I'm still kickin'

The first town was called Haessleholm - which was one of the prettier towns. Even better was the little bakery, where two young Swedish beauties served the customers - I went back about 3 times, I guess I was real hungry. The products were excellent - I devoured them, drank a nice coffee and then it was biking time.

The country side turned into what a biker would dream about - great weather; it was the nicest summer in like 100 years, traffic-free roads almost just for yourself, and nature at its best, wiht eagles circling overhead - I was very pleased to be there. In Markaryd, I went to the local tourist office, where I was informed that there would be a patch of road ranging all the way to Joenkoeping, labelled 'R1', the national bike road #1. Good job, Balazs, for stumbling upon it!

One thing: The Swedes really make informing tourists seriously. Almost every city, even if not really scenic, has an information office, as mentioned earlier, with very helpful folks, they even offer coffee and sweets to the guests. Smaller towns have a nicely marked info point, which has printed maps and brochures, of the surroundings, making the search for hotels and accommodation a piece of cake, even showing the history of the place.

This R1 is the former national highway connecting Joenkoeping with the south, but since they've built a freeway not far from it. I met the occasional biker, one of them was 10 years older than me and seemed to be in a great shape. Asking him, he told he had done 190 kilometers by that day (it was early afternoon) and was 'hoping' not to ride longer than 120 km more. So he was doing 310 km in one day...but then he was not carrying his house on his back, like the snail Balazs - who was proud to have done half the distance. Next to the road were some burial sites from the bronze age, with the ruins of an ancient church next to it.

It was time to take use of the famous Swedish Allemansrätten. It is 'the everyman's right', including this Hungarian guy's, to roam the country freely and stay on any public place. So I got to this place called Hoerle, no sign of accommodation, but a nice thick forest and with some 150 km on my system (half the distance of the older fellow...), I thought it would be a splendid idea to wild camp. Finding a nice spot took some time, it was reasonably close to a road, but still hidden. I dozed off in no time, which was good. Not so good was the scream of those animals that woke me up around 1:30 am. What the heck were those? I think they might have been boar, but I wasn't going to find out in the darkness. I've had some less favorable memories of camping: in Colorado, a herd of elk walked through the camp site. In Romania, two wild horses kept me up the entire night. In Italy, something creating kept fumbling the entire night. But this by far was the scariest. Maybe they were mating, maybe fighting, God knows. My heart was racing, the only thing I did not know was a) should I keep silent b) should I run for my life c) should I scream. I picked c), feeling a bit stupid, then they screamed even louder, then it was silent. Still uneasy, I pretended to forget the entire episode when I heard a noise not far from me. OK, again the choices, and again it was c). Then it became quiet again and I was really happy to see the rays of the morning sun the next day. Yeah, I was still kickin'.