Sunday 27 June 2010

Sally vs Nature

We're at Instant Sleep hostel, Hamburg. Just dusting off the helmets after the weekend in this massive, beautiful city.

We took the train from Stockholm to Göteborg on the 15th and continued down the beautiful and, mostly, sunny west coast for three days. We passed through Falkenberg, Varberg, Halmstad and Ängelholm on the way and we had little problem finding places to pitch for free. We even swam in the ocean! Most meals were cooked over camp fires which added to the cozyness and saved some pennies in the non use of fuel.

Since the last blog we also became the victims of crime. In the early hours of the morning at a campsite in Sweden, a thief broke into our tent. Sally was woken by the tell tale sounds of rustling coming from our bags. Carl was woken by Sallys warning clap, employed to alert the would be robber that we were no longer sleeping, but after mumbling something incoherant he dozed back off, leaving Sally to deal with the marauding bandit. As the clap had not deterred our unwanted friend Sally had to get serious and take action. The thief in question was found face first in one of our food bags gorging itself on some very yummy marshmallows! Still stuffing its face while Sally picked up the bag and turned it upside and shook it until finally scurrying off into the darkness like some wind up toy with a broken a wheel. Sally had just about dropped back off to sleep when the culprit returned, we were now dealing with not only a thief but a marshmallow addict. As he realised all Sally was armed with was a torch and some harsh words; 'just f-off you prickly little shit', he returned four times until he was satisfied there were no marshmallows left.

The last day in Sweden we went from the eastern beach of Halmstad (where a legendary miniature golf game took place - it was a draw) to Hellebaek, north of Helsingör, Denmark. It was a new record in distance, 104km! That meant the remaining 45km to Copenhagen the following day took forever and Sal's knee suffered a lot. We stayed a night in a hostel, where we shared a dorm with a couple of swedish boys from far north. They met up with us later on after we'd had a meal out and we went for a couple of drinks. The day after we had a take away pizza - from Tino's as recommended by Mikkel - by one of the canals and a coffee and a yummy cake from Manefiskeren in Christiania.

We left Copenhagen later that day and continued down Sjaelland and through Lolland over three days. Of course we stayed loyal to our budgetting and camped at the listed free camp sites. Unfortunately the islands of Denmark doesn't offer quite as good a deal, so we had no running water, shower or toilets most of the times, so we had built up a bit of an odour as we came sailing into Puttgarden from Rödby. We visited a german beach that evening, it reeked worse than ourselves from the dried seaweed but the wash was a god send.

Next day we got back on the saddle and went to Neustadt where we were ripped off at the camping site, but enjoyed another freezing dip in the ocean.

Not looking back once, we went to Hamburg the day after. Friday night, put our stuff in a safety box at the train station, brought sleeping bags, clothes and toothbrushes out on the town, thinking we'd spend the night in a park. We were having our last drink, which it turned out not to be, and suddenly we were invited to stay at a new found friend's place!

On Saturday we took a ferry (line 62 from Landungsbrücken, included in public transport travel cards) around the harbour, which is lovely. We finished off the night with a walk down Reeperbahn and the red light district where a Harley Davidson event was taking place. Lots of beer bellies, prostitutes, cheering, smoke, pollution and sweat would sum it up.

'Nuff said

X

Monday 14 June 2010

Barbeques, a race and a cabbage-wrapped knee

"We'll cycle a little bit every day, right?"

Right. We didn't. We cycled maybe two or three times over our two week stay in Stockholm.

What we did do:

We drank beer in Tanto. Twice! We watched Carl's youngest brother, Ludwig; graduate, climb aboard a lorry full of beer and friends, disappear, reappear drunk and euphoric, have dinner, sleep, wake up and jump on a bus to another party. Well done! We had a million barbeques with friends and Carl's family. We swam in lakes. We slept in almost every day. We've participated in a bike race, more about it in a minute. We've been bitten by endless amounts of mosquitoes and Carl had a tick removed. Met our friend Tej, who had come from London to Stockholm for four days to work. Hope he got up on Tuesday morning. We visited 'After...' and it was epic. Of course. We went to Debaser and a lot of good people showed up! We had dinner (non BBQ'd) at Sanna's, which was delicious and fun!

Phew!

Oh, and Sal's got a new bicycle. It's a Kona Deus Plus. It's got disc brakes, 700c wheels and 24 gears. It's matt black, and it's shit hot! Now I'm super speedy and Carl is jealous.

On saturday Carl's dad, Peter, took us (Carl, Sally, Kicki, Björn and Ludwig) to Motala. Motala is kind of in the middle of Sweden, but not really, cos Sweden is funny shaped. We stayed at a friend of Peter's, who took good care of us and told us what to expect of the cycling race the following day. The race is a half distance version of a classic race around Sweden's second largest lake, Vättern. The full length version is called Vättern runt, the one we did is called Halvvättern. We had ten hours to cycle 150km.

The day started with sunshine but a nice breeze, about 30km in we got a few raindrops, but it was soon over and our focus lied mostly on the stunning views and the free buns, bananas and blueberry soup we were given at the depots. We'd set off with good speed and kept it going, so Kicki, Björn and Ludwig had fallen behind. We found out after about two thirds that Carl's brothers had dropped out and been driven back. After about 90km Sally's knee started to hurt and at the third depot Kicki caught up with us. Another 10km after that, Sally reluctantly had to throw in the towel, less than 40km from the finish line. Just about managing to hold back the tears until being picked up by the recovery vehicle when a fellow race drop out commented "but you're so close...!" at which point it was very hard not to act like a three year old who just had their favourite toy taken away. But thanks to a very understanding race attendant and a very large bag of pick and mix sally was able to keep her composure.

After the loss of a very talented and inspirational cyclist Carl and Kicki somehow managed to continue. The rain came back, the thighs made themselves acknowledged but the pace increased. Carl crossed the finish line at 16:40:42 and Kicki at 16:40:45 and due to one second difference when crossing the start line, Carl was only two second faster. We started at 9:28:12 and 9:28:13, so Carl did it in... hang on... hmmm... 7 hours 12 minutes and 30 seconds..? Think that's right.

So here we are, Sally's got white cabbage wrapped around her left knee (witch craft method from Kicki, it's apparently used by swedish ski queen Anja Pärson), we've got a train tomorrow morning at 9, and a few things to do today. So it's time to stop writing and start packing!

X

Tuesday 1 June 2010

London to Stockholm

We set out less than an hour later than planned. who would've thought?! No one according to all the encouragements we received the days running up to the beginning of our trip.

Thank you all for coming to our leaving do in the Carpenters Arms, and thanks for all the brilliant gifts! All but the filofax (with all your addresses) have been used on daily basis. So don't think you're the only one who hasn't received a post card. Oh, we haven't used the butter, we're saving it for a special occasion.

Day one still holds the longest distance we've cycled in a single day. 102 km. 6 hours 22 minutes. Seems inconceivable today. As soon as we crossed the border to Essex it went uphill. London is flat, very flat! Sal got a fly in her eye just before we crossed the M25, first of many for us both. Bikely.com gave us our intended map for the first leg; London to Colchester and Colchester to Harwich, thanks big Anne and little Anne for printing, cutting and pasting. The map turned out to be misleading and sometimes useless: the very first turn outside Victoria Park led us on to the A12. We chose to abide to the law and stay off the A12, get a new map and try to find our own way. After ten minutes of cycling in the completely wrong direction we realise that this can take some time.

We stayed at a camp site in Colchester, had chinese take away for dinner and slept very well.

Day two still holds the shortest distance we've cycled in a day. Approximately 38 km. We came to Harwich in good time. Well on the ferry we'd met a few fellow cyclists. Three british chaps cycling to Prague in six days, and an older, english couple who were cycling across Denmark. We'd ended up around a table in the bar, talking packing, weather and diplomacy in Bavaria, when the UK entry to the Eurovision song contest stepped up on stage. Josh gave us a few memorable numbers. He sang us some Michael Bubble. This was later followed by onstage drinking competitions. Sally fed a welsh cyclist beer from a babies bottle, watched by a very bemused scandinavian audience.

We're at the moment realising how much time and energy this blogging takes.

The rest;

We cycled Esbjerg to Fredrikshavn in five days. Denmark offers close to a thousand free camp sites (nature camping), mostly running water, toilet and showers are available. Sally has perfected her skills in making camp fires and Carl his skills in cooking over them. The wind in Denmark is mental, you should not have to pedal to go downhill. We would like to thank Mikkel Venge (and family) for his fountain of knowledge, generosity and use of facilities. A truly wonderful guy!.
Sally has from early on had pains in her left knee, but persevered with some help from deep heat, ibuprofen and shitloads of chocolate. Carl hasn't had a cigarette yet, so just don't push me all right.

London to Fredrikshavn, Denmark: approx. 524km.

Took a night ferry to Gothenburg, after sleeping a couple of cold hours on the concrete floor in the ferry terminal. On board we met a couple of drunk cyclists from north London, one heading to Västerås, to fly home. The other settling in the county of Dalarna in Sweden to work as a kayak instructor. We ended up staying up all night, drinking beer, listening to their anecdotes from their 23 days on the road.

In Gothenburg we stayed at Carl's old class mate Amanda's. Thank you for a lovely floor space, very refreshing showers and your great company. Best of luck with your studies, doc-to-be.

We set of midday the following day. We were heading towards Katrineholm, 350 km northeast. We booked train tickets from Katrineholm to Stockholm and had five days to get there. After two days of cycling and two nights of camping by lakes, Sal's knee had resigned. We packed our bikes in bin liners and jumped on a train straight to Stockholm.

London to Falköping took us eleven days. a total of approx. 682 km.

Quote: "That doesn't seem much at all". Sally, a minute ago.

Two days until Carl's brother's graduation. twelve days until we're supposed to cycle a race of 150 km. Then many many more days of cycling back and forth through Europe, over a long, long summer.

At least we got here earlier than expected!

Until next time,

Lots of love

Cally and Salle