Day 2-1. Ängelholm to Vilshäred.
Distance 83.3km Average 16.2km/h Max. 60km/h (Stan 59.6km/h) Time 5.06.
"4 egg omelette and fresh rolls for breakfast. Wind has abated a little. We left the campsite around 10:15 after successfully adjusting Damae's derailleur."
The rolls, as in German campsites were fresh and the eggs in the omelette were also good. Damae's rear derailleur had been chattering slightly since Copenhagen which had even started annoying Damae (normally insensitive to the suffering of bikes). So a few minutes of fiddling, for hours of peace, was well worth the effort. To complete the picture, the sun was up again and it looked like it was going to be a lovely day.
The morning had been quite relaxed but we'd still managed to get off quite early. Leaving the wooded sun-dappled site we headed out and looked for the coastal cycle route. Which, if I remember correctly we found quickly: after stopping briefly, to admire the marina which was on the route we managed to lose our way again for five minutes.
Stan's diary: "Progress was steady rather than spectacular but the scenery was lovely. The coastal route is sometimes hard to find, the map could be a lot better, but the landscape is varied. We had a couple of sections through forested areas which were nice and cooling."
"1145 We head inland at Segelstorp. Damae had a puncture, she fixed it and we then ate half a lunch. We followed the red cycle route mostly successfully to Båstad except we went via St Notte. Downhill into the town was very fast I hit 59.6km,h Damae 60. Then a cool section along the river in the shade, which was almost flat."
Just before Damae's puncture we had started climbing gently and I heard an unusual sound. Next to the road there was a babbling brook and the sound of the water gurgling downhill was just wonderful. There are no babbling brooks in Utrecht and there is only one place I know of where you can hear water flowing. So the sound of the stream was like hearing the first heavy rainfall after a summer of sunshine sizzling on the pavement, and made me grin from ear to ear.
We continued climbing, for the most part gently, having turned back on ourselves. The sun by now was rather warm and the cooling breeze had died down, as it does when you need to climb and the heat was quite intense. Cycling up the hill I noticed a lot of development on one side of the road and was puzzled. Whilst not 'in the middle of nowhere' the village was certainly not that special to warrant such attention from developers. Then I looked the other way to the right of the road, and began to understand why. The rolling landscape reminiscent of swathes of middle England and indeed Northern Europe, green and lush from the recent rain ran downhill to the sparkling blue sea. It was beautiful. This was to be part of our view until we started run down towards Båstad.
There was one more steep climb as we turned onto the main road and we stopped for a quick drink and to take in the view. Lovely! I remember the downhill to Bastad being next but I think we had a few kilometres before the descent started. In any case we took a wrong turning and ended up in a road running down the parallel valley. The downhill into Båstad, when it came, was wonderfully steep and without warning. Suddenly we were plunging towards the centre of the earth, on a short winding downhill section of the road. The bikes, behaving well accelerated rapidly, the sensation was rather like being on a roller-coaster, and on glancing very quickly at my speedometer I noticed I was now travelling at well over fifty kilometres per hour. After we reached our maximum speed the road then proceeded to level out the closer we got to the town. It was still definitely downhill, and ran close to a small river through shaded woodland before popping out into the mundane known as suburban Europe.