Day 8-1. Hamburgsund to Strömstad.
Distance 74km Average 16.3km/hr Max 45.2km/hr Time 4:30 hrs.
Damae's Diary: "Hamburgersund was a fabulous campsite. Bought my Swedish souvenier: a lovely scarf........Stan was grumpy this am. I woke him up too early and we had squacky Dutch kids next to us. I did manage to find a drier and yesterday's washing is dry, tonight another."
So the morning was set. We'd decided the night before to get up early to miss the heat of the last couple of days. Damae however was just a bit on the keen side, and started getting up and letting down mats at just gone seven. Our 126 month age difference shows after a hard day and my recovery time is usually a bit longer than hers. "Oh well", I thought, "although I'm awake a bit early at least the campsite is quiet....."
And it was! That is until a couple of Dutch children woke, started fighting and then spotted their father at the top of the bluff overlooking the campsite. Of course waving at him would not be enough, and the two children, demonstrating considerably well developed lungs and vocal chords proceeded to try to attract his attention verbally as well. Their penetrating voices rang out clearly around the campsite echoing off the bluff. If anyone, anywhere on the campsite wanting to bag the best bit of the beach, had forgotten to set their alarm this morning then this was their lucky day! The two boys having succeded in attracting their father's attention returned to arguing with each other and headed off to the shop. On returning from the shop they were still arguing, and it was only the intervention of the grandfather (some ten minutes later) combined with the application of some breakfast that produced any reduction in noise levels.
Ho hum; Damae was doing a good impersonation of a patient person as I grumped my way through breakfast and packing up. On leaving I thought I had lost something and grumpily looked for it. Well at least it was sunny. We realised today would be our last full day in Sweden, and were just a little sad.
Funnily enough neither of us was in photo taking mood, partly because the weather was turning slowly. I have a four hour gap between a photo of the bluff at the campsite and our lunch stop. The grumpy start translated it into a grumpy morning as my problems with the low gears were being exacerbated by the landscape and the need to use them. As we approached Fjallbacka we decided to be clever and cut off the loop that went through the town. However this had one slight drawback as it meant we were going the wrong way to see the next sign. The road we should have taken was a right turn as you came into town but a left turn after having made the loop. So we ended up on the rather busy route 163, which did give us some nice views over the bay and the outskirts of Fjallbacka.
It was only a few kilometres out of town that we realised something was not quite right, consulting the map we worked out where we were and decided to cut across to the route by taking the next right turn. As the road had already gone up and down a lot we didn't feel like retracing our steps, and within ten kilometres we were back on course. One piece of advice is don't make the same mistake. The 163 is narrow and twisty and has buses and trucks running up and down it. I guess that is why the NSCR takes the other road!