From Ös­ter­sund to Tär­na­by

A long way on love­ly roads

A decent meal At the mo­ment I lea­ve Ös­ter­sund I fall in­to the old ha­bits: I spend two nights in my tent and one night in a hos­tel to have a shower and the op­por­tu­ni­ty to cook or to ba­ke my own bread. When the wea­ther is fi­ne, I go about 80 to 90 mi­les a day, other­wi­se about half the di­stan­ce. Most of the ti­me, how­ever, the wea­ther is much bet­ter than the pic­ture ma­kes me be­lie­ve. So I have no pro­blems in kee­ping up with the ne­ces­sa­ry ave­ra­ge of a hun­dred ki­lo­me­ters a day.

Roads in the midlle of Sweden From Ös­ter­sund I choo­se a mi­nor road that leads me to na­mes as mys­te­rious as Munk­flohö­gen and Ström­sund. The pro­blem is, that tho­se un­ta­red roads are co­ver­ed with smal­ler sto­nes, pot­holes and bumps. So the sur­face re­qui­res so much at­ten­ti­on that I de­ci­de to re­turn to the big­ger roads as soon as pos­si­ble. If your eyes are bound by the sur­face of the road you loo­se all the ad­van­ta­ges of the mi­nor roads: sce­ne­ry and qui­et­ness. And road works are so­me­thing spe­ci­al up he­re. You may face 10 mi­les of torn open la­nes - and no­bo­dy wor­king on them. Beaver dam near Vojmån

The 17th day is a rat­her mes­sy one. The wea­ther is poor and I can't find a con­ve­ni­ent spot for cam­ping, so I end up la­te in the eve­ning on a ri­ver bank among a lot of cam­ping cars, most of them from Swe­den. How­ever, be­fo­re get­ting to the spot I pass by a bea­ver dam and ta­ke a pho­to.

Tärnaby YH The next mor­ning I re­ach Storu­man on the E 79 and turn to­wards Nor­way. To­day I don't get ve­ry far. In the ear­ly mor­ning I check in­to the youth hos­tel of Tär­na­by, the ho­me­town of Ing­mar Sten­mark, one of the most suc­cess­ful ski ra­cers ever. On my way I meet the first heard of rein­de­ers, slow­ly pas­sing what the ame­ri­cans call a highway.

Bread, selfmade in Tärnaby YH I go straight to down­town Tär­na­by to buy some ma­te­ri­al to ba­ke my own bread. I don't li­ke the swe­dish bread be­cau­se it is sweet. And whi­le cy­cling there is no bet­ter food than bread or ce­re­als (Müs­li, not what the bri­tish ta­ke that for).

The day to­wards Tär­na­by has rui­ned my mo­ral by strong head winds. And the next day is said to be 120 km long...