After four rest days seeing friends in Älmhult it was time to ride on. I have previously worked in Älmhult for five years and been active in the cycling section of Elmhults Sport Club. I guess I have been training on the roads around Älmhult hundreds of times and when going with the ESC team we always start cycling from the K-house, which doesn’t mean “club house” but the “kommunhuset” which is the building where the local government has its offices. Since all proper ESC cycle rides from Älmhult start from the K-house, I thought that this one too has to start from there. We are now 100 km from Älmhult and I just want to say to my team mates:

You are only one day behind. If you try really hard you may still be able to catch up… 😉

We expected headwind and surely got some but the road was really flat and we could move on at a rather high speed. After a while our feet got terribly cold and since it was a Sunday it took ages until we found something that was open, which happened to be once again a pizzeria, this time in Urshult.

Should we turn back?

After a while we came to an intersection with a this road sign. It is probably the last sign for Göteborg that we will see on this trip. We surely don’t want to go to Göteborg, but the sign didn’t make it quite clear if we should turn left or right when heading for Bangkok.

Our friend Ulrika in Bräkne-Hoby had invited us to stay the night at her house. When there was still 15 km to go it started to snow, heavily too. The road got all white and it was hard to see anything in front of us. When arriving in Bräkne-Hoby Ulrika and her children Tanya and Nicolai offered us hot tea and a lovely and spicy soup dinner. We sat up late in the evening and had lots of very interesting discussions while Ulrika baked bread for us to bring along today.

One thing I really appreciate with slow travel is that there is no need to hurry to something else and instead focus of who or what is in front of you. So Ulrika, Tanya and Nicolai – thanks a lot for a nice evening and a nice dinner.