the beach.
People with rakes and a wheelbarrow.
(Even in Sweden this isn’t normal beachgoing paraphernalia)
I watched more closely for a few minutes. It was an ‘older’* couple collecting seaweed/seagrass. She’d scoop some out with the rake and pile it up on the sand, while he’d pick it up with a pitchfork and fill the wheelbarrow.
The beach is quite long and there was a lot of seaweed.
I felt ridiculously lazy siting and watching them..
..and it wasn’t like I had anything better to do..
..so I left my woodpile and wandered over to the beach.
“Can I do that?”
She turned to look at me as if I’d just landed from Mars.
“Can I do that?” I asked again and put my hand out, gesturing for the rake.
I assumed she’d give me the rake and split the work on making and gathering piles with her (presumably) husband. Instead, she pointed at the loo block. “There’s another rake on the wall….”
The three of us worked in relative silence, punctuated by the occasional question in my direction; where are you going next, are you cycling the whole way by yourself, what do you do when you’re not cycling, … ?
Then a fourth person joined in. He nodded at me and said something in Swedish that could have meant anything from, ‘I’m joining in too’ to, ‘I’ll show you how it’s done properly’ to, ‘it’s a great day for seaweed fishing’ – I had no idea. When I asked him to say it again in English he shrugged and carried on raking. I think he might be the only Swede I’ve met this trip that hasn’t spoken English.. He was helpful though, we could round up the weed and drag it to shore from both sides without it scattering completely.
A good two hours later she announced that they were going to stop for lunch.
“I’m so grateful for your help! You can stay here tonight for free.* And yesterday.”
“Wow! Thank you! That’s great!”
*thinks*
“Are you going home for lunch? If you’re going to be here for a bit can I change some money for the shower?”
She took 3 coins out of her pocket, “Here. Is that enough?”
“Um. I don’t know.. how long do they last?”
“4 minutes.”
“Then I’d rather have 4, just in case…”
“Here”
“Perfect! Thank you, I’ll just go and get my purse to swap”
“No. That’s ok. Enjoy your shower”
There’s something very soothing about paddling in warm water with a rake, fishing out the seaweed and the algae.
Time for a shower and a change of clothes now tho 🙂
My powerbank had reached the dizzy heights of ~25%, my phone had at least got to 83%.
* I’m really not good at guessing ages, but they were (very) well over 50..
82km, 600m ascent, and sleeping on an island.
Awesome 🙂
Time to put up a tent, have a shower and get some sleep 🙂
I hope the missing letters are important – don’t really fancy breaking my neck..
This pile of cement-tubes was fascinating..
But not as fascinating as the woman I asked about them.
Apparently they’re bringing glassfibre internet cable to the islands. The tubes are to keep the cable on the sea floor.
“While you’re here you should take a day to look at the islands. There are ferries. I think on some of them you can take your bike. They’re really nice.”
I think I might have to look into that..
The night train to Berlin also started yesterday..
..but for 400€ I think I’ll stick to the Flixbus..
Wheee!!
It’s about the right shape and size for any of them..
..but no entry or markings..
..just a lump of rock in a layby
(The campsite I was aiming at was full when I phoned ahead to check. The one after that was another ~40km or so away. This one was almost directly round the corner when I found out.)
But you’re getting one anyway.. 🙂
Couldn’t really miss it, since it was almost exactly ‘en route’.
It reminded me of a different rose garden, even though they bore very little resemblance to each other. Strange things, memories.
Yup…
I needed lunch that wasn’t nuts and dried fruit…and there were supermarkets on my road so I didn’t even need to look for one 🙂
To be honest, if I hadn’t seen one, I would probably have been ok with the food I had with me, but there were two shops right there..
That one was on my side of the roadjso I went there first.
So what did I buy?
Here they are: the ‘healthy’ pick’n’mix:
The thing I went in for, the salad, was the one thing I didn’t come out with.
Onto the next shop.
Stawberries, no photo..
It’s a lot bigger than the bit I can actually walk around. The rest is marshy or stony or just overgrown.
Still a good 500m around the walkable bit.
[N.B. this was written in my head and started on screenpaper when I got back. I fell asleep between uploading the pictures and finishing the text so I finished writing after the evening and backdated to fit]
Someone was singing here when I rode past. Sounded pretty good so I made a note to put on a dress and come back once the tent was up.
Once the tent was up and I’d unpacked a bit, I was tired and cold and kind of sticky. I wanted a shower and to curl up in a ball somewhere soft and warm. I didn’t want to ‘people’. I could hear the music from the campsite, I didn’t need to go anywhere.
I unpacked my shampoo and my comb and my towel and put on my flipflops and my cycling jersey-windstopper-combi so I could leave the relative warmth of the tent..
..and then I put my shower stuff down and zipped up the tent door and walked along the beach to the party.
Like you do.
It wasn’t actually cold, probably 19 or 20 degrees, and there was a good path directly from the campsite to the bar. It mostly wasn’t actually on the beach, but so close it makes no difference. It was dark, but not so dark that you couldn’t see the white sand of the path against the dark of the grass next to the path. There was no mistaking the direction either – the music was loud enough to be heard from the campsite a good kilometre and got louder the closer I got, although there were a few competing stereos on the piers..
15 minutes later I was there:
The first people I noticed outside were so drunk that even wiggly lines were difficult. What looked fun earlier was now distinctly not fun-looking. The beachy-look had been exchanged for a ‘going out’ look. My bike kit might have been a tiny bit odd earlier but now it really really didn’t fit in. But I was there and so was the music and turning round and going home seemed wimpier than I wanted to be. So I looked for somewhere to sit that wasn’t inside.
The third pallet-bench was free part from the backpack to one side, so I sat on it. That meant the band was behind me and that felt stupid so I turned round and knelt on the cushion and leaned over the ‘fence’. That gave me a super view of the guitar players and all the drunk people around them.
One of the drunk people leaned over the fence from the inside and asked if I didn’t want to come in properly (which in retrospect and in a different mood might have been fun) but I absolutely didn’t. She turned back to her friends at her table and poured everyone more of whatever they were drinking.
Half an hour later the bands (they swapped every 10-15 minutes) had all finished.
Background music was turned on and the general noise of people ‘talking’ drowned it out.
I got up and walked back to my tent, picked up my shower things and went to the shower block to discover that the shower block was open but the showers only worked with 5 SEK coins of which I had precisely none.
I gave up and after a ‘Katzenwäsche’ came back to the tent..
..and was asleep more or less instantly.
26km
28°C (‘feels like 31°C)
Wind 18 km/h from S
Moving time 2:37
Elapsed time 6 hrs
Average Speed 10.2 km/h
Max speed 28.1 km/h
Elevation gain 133m
The chocolate flakes in the müsli melted yesterday and set overnight making big clusters – perfect to eat without a spoon 🙂
Isn’t this awesome?
The pier past the seaweed starts close to the tent so I took my icecream to have a look before deciding to go back for my cozzie.
Took some pictures too ;p
10 minutes later I was in the [ridiculously warm] water 🙂
Luckily a family had the same idea so I wasn’t swimming by myself 🙂 and if very little kids can swim for 20 minutes at 10pm I can too..
“You can put your tent here” she said, waving her arms in the general direction of a patch of grass.
“Here?” I asked, “in the middle?”
“Yeah. Just here somewhere” she sounded like she thought she was repeating herself. “You can come back to the reception when you’ve set up.”
She walked off, presumably back to reception.
I took my pizza and headed toward the water and a bench.
If I’m given a rock hard patch of slightly slopey, well driven over grass, I’ll choose the best bit and the best angle for my tent.
Does feel a bit antisocial to put it up right where people want to walk though..
(Did keep the guy ropes short)
Not faster than the storm..
Found a suitable bus stop just as it stopped raining so hard..
The guy with the ‘Sorry, I’m not for sale’ T-Shirt looked more than a little confused when I told him I was checking out.. presumably no one leaves at 4pm…
The notice said, ‘Sorry, we’re full, please come back tomorrow’ and he asked where my tent had been, so I expect someone extra will be let in and my space won’t be empty long.
Now to cycle faster than the rain…
Sitting at my table after all 🙂
Updating the blog and trying to ignore the midges while the tent dries
Most mornings, the tent is wet when I wake up. Then I wait for it to dry and then pack up. This morning, it was already dry. And now it’s wet again…
Guess I won’t have breakfast at a table after all.
As long as they don’t bite and aren’t poisonous, I don’t really understand how people don’t like spiders..
I mean..
Look:
I think the spider’s doing a great job!
Looks pretty grey…
Might be the first campsite showerblock I’ve ever seen decorated with plants and pictures..
Shame this end’s not so pretty..
The showers have their own plants tho..
And there are enough hooks for everything! Whee!
That mesh some backpacks have suddenly makes sense…
Getting up from the table and heading back, I saw this and went to investigate..
Some kind of winch and a small door round the back, and a window to a pantry with peeling paper
This side had a notice..
Welcome in? Don’t ask twice ;p
The door’s hard to open..
But you can keep it open with this:
And while you’re looking up, look at the loft:
Inside there were (I think) posters of research in the area..
As well as ropes and fishing nets:
To the beach!
Still no one in reception or answering the phone..
Also no one going in or out of the loo block 😦
Looks like it’s back to the Dixiklos..
😦 😦 😦
Edit: kind of? They were still super gross.. but better than yesterday. The truck apparently doesn’t empty them it ‘just’ washes them and tops up the water in the tank.. maybe?
Yuk.
Pictures of the journey.
Excuse the duplicates.. I’ll go through and curate them a bit when I have more light and a bigger screen..
Or probably a wildcat.
It had a tracker collar on, whatever it was, and it was indecisive, zigzagging down to the beach..
Turns out if you take away the light, I can sleep later..
(Also, I must have been way more tired than I thought.. I fell asleep fully clothed with the lights on at ~10pm.. only got undressed and turned the light out a few hours later 😲🙈)
the Jess(e)way around 