Day 3-3. Vilshäred to Kärradal
After eating we wandered around a bit. Unlike in Fredrikstad further up the coast in Norway, the old town of Falkenburg seems to be limited to one square. What there was, was pretty and reminiscent of Fredrikstad and other places, as were the wooden buildings scattered round the rest of the town. We had a short half hour in the town museum. This was made up of two collections of (mostly) everyday items donated to the town. I remember a violin made from a clog and a lovely collection of copper kettles and teapots. There was also a wonderful tiled wood burning stove standing a good metre and a half high. For the ten Swedish Kroner entrance fee it is well worth the money if you like that sort of thing. The church in the middle of the square was in use when we peeked in. Apparently there are some nice ceiling frescos inside but decided to leave those inside in peace.
Out and a quick coffee before parting, and Magnus participated in a quick round of memorial photos. It had been good to see Magnus again and then in his own land. We quickly found the route to Varberg and headed up the coast. The cycling was easy and the sun warm. The break in the day had been essential as it had actually been too hot to cycle, even into the wind.
At least the main road was quiet, and the coastal views lovely in the sun. Whilst the Norwegians seem to have a monopoly on 'beautiful and majestic', the Swedes have the 'simply gorgeous' market sewn up.
At Sik we paused and Anne called Damae on her mobile just to say hi. He didn't know that she was in Sweden so got a bit of a surprise. It was indeed surprising for us to be called in the middle of Sweden and yanked us back to the real world for a few minutes. As we rested and looked at maps we realised that it was only about fifteen kilometres to Varberg and then a further ten kilometres to Karradal with a camping marked on the map next to the road. So we decided on a stop for a longer break by Varberg Festning and then to push up the last few kilometres to the campsite.
After a while of running up the main road we ended up on a minor road and cycle track serving communities along the coastline. There were some surprises in store and this house, together with the warm evening sun, made me imagine that we were in Italy or on the Croatian Adriatic coast.
Finally we rounded a corner to see the Varberg Vestning (fort) in front of us and a large ferry heading out of port, probably to Grenaa. The view was wonderful, and I paused again to take some more photos. Not surprisingly these were photos I remembered as the view itself made a big impression. By now the path had narrowed considerably and was crawling with people. Ahead of us was the fort, and associated car park and facilities in the form of a kiosk and some 'end of day dirty' toilets.
We found a spot in the sun up against an imposing wall of the fort which reminded me very much more of the Welsh stone castles built by the Normans to keep the Welsh at bay than the rather grand brick built edifices that the Dutch call a 'kasteel'. Here we sat in the sun sheltered from the breeze and brewed some tea. Damae wandered off to find some water as the heat of the day had taken its toll on the seven litres of water we started out with.
We relaxed with our tea and sarnies enjoying the view, next to us two old couples talking in one of the less widely spoken Dutch dialects. We figured probably Gronings or one of the Friesian variants, it sounded a bit too familiar and too clipped to be one of the southern dialects. Sitting in the sun, with familiar sounds around we realised that we'd found the Varberg cruising strip: big American cars burbled past together with one folorn VW Samba Bus. We were also treated to an outlandishly customised convertible Lada covered in pink fur with a big speaker on the boot.