Current location: Sundsvall
Km ridden: 270
Other Swiss bikes we've seen: 2
Ok so I last left you all in Stockholm (christ, I've still got some catching up to do here). After our day out we packed up our gear and rode on to Gävle and decided that we wanted to go Tenting again. So far we've sort of been blessed with good weather, as we've only had to drive through a downpour a few times. It stayed dry on the way to the camp ground thank god, otherwise I'm sure I would have turned in to a 5 year old and thrown a tantrum. When we got there, well it was nice, but it was worlds apart from the one we went to in Öland. Still, it was on the coast, they had a bar and it was cheap so we decided to book 2 nights there. After one evening in the bar, we then decided that we needed to improve our cooking situation. The next morning we set off into town to go looking for a supermarket. It was at that point that our luck seemed to depart from us and we rode straight into a hail storm. Watching a hail storm from the comfort of your living room is one thing, riding a bike in it when you also have to factor in your own velocity when impacting on those little bastards is totally different. It bloody hurts!
Still, after a successful shopping trip, we made it back to the camp ground with our new portable BBQ (it looks like a bucket). The rain soon passed us and things started to dry up. The thing that I suppose I will remember most would be the huge volume of very strange looks we got. Those of you who have seen the pictures will know that we're flying the Union Jack, but we also have Swiss plates. I'm not entirely sure that people can work out where we're from. Additionally we appear to have managed to load a massive volume of stuff onto our bikes, and I'm not too sure that people can get their heads around how much kit you can actually fit on to a bike. Here are some "tenting" pictures by way of example.
One thing is obvious, it 'aint a small tent. We could actually park the bikes in there too if we so desired, but even I think that would be overkill. As I stated in a previous post, there is nothing actually wrong with tenting, if you factor in the lack of room service, it's just that for me, there is a maximum distance that I'm willing to walk to the bathroom and back. Normally about 4 meters. If you only have to walk that distance when camping, you have a really "shit" plot.
So, 2 nights later we're back on the road up north heading towards the town of Mora. The roads are very much like one would imagine riding in the U.S. to be. Very long, straight roads with barely a hint of a corner. This caused us some confusion nearer to Mora when Vanessa and I became convinced that we had entered a time warp. For at least an hour or so (check her blog, this isn't an exaggeration), pretty much all the cars we saw were vintage American cars. Caddilacs, Studebakers, Chevy etc, etc all of them from the 50's and 60's. I have never ever seen so many old American cars in my life. After getting to the town, we found out that there was some sort of crusing event going on nearby, and it would appear that anybody in Sweden who owned an American car had made their way to the area.
Even though we've not yet (by then anyway) reached the geographical mid point of Sweden, it appears that every kilometer we go north, the place is becoming more desolate. After leaving Mora this morning we headed up north to Sundsvall. It's very hard to describe the countryside without using the word "desolate", however I think "untouched" might be more polite. It really is totally empty here. Here is a pic to demonstrate.....
So now we're in Sundsvall and just got back from dinner. Tomorrow we're up early as we have a citytour planned on Segways. This should be interesting! After that, we back "tenting" at a place which apparently has lots of stuff to do like canoeing etc etc.
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