Borlange, Sweden

Day Twelve 97 miles 4121ft

These were the words of the uniformed prison officer who walked up to Nigel and Monica, after they had parked up at the side of the  road waiting for me at the first coffee stop. 

We were in the middle of nowhere high up in the trees, so to be approached like this was somewhat of a shock. 

Nigel, as an ex-policeman knows the inside of gaols well, kept his cool and asked why. It turns out the area where he had stopped was in the middle of an open prison where serious offenders  have a “holiday” to get them used to the outside world. 

After a healthy discussion, the prison guard suggested they park down the road next to a lake where we could make full use of their facilities including the boat, in a less obvious and high security area. Nigel duly obliged. 

Today was meant to be a short day so we started late and I proceeded to  take the wrong turn out of Bollnas so added 4 miles to the journey. Much of this down to the fact that the Garmin has kept on freezing when asked to do both navigate and keep tabs on the other stats. Not impressive for such expensive bits of kit. 

A great road followed up and over a decent hill with the steepest climb so far at over 11%. We were therefore back in the land of the bilberry and lingonberry and as before I saw a number of Bulgarian and Ukrainian vehicles whose occupants were in the woods collecting the berries. 

   
 
After this up and down I was expecting a more pleasant ride as I rejoined the Sverigeleden route. Spot my bike hiding in the floral display. 

 
This road was anything but great as after 2 km the next 10 km uphill was on the roughest dirt road of the tour so far. So after a day of Tarmac yesterday, it was back to basics again. As you can see below not all Swedes have sussed out how to drive on gravel! 

  Stopping to take a photo of a lake, a lone motorcyclist also stopped for a chat saying how bad the road was. I was wearing my Alzheimer’s short and it turned out he was an Alzheimer’s nurse!
  
Just after this horrendous road all of a sudden it changed totally becoming a super smooth Armco lined race track – bizarre

  
It was near here that Nigel & Monica had the prison incident and shortly after coffee and more rough road I had a short sharp shower of rain climbing one side of a hill. It was dry the other side!

  
By this time the very late lunch stop at 3pm was taken on an old ferry jetty next to the new bridge over a lake. 

The last leg of 37 miles came down off the hills and were easier riding along the valley and across some picturesque rivers.    

 
For a change tonight the campsite is at the confluence of two rivers rather than by a lake and a still late finish at 6.30 with the most super power shower of the tour so far. Steak and mash went down well. 

The weather forecast suggests that today is the last good day of the week sadly, and the sky this evening seemed to be ushering in the clouds, with a super display of wave formation. Fingers crossed for tomorrow