Last night I slept my way into Sweden and it was great. The bike was safe, just as I had been promised and shortly after 9’o clock I left the ferry and entered my home country.
The rest of the day was spent resting in the company of dear friends.
I woke up early and felt awake but utterly tired. I managed to go back to a slumber and was later heavily asleep when the alarm went off. I need to reflect on this when I have rested. Maybe I need to change my plans a bit for England since the riding days get so long and I never seem to recover my strength after each ride. For some reason, I seem more tired this year compared to last summer and I don’t know if it has something to do with my two weeks of illness making me lose strength or something else. But I find myself telling people that I want short enjoyable day rides but at the end of the day I’m so tired I want nothing else than to sleep. Nevertheless, I enjoy my riding, but, it would be nice to have energy for something else in the evening.
Today, I rode in a very green and grey Germany. Unfortunately, I had to ride half the day on the autobahn but the other bits were nice. I found the autobahn less stressful today compared with yesterday but nevertheless I was very happy when I saw the signs for Swedenkai.
Now I’m on the ferry, nicely showered and changed waiting for the restaurant to open so I can eat a baked potato with skagenröra. Unfortunately, the internet connection on the boat isn’t working so I can’t work on my plans for Gothenburg. I still have not been able to organise my visits and possible stays. I hope I get a connection later on when were out at sea.
The ferry is different from last year and I can’t find a relaxing bar or lounge to hang out in, but, my cabin is really nice so I can always head back there. They also changed the system to tie the bikes which made me upset because I couldn’t figure out how to do it. The girl who directed me to my place just answered me with, “yes, they have changed it”, and stomped away. Fortunately, there was an older and wiser man working in the parking area who tied the bike for me and told me not to worry, it wouldn’t move.
My thanks today goes to:
The nice man who helped me tie my bike when I couldn’t figure out how to do it. Now I can sleep tonight.
Today, I had a lazy morning and hung around at the biker hotel until 12. I was tired and it was nice to sit back and have coffee while others were loading up their bikes to ride out.
I had planned to pass Bonn and head for some small nice roads up towards Osnabrück, which would be about halfway to Kiel. There was no accommodation booked but that was what I aimed for.
It seems like I learnt nothing getting lost in Luxembourg, because now I did it again in Bonn. When I finally found myself where I wanted to be, hours had passed. It’s tricky with the small villages and roads, my map hasn’t enough details to be useful sometimes so there was a lot of stopping, looking on the map, reading signs, turning back etc. All this took time and energy, not until I reached road 55 could I relax and just ride. The scenery was fantastic, so green, and all shades of green too.
The day passed quickly, as always, and I was cold and tired. I was annoyed with myself that I had lost so much time circulating in the beginning of the day because now I wasn’t sure how much further I could go on. At 7 o´clock I found a hotel in Beelen, a village shortly before Münster. I didn’t make it as far as I wanted but I felt too tired to continue.
The hotel is alright, I put the heating up in my room because it seemed freezing when I arrived. I was reluctant to go in to the bar to eat and drink since it was so smoky. It surprises me that the smoking ban is not implemented in Germany, maybe it’s not a EU law as I thought. Anyway, I went for a walk instead and found a grill where I had a burger and a beer.
Now it’s a bit after 9 and I’m ready for bed. Tomorrow I need to push on a bit and it stresses me. I’ll have to use the autobahn more and I’m not happy about that. Today, I used it for short bits and it felt intimidating. I’ve been on the autobahn plenty of times before, maybe the feeling is different now since the knowledge is greater. I have ordered breakfast at 8.30 tomorrow and I plan to be packed and ready by then (which is early for me). So now it’s time to get good use of the bed and snuggle up and hopefully soon fall a sleep to the music of Lars Winnerbäck.