“We muuust go”
“Go where”I replied
“To Gothenberg………I want to ride my bicycle……I want to ride
my bike”
“Don’t try and get round me by singing Queen songs” I
said. You’re coming with me.”
We hit the road….. she was a hot one……..about 35 degrees I
reckoned
I had her sitting on the front of the handlebars. As we
cycled, she’d posted on Facebook where she was going and crowds came out onto
the road in hordes. Not to see this hot Swedish beauty, but to listen to the
Abba songs, she was singing on the way.
“Do you like Abba” I said
“I do……I do I do I do I do I do………
On we rode…. And for a while there …. She was my Chiquitita
and I was her Fernando…!
The crowds were now in every town cheering us on and
encouraging us by singing all their old favourites…….Waterloo…..Mama Mia……..Dancing
Queen…….Knowing me….Knowing You…..
On and on we went and as we closed in on our destination,
she was my Agnetha and I was her Bjorn!
We awoke at 5.30am and decided to get up pronto as we didn’t
feel too comfortable sleeping in such a public place and packed the tent up
immediately. Wandered over to a park
bench to have breakfast and noticed the No Camping sign…..whoops!
 |
| Houses appear to be built into the rock |
After aout 5km, the cycle lane went to a tree lined path,
well sign-posted, all the way to Gothenberg.
It was a cruisy and flat ride in and we got to see Gothenberg nice and
early with few people about. Town
doesn’t seem to wake up until about 10am.
 |
| Gothenberg |
Once again, cycling is the way to go
when you have quite large area to
cover. There are plenty of beggars in
Gothenberg and we both find them very annoying, sitting on their backsides all
day holding their hands out. One made
the mistake of approaching us and asking us for money and was told a very definite
NO by both of us. Found the Central
Station at 10am where the Tourist Info and Starbucks were both situated and
plugged in at Starbucks and used their
Left Starbucks at midday and so began the debacle of trying
to leave town. There are cycle tracks
all over the place with names you’ve never heard of on them so you’ve no idea
which one to take. It was stinking hot
again and very frustrating trying to find our way out. We asked several people along the way and
were on the right track at one stage but a half km long stretch of roadworks
soon put an end to that. So we found a
supermarket and a shady spot to have lunch before trying once again. Went to the nearest signpost which read the
names of four towns pointing in a northerly direction. A signpost across the road named the same
four towns and was pointing in an easterly direction. Asked a local lady which sign was right and
she told us they both were. What?
Decided to guess our way by figuring the sun’s position and asking someone in
which direction the Gota canal lay.
Gotta say, local knowledge could do with a bit of work. Some people are woefully ignorant of their
surroundings.
At last we found a landmark that was on one of our maps, the
Kviberg Kyrkgarten which turned out was the Gothenberg cemetery. It even had a map of how to get out of there –
although obviously a lot of people had died trying. Were we up to the task? Apparently the way we wanted was directly
west across the cemetery which involved going up a massive great hill in the
blazing sunshine. We were already
boiling so when we spied an old fashioned pump which they have dotted around
the place so relatives can water plants and generally tend to gravesites, we filled
our water bottles and doused our heads under it before the slog up the
hill. Here the paved driveway wound it’s
way round several hundred graves before changing to a gravel track. It then kept going in the forest until I
think it was just a service road for all the power pylons on top of this
hill. Worse still it was taking us away
from where we wanted to go. So we had to
retrace our steps and whizz down the hill and take a right near the bottom, past dozens of
sun worshippers, stripped down to their bikinis in a cemetery! We figured it out though – these sunworshippers
were the paler kind who were obviously more at home with the surrounding
corpses until they’d built up their required tan level to be allowed on a
Swedish beach.
Finally found the Sverigeleden cycle track and headed uphill
out of Gothenberg. We had a decision to
make here – do we go straight up the canal to Trollhatten or turn right to Sjovik. We turned right figuring it would cut our
distance and the track looked shady and inviting. What a great decision. We worked out halfway along that it must be
an old railway line as we were climbing gradually most of the way but the
gradient was so easy it was barely noticeable.
The other bonus was half the ride was in the shade which we were
extremely grateful for. There was also
hardly anyone else on it so we were able to cycle side by side and talk.
Gradually we came to a lake and a snake writhed across the
cycle track in front of us, Pete having to put his brakes on to avoid running
it over. It would have been four foot
long and was heading from the lake to the grass. We were so hot though that we decided to swim
in the lake anyway and found a shedded snakeskin when we came out.
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| Lakeside home |
Then about fifteen minutes after that we encountered more
wildlife in the shape of a mother and baby deer in the woods off to the side of
the path. Passed through an awesome
rocky tunnel and finally to the little town of Sjovik. Went into the local minimarket where an
Iranian looking guy served us. I asked
where he was from and he said Iran and we got talking. He had been a refugee 27 years ago when they
killed the Shah of Iran and had been helped to escape and make a new life in Sweden
– but he says he still feels like a refugee.
He looked sad I have to say and it just reinforced the knowledge that
everyone has a story to tell.
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