More like sit down paddling 😂

It’s fun though, whatever it’s called 🙂

I may be some time… 😂

There’s a campsite party outside the reception.. which is cool.. and yet I’m going to let them party without me.

Goodnight folks!

I got to my tent and had started drying my feet when I remembered that I’d wanted to wash the outside while it was wet but not raining. I also wanted to get to Hauskreis but I figured a couple of minutes either way wouldn’t matter too much, so I took the towel back outside and started ‘washing’ the seams and sides..

‘Hej!’

‘Oh hi!’

‘I’ve brought you something for your knee’

---

I now have a brand new bottle of Arnica Oil to rub into my knees ‘multiple times’ before we go shopping tomorrow 🙂

I headed back to my tent after talking to the lady-with-the-unpronouncable-name and was promptly accosted on the way by 3 very small kids busy jumping in and over a long narrow puddle at the edge if the road.

The smallest of the three, a boy wearing wellies and thoroughly enjoying the puddle, caught my eye, smiled, waited until I was properly looking and then jumped across to my side of the puddle.

‘Look!’ He said, and jumped back over the puddle.

‘Whoo!’ I cheered.

He looked ate and pointed at the puddle. ‘Your turn.’ It was a demand, but it was stated more like a fact. It wasn’t English or German and it didn’t sound Swedish but it was very obvious what he meant.

I obediently jumped over the puddle.

‘Look!’ He jumped again. ‘You!’

I jumped.

The other kids, two girls, had been busy jumping and sploshing by themselves, but joined into our turn-taking, or rather, continued to do their own thing but turned to wait for me to jump or cheer at them accordingly.

We jumped, stepped, leaped, sploshed, and jumped some more.

It was brilliant.

And then they were called away. To showers and beds I suppose…and hope. I really hope they didn’t get into trouble for talking to strange women or for having fun with the puddle…

Their parents had said something like ‘don’t jump in the puddles, you’re getting your clothes wet’ as I was walking towards them…so I felt a bit guilty joining in and encouraging them.. but who doesn’t love jumping in puddles??

‘Swedishswedishswedish?’

‘Could you say that again in English?’

‘You’re the lone cyclist aren’t you?’

‘Huh?’

‘You’re cycling by yourself?’

‘Yes.. well.. theoretically. I’m not cycling at all at the moment… my knee won’t let me…’

‘I wondered about that. I assumed it was because of the rain..’

‘That too…but mostly my knee…’

Turns out she lives in a wooden summer house in the wood looking over the campsite. She drove past me with my fully loaded bike (presumably on Tuesday?) and was impressed by me cycling by myself, and then she saw me put up my tent and then not leave..

She has an unpronounceable Swedish name and she’s going to take me shopping tomorrow 🙂

So cool 🙂

My knee still (really) hurts when I pedal so I turned back.

Looks like I’m staying here for another night.

Just after I checked the weather forecast – rain at around 1pm – and decided to get up and go before the tent got wet..

..it started raining.

Guess I’ll wait a bit before leaving then..

Actually getting up and facing the day?

Later….

5:30 is way too early to wake up.. but needs musted.. so I went for a long walk across the campsite and back..

Let sleep part 2 commence! 🙂

While I went off on a voyage of discovery to the toilet block and back, this slug went on his own voyage of discovery…

..but I wish he hadn’t.

I’ve brought everything except the baskets into my ‘sleeping mat room’ – I’d bring the baskets too but I don’t really have room for them, and they might rip the tent lining if they fall over. Hopefully they’ll stay slug free overnight…..

🤞

“In my coaching practice, I worked with people who were spectacularly successful and usually workaholics – they worked 80 hours a week non-stop. One of the things we were always trying to figure out was, how much should you work? Because one answer is you work till you die. You exhaust yourself and that’s not a good idea.

You don’t want to do so much work that the amount of work you do interferes with the amount of work you could still do.

If you work like mad for two weeks and have to lie in a hospital bed for a month, then it isn’t very productive. You need to figure out how much you can work diligently and then how much you have to recuperate so that you can get back up and work again.”

---

There’s a lot of truth in that.

Time to sleep, methinks 🙂

There’s a saying at goes something like this:

If you wait for perfect conditions you’ll never start.

Part of me thinks maybe I should have started tomorrow. Leaving at quarter to 5 and then hanging around in bus stops for a couple of hours was silly.

On the other hand, I did manage to leave, and I am ~36km farther…

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Arrived at the campsite at around 10:40. Got a little confused by what was golf course and what was field-for-tents so I walked the bike through the main campsite..

“Evening!” He appeared to be walking around the campsite regardless of my arrival.

“Uh. Good evening..?”

“You could put your tent up over there ‘ He pointed up the path towards a field with a sprinkling of caravans. “The tents usually go on the other side of the road but it’s quieter up there than in the main field and you look like you need to sleep in tomorrow morning.. I mean.. you can sleep wherever you like, maybe you’re so tired that the cars on the road won’t bother you..”

---

Thanks. I think. 🙃 I must look pretty rough if you can tell from 40 paces away in the near dark that I’m that tired… (unless just arriving by bike is a giveaway?) He’s right though.. probably an airport wouldn’t bother me.. 😴😴😴

Maybe I should have asked him if he works here – he probably doesn’t have any say in anything… but I’ve put my tent up now anyway 🙂

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Just a little bit up the path from where I met the guy, I found a playground. That’ll guarantee a quiet morning, right? 😂

So I carried on past the playground to about the furthest corner of the furthest field.

Fini.

Less than 4km to go tho, so I should be ok..

What would be a normal cycle path on the edge of the road elsewhere suddenly feels terrible here…

Quiet(ish) road, super flat cycling track, 16°, light, forest… it’s not beautiful but it’s great cycling 🙂

It tells you how long you have before you miss your train/bus/whatever…in really big writing!

Vielleicht brauchen Sie ein neuen Soffkoncept..

Aber seien Sie vorsichtig, einmal falsch abgebogen und Sie sind in SHT BYGG… 🤭

It’s 19:45. I think trying to do another 40km tonight is silly so I’m aiming for somewhere closer 🙂

No stopping… 😫😤

5% I think..

Saw a deer part way, really close and photoworthy…but not stop-and-have-to-push worthy 🙃

..I think..

..rainwise anyway 😂🙈

Back under a bus shelter 🙂 isn’t rain great?

---

Since last time:

The path did a lot of up, and was going to do more up, so I chose a turning that looked flatter and slightly more parallel to the road I was meant to be on. Only problem? It lead into the woods.. maybe not ideal in an approaching storm..

Then there was a right turn towards the road.. also gravel, also steep, this time downwards…

Eek!

I cycled half an walked the rest of the way down the steepest part of the slope to the road.. steep wet gravel? No thanks 🥴😅

Seems like the gravel path was a good choice though. I’m back on my cycle path.

In the rain.

(In a bus shelter)

Wheee!

Might be a good time to distribute anti-Mosquito stuff…

Avoid on the wrong track or cycle through the middle?

A cyclist just came the other way along my track.. maybe that’s the way to go… 🤔

Just when I thought it was drying up…

1km every 10 minutes or so is great progress, right?

Sort of.

I left and it started raining (again) so I’m under a bus shelter for a few minutes…

Same again. Different colour though. They don’t make my combination anymore 😭

I’ve ‘sent’ them to Berlin, so hopefully they’ll be waiting for me to pick them up on my way to the UK so I can walk them in and be able to walk longer distances again once I get back here.

These ones will be relegated to just cycling..

I’m finally ready to go – bags packed, bottles filled, chain cleaned and oiled – and it’s raining…

Yay.

..and there’s thunder and lightning..

---

‘You don’t want to go?’ She looks out of the window and then back at me. She laughs.

‘Mm.. no.. right now I don’t feel the whole ‘I want to be outside on my bike’ vibes…’

‘It never rains like this in Sweden,’ she says, ‘light rain sometimes, but not like this.’

I don’t say anything, but in my head I beg to differ. Every time I’ve had rain in Sweden it’s been ‘big’ rain. I spent a day in my tent last year because it was raining and didn’t even think about stopping for around 24 hours.

…I’m just about human again… 🙂

A puffy eyed human, but still.

Yay.

Special extra yays for uncomplicated hosts 🙂

Being able to emerge in a snivelly mess in the evening and extend your stay is an amazing privilege.

She was doing some weeding so I joined her 🙂

---

“Sometimes, you don’t feel good enough to do what you want to do. Then you should stop”

– M

So I’m here for another night 🙂

---

When I went back to my room, it took less than 5 minutes to finish packing.

🤔

How nice of you to come all this way to say hi.

The rest of what you said wasn’t so nice tho, and I don’t appreciate you getting in the way when I have things to do and places to go and see..

You can sit quietly or play nicely or go away again.

Thanks.

Me xx

It seems my phone and I are still not quite up to scratch on this photo taking lark..

I didn’t take a picture of the window when I woke up, and my phone didn’t save the picture I thought I took of the washing line which was the first thing on the menu looked at when I got up (after the usual getting up stuff)…

Apart from that… I’m awake and up and sorting my things back into their baskets.. (and trying to stay out of the breakdown clinic 🙈 *)

Have a picture of some chaos:

There’s a whole lot of stuff I don’t want to take all around the baltic, but which I at least need to take with me for the next couple of weeks until I head home (to see my brand new nephew and some friends and wash the Aquarium filters and go to some appointments and…)

I’d like to pack it all into the backpack that’s going back, but that’d be awkward to put on the bike, so I think I’ll just have to pack it where it used to belong and re-sort in 2 weeks.

Yay.

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* thanks Walker Hayes 😜

Super late photo this morning..

I didn’t take one when I woke up, but I’ll backdate it and pretend 🙂

When I finally got up (3ish?) I looked at my North Cape luggage for a while, and wrote most of the things into a list. (useful/not useful).

In between writing, I looked at WarmShowers and AirBnB for places to stay and at Maps and Komoot for general route inspiration… and sidetracked myself reading about other people’s trips to NorthCape.

At around 4:30 I gave up on trying to pack and plan a route and actually get on the road. Instead I went out into the garden and asked M if I could stay another night.

The rest of the afternoon/evening was spent in the garden looking though my baskets and talking to M. I think I mostly hindered her in her sorting and packing endevours (she’s moving soon) but it was super interesting talking to her.

And then I came in to pack and ended up on WordPress…

Could these people get more amazing?

They have (I think) itch free washing powder (washing liquid? What’s it called when it’s not powdery?)

And their washing machine tells you how long it needs to finish a cycle, even before it’s started 🙂

Still sunny outside, still ridiculously tired.

Only like I haven’t slept on a couple of days tho, so there’s improvement 🙂

My puffy feet aren’t quite as puffy either 🙂

Just about awake enough for a loo break.

Tired enough to go right back to sleep afterwards.

Yay!

I even have a bed 🙂

I don’t know when, if ever, I last slept so little over such a long time… Time to start paying back some sleep debt.

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The hostess is so cool 🙂

She and her husband took their 4 kids (6 – 14) on a year long trip around the world, biking and hiking. So so so cool. I could do with more people like her in my life.

“You spent the whole time on public transport!” – she was semi-horrified when I told her where I’d been.

“Is this your first time on a long bike trip?” – a justified question, given how much stuff I’m carting around. I wish I had a good excuse… something less pathetic than just being pathetic.

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Goodnight world!

I’m back on a train.

This time it’s an inland train from Göteborg to Stockholm.

It’s a much more familiar landscape and it doesn’t feel as ‘wasteful’ if I look away.

I love cows but I don’t ‘need’ to look at every cow in a herd. I love the trees but, again, I don’t need to look at them all individually…

It’s much more relaxing, knowing I’m very unlikely to miss something exceptional. Not seeing a cow is a lot different to not seeing a whale or a moose or a bear. Not seeing every haybale isn’t the same as not seeing the waterfalls.

I can let my mind wander more here without berating myself afterwards. I can write. Look up and watch a lake go by, look away again. Look at pictures, sort my luggage, make silly faces at the baby in the seat in front of me.. If I wasn’t so damn tired I might even be productive 🤭

---

Some fields. Different but very similar.

…I know I don’t feed you well or let you sleep enough, but we have to get all this luggage to the bus station and onto the bus before it leaves…

CL: Where do you want to go?

Me: Stockholm

CL: You have to buy a ticket from me, to Olso

Me: Ok.

---

And that was that. I now have a ticket, and even with the 4€ extra late-sale fee, it was cheaper than tomorrow’s alternative would have been. (Not cheap, just cheapER)

---

CL: You might be able to get a seat from me later.

🙂

We’re off!

Riding past a sunset over a harbour..

I think this it the first time I’ve ever knowingly got on a long-distance train without a ticket. Probably only the third or fourth time on any train without one, and one of them was because I’d left my month-pass at home 🤦‍♀️

Could be interesting when the Ticket Person gets here…

I stood on the platform for a while, wondering what to do next.

Then I noticed that the train to Oslo was on the other side of the same platform and there was an officious-looking lady telling people things, so I went over to see her:

Me: Can I get a ticket for this train?

Conductor lady: No.

Me: Oh.. 😦

CL: All the seats are full.

Other guy in a hi vis jacket (to CL): ..rhubarbrhubarbrhubarb..

CL (to OG): ..rhubarbrhubarbrhubarb..

OG (to me): Rhubarbrhubarbrhubarb?

CL (to OG): Rhubarbrhubarbrhubarb. (presumably something to the effect of “I’ve already spoken to her” (like waitresses say ‘she’s MY customer/she’s being(/been) served’))

OG: *shrugs and goes away*

Me: …

CL: …

Me: I’m trying to get to Stockholm….

CL: You can have the spare seat and I can help you later.

Me: So I can get on the train?

CL: Yes. Carriage 8. *turns away to be busy elsewhere*

Me (confused as a confused thing): uh.. cool… thanks!

*gets on train*

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The train doesn’t leave for another half hour but I don’t want to get out in case CL changes her mind. So far I’m standing in the isle/sitting on the steps so that I can say I haven’t stolen anyone’s place.. not that I can imagine the whole night train is really full on a Thursday…… 🤷‍♀️

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I don’t much mind sitting on the steps – not that I expect to have to – I’ve been in enough jam-packed long-distance German trains where it’s been standing room only, even on the steps… (pre-pandemic)

Theoretically I think only selling as many tickets as there are seats is a really good idea.. practically it’s super annoying being too late to buy one..