Day 13

Valdemarsvik to Nyköping, 106 km

Some more beautiful contryside moving north along the coast. The routes were generally well signposted and Neil and I made no unnecessary detours - until lunchtime that is. We stopped for lunch in Stegeborg to wait for this delightful yellow ferry to take us a few hundred yards across the water.




Neil liked it so much, he deliberately left his water bottle in the restaurant and ended up taking it three times. He was officially presented the Plonker of the Day prize when he arrived back.

We had some interesting weather today: Rainclouds were moving in from the west, but were held up at the coast by the east wind blowing in from the sea. So the clouds were compressed, pushed upwards and turned into stormy showers. But since we were cycling right on the coast, we stayed dry in lovely sunshine while watching the dramatic scenes only a few hundred metres away.

That went well until we had to move inland towards Nyköping for the final 30km. Without the protection of the coastal winds, we got absolutely soaked again.

We are staying in a Vandrahem hostel right by the castle in Nyköping. The last time Neil and I slept in a bunk-bed dorm was in Bordeaux in 1986. Neil woke everyone up in the middle of the night by bouncing up and down on his bed, playing with a dog called Johnny he happened to be dreaming of. It took us a while to wake him up, by which time he had almost flattened the guy beneath him.

I wonder what's in store for us tonight...