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Sweden (3)


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Yo dudes,

 

Greetings from Gothenberg!!!

 

Mmmmmmm well the more geographically aware people will have noticed I'm a

bit further than anticipated. Since I last emailed from Larvik I've

averaged around the 70 mile mark per day. Number of reasons for this. For

one Sweden is thankfully been a bit flatter than Norway. For two I've had a

tail wind since the Swedish border and so I decided to make some hay. My

rest day was supposed to be yesterday but I decided to take my rest day when

I hit Gothenberg as aside from being a bit more interesting than nowhere,

nowheresville, it'd allow me to do a bit of Craig admin. I've booked into a

camping site just outside the city and now I'm treating myself a bit. I've

cycled almost 500 miles since last Friday and tbh when your time is divided

between cycling, camping and eating you don't get much of a chance to meet

people and so a day in the city was called for.

 

My current rate of progress does give me a couple of problems. At my

current rate I'll hit Australia far too early so I've changed plans

slightly. I'm going to head for India after Europe because this will put a

few months between me and Oz. My plan is to get out of Europe as fast as

possible. Mainly because it's just too expensive. Any notion of some time

off the bike just isn't viable at the moment whereas a week off in Asia

isn't going to break the bank as much. I've also changed my mind about

getting a ferry to Denmark once again for cost reasons. Instead I'm going

to cycle from here to Malmo and then cross over to Denmark for free.

Hopefully that'll be perfect timing to meet up with Jorg.

 

Since Larvik it's been mainly tough cycling and tough camping. When I

started off I said I'd treat this as a 9-5 job which has proven to be a bit

naive as it implied cycling followed by watching Eastenders. It's really

nothing like that. The main problem is that in reality I'm not a tourist

and I don't have tourist money. My day is more like start cycling at 9 and

finish at 9 with a couple of breaks thrown in to get food and eat and then I

start looking for somewhere to sleep. I'd say the wild camping aspect of it

has been the toughest for me. My fitness of probably at a stage now where I

can cycle all day without too much discomfort. The tough bit is really not

knowing where I'm going to sleep that night. I start looking for places

around 9 at night as this minimises the time I'm visible before darkness.

Obviously by the same token I have to make sure I buy my food at the right

time as if I buy the night's food too early then I have to carry it till I

make camp. Too late and I may have missed the last shop. I've also taken

to carrying a 5 litre bottle of water which apart from making to bike even

heavier gives me a lot more leeway for any mistakes. It's all a learning

curve and a very satisfying one at that. I can feel things just clicking

into place as I rise to the challenge.

 

When I started I was following the North Sea cycle route. I abandoned this

idea somewhere after the border. Mainly because in essense it's a tourist

route designed to take you to places where the price of an ice cream makes

you wonder if they misunderstood my question as "can I buy your entire town

please". The other reason is that when I arrived in Sweden I just couldn't

find a map. I asked at a petrol station and he suggested I try Stromstad.

I had to point out that I needed a map to get to Stromstad. I eventually

got one but only after accidently wandering onto the E6 which is the same as

our M1. It's not as bad as it sounds because the drivers here in the main

are fantastic. The give you plenty of room and are very courteous. It was

here I found a map. This is probably better as following a preplanned

tourist route isn't viable in the long term so I may as well start now.

 

As for people I've met I was pretty lucky to have met a German guy called

Chris who as luck would have it lives on the Danube cycle route which is on

my route. He was on his way to Bergen with his gf and I suggested that

rather than double back to Oslo maybe he could circle round to England.

He'd been an exchange student and said that the family he'd stayed with

weren't very clean and we had a laugh at national stereotypes. I was going

to suggest that maybe it's because he bombed their chippy but then I

remembered the Fawlty Towers sketch and kept that one to myself. We've

exchanged numbers and I've got a place to stay and some cold beers when I

reach Tootling. I have no idea if that's how you spell it but I prefer

there's something quaint about my spelling so I'm sticking with it.

 

Apart from that it's just been the usual encounters where people ask me

where I'm going, I tell them and they tell me I'm mad. There something

satisfying about the Scandanavians telling you you're mad. Now I just need

the Italians to tell me I'm a passionate hopeless romantic and my life is

complete.

 

Tonight I'm going to wander the streets of Gothenberg and just enjoy being

amongst people before I head off around 11ish tomorrow. Buy an English

newspaper and watch the world go by. I'm forcing myself to have 24hrs off

the bike as the legs have taken a bit of a hammering since Kristiansand. I

feel strong but I don't want to push it.

 

This is pretty much my second week at this and yes it is tougher than I

imagined. Yes I've had to come up with little aims and goals to keep myself

going. Yes I've started talking to myself but it's good intelligent

conversation. It is enjoyable though and it is rewarding as I improve both

physically and mentally.

 

As an side I think I've found a cure for life going by too fast. I know to

you guys it feels like I sent an email a few days ago but to my it feels

like a lifetime. At this rate I'll have lived 100 lifetimes in the next 18

months.

 

Anyways I best go as a street side cafe and a newspaper has my name on it

somewhere.

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