Beachraking

…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”

10kr shower coins

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..

New ideas..

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..

Shopping

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..

Part 1 – ICA

That one was on my side of the roadjso I went there first.

Haven’t seen a working one of these in years
Directly next to the entrance
Then the fruit and veg – in fridges, curiously
Mmmm… oh to have a kitchen! ;p
A better choice?? Than what?
Yogurt licorice..???
Putting wasabi between all the cool stuff is a mean trick
Apples!
Yup, great marketing. Put the crisps right next to the veggies..
Chocolate protein pudding? Blueberry sopp?
Flavoured cream cheese?
Recipes based on current offers
A KILO of mini meatballs
Frozen prawny things
This may be the ‘choice’ that the ‘better choice’ was based against..
Swedish jelly babies?
German company, Swedish content. Can’t imagine many Germans buying liquorice sprinkles for their icecream, salty or otherwise…

So what did I buy?

Not pictured: the ‘healthy’ yogurt nuts and raisins…

Here they are: the ‘healthy’ pick’n’mix:

Part 2 – Coop

The thing I went in for, the salad, was the one thing I didn’t come out with.

Onto the next shop.

Pick’n’mix salad bar
Salad toppings: sweetcorn, onion, hand sanitiser…
Interesting loaf of bread.. more like a stack of mini naans…
🙂
Um.. I suppose they’d last a long time..

What I bought:

Changing the battery on the speed sensor

Part 3:

Stawberries, no photo..

Too cold (and too sober) to be cool

[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:

View from the side. Right the band, left and middle all the drunk people..

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.

View from behind. There’s a barrier between the umbrellas and the pallet chairs.

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.

Night swimming :)

Isn’t this awesome?

So still, and such pretty sunset colours 🙂

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

Campsite, from the end of the pier
To the left, featuring the campsite’s second pier
To the right
No jumping, but I did turn around. The bushes on the right are on a tiny island

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..

Slightly antisocial?

“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)

Checking out into an impending thunderstorm

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…

Hävang museum shed

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

Great lock 🙂

The door’s hard to open..

But you can keep it open with this:

And while you’re looking up, look at the loft:

The loft’s pretty cool too

Inside there were (I think) posters of research in the area..

As well as ropes and fishing nets:

Loo’s are locked, but I might get lucky..

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..

😦 😦 😦

Driving off..

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.

Vitemölla – Hävang

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..

  • If I had such a bad hotel, I don’t think I’d advertise it ..
  • Hama bead decorations 🙂
  • Amazing cycle track
  • Presumably oranges don’t have to?
  • Somewhere I didn’t stay
  • “It’s a bit sandy down there, but you’ll be fine”
    Ha! I lasted 3 seconds on the bike before getting off and pushing..

Opticians..

Made it to the optician’s before they closed 🙂

“Yes?”

“I broke my glasses…”

“I see. What is your name?”

“Jesse”

She wrote Jessie on a scrap of paper.

“Ok.I will mend them until tomorrow at 10 o’clock. Goodbye.” She took the pieces of glasses and the paper and disappeared into the back of the shop.

Not a lot I can say to that.

Especially since she’s the only optician in the vicinity.

Looks like I’m going to have a 25km joyride in the morning 🙂

Wild camping

You know, I could get used to this wild camping malarkey..

Look at this:

“You can use the toilet..”
“..and the kitchen..”
“..have a good night!”

My hostess seems to be really well prepared for unprepared guests 😉

My brother isn’t convinced:

Sitting here with my roast beef and stuffed peppers, my powerbanks charging in the background, I think I have to agree…

..it is gloriously civilised camping 🙂