The Heart of Sweden
A journey through endless forests
«Mind the moose!»
There are hardly any fotos from the swedish landscape among this collection. If you stick to the bigger roads for fear of punctures or broken spokes, you have a very monotonous scenery: conifers, ditch, border, tarmac road, border, ditch and again conifers. Time by time a lake or a village interrupts this endlessness.
What I do appreciate during these days is the beautiful weather. If you
can't get out of dump clothes you are at a loss. But even without those glorious
photographs you may find in Sweden what you might expect from Finland: A lot
of space for individual holidays, freedom of roaming and overnight camping
and most beautiful lakes all long the way from Göteborg to the norwegian
border near Mo I Rana.
On the other hand side you are never lonely. There are so many
different people going north by car or motorhome. And some of the evenings
go by at an open camp fire, telling tales about the experiences so far.
And to those who think of cycling as a ride to the next tea room a traveller
and his well packed bike is someone extra-terrestrial.
I myself do a lot of coffee brewery as drinking anything alcoholic is as
expensive as gold. I do mind the surroundings - I always build my own stove
from stones to protect the forests near by. Anyhow, this year there are
always some showers, so the danger of fire is moderate. On hot and sunny
days I use Eßbit to fire the stove. And I don't go to bed without
carefully extinguishing the read-heat with sufficient water.
Between Sunne and Johannisholm I have to climb steep hills upto 530m above
sea level. Maybe that it is because of rolling downhill afterwards makes
good space I cover a distance of 100 miles, a magic distance for cycling
tourists. In the area of Sveg the road surrounds the local mountains and
this means about 20 miles more than necessary.
My target for the next days is Östersund, where I spend an
extra day at the youth hostel. After 14 days I take a day off, writing
home some postcards. I mend some smaller technical defects and meet someone
who tries to reach the cape repeatedly, always thrown back by inadequate
material. And again his bike stopps him. The bike's aluminium frame has an
integrated rear carrier that cannot be replaced easily if it falls apart.
