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

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