Day 12. Hallstavik to Sala

Pleasant little town of Hallstavik

Langer's Hotel - entre

So this was our big day of riding.  We started with a yummy and filling breakfast before packing our gear and loading up for our first full day in Sweden.  We said a fond farewell to Langers Hotel – a very pleasant and very comfortable night spent in lots of old world charm.

The sun was shining, it was blue skies and so we headed off in shorts and short-sleeved shirts – summertime at last! 

The first bit of the ride was pretty hilly with more up than down, but soon we were riding through rich farmlands in more open country.  There were still plenty of forests to ride through and it was interesting to see the difference and compare with Finnish scenery.  The farmlands here looked very productive – there were huge barns and the crops were already with full heads of wheat and oats, tho the rye was only just starting to set grain. 

Morning tea stop

Nice place to change a flat tyre...  grrr......

Farmlands, forest and fine roads!

Church with pleasant yard for picnicking

Local bus going somewhere

We stopped for morning tea alongside a lake, but when we climbed up the bank to the bikes, The Boss had another flat tyre – back one of course, so off came all the panniers and so on, blah blah. 
We had bought some bread buns and cheese for our lunch stop, so as we were coming into a small village, we thought we would find toilets and a park for our picnic.  But no toilets available here, so we used the church yard for our picnic and held off other things until we were back into the forest again.  Finding toilets is an on-going issue as the few petrol stations we passed were either totally automatic ones – pay by credit card and no other facilities – or ones with no toilets anyways! But I couldn’t believe our luck - we had nice flat country side to ride through and a tail wind!  It was really a pleasant ride and with Karina setting the pace at around 25-30kph the road was slipping away behind us.  This must the land where photographers come to take photos of Sweden.  Rolling green fields of ripening grain, patch-worked with bright yellow flowering canola plus the red barns near the pine forests.  But we had kilometres to ride, no time for taking photos, so on we went. 

See - the rivers are coco cola

Rushing away from the mill stream

Gary demanding attention.  Note my 1/2
of blueberry pie nearly finished!  Hurry up
with kanelbulle 

We rode north of Uppsala, one of Sweden’s major cities and through towns I am sure are mentioned in the “Girl with the dragon tattoo” series (gunna check when I get home).  Gary Garmin wasn’t quite sure that I had chosen the right roads to ride, as some had no names, so when Karina had to stop to reprogram Gary, we conveniently found a coffee shop to order coffee and cake also.  Yummy cinnamon scroll and a piece of blueberry cheese cake were ordered with coffee at the Ulva Krog Café.  It was beside a millstream (I think in the past it had something to do with wool) and here it was clearly illustrated that the rivers in Sweden are actually coca cola.  There was also an antique loppis upstairs, so I ducked up there for a quick look around before going back to our bikes.

Ulva Krog Cafe - Loppis upstairs



Only elk we saw today - an ad for an Elk farm

Now that Gary was happy we were going the right way, we headed west again.  We were in the saddle for a lot of the day, so not much time for taking photographs.  Just pedal, pedal, pedal.  The amazing thing was that the wind still gently blew from behind us and to top it off, the roads were nice quiet, flat narrow affairs with very little traffic.  But no small towns, just small groups of houses surrounded by farmlands or forests.  We stopped in one small village, hoping for toilets as always and this time an ATM but we only found the ATM - no public toilets.  Luckily there is a fair bit of forest also!  I think it's not usual to see bike riders all loaded up out in these areas – we certainly didn’t see any one else touring. 



SMULTRON!!!

Riding through one bit of forest, I glanced down at the roadside edge and saw smultron, glowing red among the leaves.  Brakes!!!  Smultron are wild strawberries that pack a strong powerful strawberry flavour in tiny packages!  So a vitamin C stop was called and we picked as many of the ripe ones that were in reach.  But they were all along the road edge for quite a way.  So we left some for the neighbourhood kids.  But Yummy!

At about 6:00, I was starting to get a bit tired, so I called for a snack break.  There was a lake alongside us and although Karina was keen to keep going, I knew I needed a break from the saddle.  We snacked on the last of our bread buns and some cheese and a muesli bar and were ready for the road again.  But I forgot to take any photos – yep, must have been getting a bit tired.

Approaching Sala at last!

The last 15km was along a major road - Route 76 - but we used their overtaking lane as ours. Now don't freak out - here in Sweden the overtaking lane is on the outside, so if you are driving slowly along and someone drives up behind you, you have to move into the outside lane and let the faster car thru. so its like a full lane of shoulder... well, that's how we read it - just a tad scary once, when a scooping tractor came charging up behind us and just moved into the fast lane at the last moment - sure he had it under control but......

Lilla Garden i Centrum, Sala - door open at last

So we eventually arrived in Sala and found the B&B I had booked.  There was no-one around, the door locked and things looked a bit grim.  I cheekily peeked into the letter box and there was a letter for me!  With the key and instructions (in Swedish) on how to use the security key and which room we were in.  I was struggling with my meagre knowledge of Swedish, when the owner arrived and opened the door, gave me the list in English – that helped – and we dumped our things in our room.  She recommended the restaurant across the road, so we washed our faces, changed out of riding gear and headed off.  Forgot to take the camera with me to photo our meal, I can remember it was good (apparently I had quesadilla and Karina went with the steak) and that we even went with dessert, but have to admit that things are a bit hazy!

Although it was a long ride - it was through Swedish postcard perfect country - you know, gingerbread houses, big red barns, green grain crops and yellow canola. Plus some forests and some lakes. We were mostly on country roads, narrow but sealed and courteous drivers and the gentle wind behind us most of the way!!  And the weather was beautiful….  What more could you want!

Stats:  143km 6:43hrs 21.3kph 56.5max – early downhill clocked a great max and Karina pushed us along to achieve that avg – but a very long day in the saddle – sore bums for sure!