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The Least Fixed Point Motorcycle Club conquer Scandinavia, part 2

While wandering around the market square in Kalmar looking for somewhere to have a drink (there wasn't so much a lack of bars, more a lack of appealling bars) and some dinner, we ran into another biker who had spotted us in the information center earlier. Chad is an American who teaches at the international school in Göteborg. With the compelling motto "Go big or go home", Chad coerced us into a night of outlandish drinking.

Hence or otherwise, Thursday was a lazy day. At 2pm we enquired as to the check-out time at the hostel, and made the desperately hard call of staying put for another night. Instead of more motorways, then, we did a bit of city riding and took TonyG's bike to a mechanic to tighten the chain and check the alignment. Since it was still early afternoon, we made a day trip of it and traversed another long bridge to Öland (literally: 'Island-land'). There are around twenty-three thousand people spread out across Öland, in tiny villages stretched out along sections of road.

The benefit of staying a second night at the hostel is that we could do a mid-tour load of washing, and confidently eat dinner at the adjacent restaurant.

Breakfast on the sixth day was the typical smorgasbord of cold meats, cheese and inappropriate bread. Managing an early start for once, we headed North initially but turned West and took B roads towards the middle of Småland.

The settlement of Korrö hosts a folk music festival each year, and we decided on there for a stop. Even though there were a few usable hours left, we decided to take it easy and put ourselves up in a bunk room. The festival was a few weeks away but the regular facilities were all running: We rented a canoe and paddled down then back up the river, looked around the water-wheel-powered sawmill, then cooked pytt i panna with eggs on a real stovetop in the hostel kitchen.

Day Seven

In the morning it turned out that leaving my keys in the ignition of my bike, aside from making it likely that it would be stolen (which it wasn't), also made it likely that the battery would be too drained to power the starter motor (which it was). Luckily my inarticulations in Swenglish were enough to convince the girl running the Kaffestugar that I was worth helping and that what the scenario required was a set of jumper leads.

A short round trip was sufficient to charge the battery enough to start the bike reliably, and we returned the jumper leads and bid a subdued farewell to Korrö. By the time we'd gone the few miles to Rävemåla and turned West again, it was raining sporadically; after a ride North through some beautiful lakelands and some appalling forestry roads, it was ready to commit to a persistent downpour.

Naturally once we'd gone through the process of trying to wait it out, giving up, ferrying things back and forth between the bikes on the road and shelter in the lea of trees on the bank, getting changed into wet weather kit and finally riding carefully on some slick and patchy roads for a few miles — it cleared up. At least, we managed to outrun the stormclouds somewhere around Ljundby. After a brief and bitter stop to change back out of the wet weather kit, we pushed on to Halmstad on the West coast.

It became apparent upon arriving at Tylösands what it was that all the Swedish youth not behind a counter or on the other coast were doing: Playing atrocious 80s music from loudly competing ghettoblasters at our end of the camp ground.

If the sun was insufficient (which our carefully positioned tent assured), the loud music and tween chitchat certainly made up for it, and we were irrevocably awake early. Shortly, though, the sense of urgency departed with the tweens, and we departed ourselves some time around noon. I managed a walk down to the curiously tween-neglected beach. Kids were playing handball on the sand, while some well-kept beach volleyball courts were empty — not for the first time that day I furrowed my brow in consideration of the future of Swedish youth.

Out of Halmstad we spent some time taking coastal roads down towards Ängelholm, zipping through or stopping in pretty little beach settlements such as Kattvik on the very point of a peninsula. The winding roads and not a lot of traffic made it plenty fun, and we gave scarce attention to directions until hunger and a declining sense of progress spurred us on to the next big town.

Ängelholm's central square served well as a late lunch spot, and we determined to enquire at Helsingborg about the car ferry to Denmark. Once we arrived it turned out the next ferry was departing in five minutes, so we bought tickets, drove on board, and quit Sweden.