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August 16 Wednesday Sunny Bicycle touring Sweden A couple of drops of rain fell as we packed up our bicycle touring gear and mostly dry bicycle touring tent. Are we too far from Arran and Rebecca, our Kiwi bicycle touring buddies, the sun-makers? When we bicycle touring Norway with them, we had fantastic weather -- sunny and hot every day. We kept the grill from the disposable barbecue we had found at a rest stop a couple of days ago. Sharon places the grill on top of our stove's windscreen. She pronounces that it toasts bread excellently. She had been making toast in our frying pan -- which doesn't do much for the bread or the pan, mostly causing the Teflon to peel off. All that Teflon she's ingesting should help to keep her innards slippery though. Followed a bike trail into town, only losing our way a couple of times. Once was near a scenic salvage area, well off the beaten tourist track. Saw a coal-powered steam train belching black smoke as we crossed a long bridge into Gothenburg. Lots of people ride bicycles in Sweden. The population of Gothenburg is 550,000. Lots of young people. After bicycling to the wrong tourist info, where we had planned to meet Arran and Rebecca, we found them waiting at Central Info, their neon orange and green bicycle frames were easy to spot, even without their bicycle touring gear. I was somewhat surprised to learn they could still ride their bikes without packs. Whenever I attempt that, I find my bicycle as skittish as a new born colt. Whoa boy! Arran and I bought shrimp salad and baguettes. We bicycled to a park and ate while watching birds in the canal. A group of young guys sat nearby, drinking beer. We haven't seen one cop in all our time in Sweden. Rebecca bicycled to the university where Yvonne works. Rebecca wants to send some e-mail back to the university in New Zealand. But Rebecca returned to the park without accomplishing her goal -- Yvonne had already left work. We bicycled a well maintained and busy cycle path out of town, 27 wonderful kilometers to Sarö . We pulled our bicycles to a stop at Yvonne's at 7:30 PM, after stopping to fix a flat on Arran's Fat Boy tire. We find Yvonne outside, sitting on her house steps. Apparently, Arran had taken her only house keys with him. Guess leaving work early to prepare a special supper for us didn't work out all that well after all. Ah, the best laid plans. We were therefore in time to help with supper, since Yvonne couldn't start it before we got there. We had reindeer meat. She put the meat into a sauce which was then poured over a bed of rice. Yummy. Pass more Rudolph, please. We had our first Swedish, beer too. Goes down very good with reindeer and a good day bicycle touring. We also had soup made from rose hips. Delicious! Yvonne says tourists usually don't like it, but it was good too. Guess we're not Sweden's usual tourists. On a bicycle tour, most touring cyclists will eat almost anything ... and they usually do. |
