To back up a little, to earlier today, we rode into Göteborg fairly quickly (I didn't realize we had gotten so close yesterday). The route to the Centrum was very well signed, plus we had a cycling map of Göteborg. We rode by this statue of Gustav Adolf (or something like that). I thought he looked like one of the Three Muskateers.
My one and only objective for Göteborg was to find a snow globe for Nolan. At first we tried the info center in the mall. They weren't open for another 15 minutes, so we went and had our mid-morning snack, then came back. They had one, but it was big. The gal was quite nice, and recommended we try the Central Station (train station). There, I was successful.
This bird thought Gustav made a good perch.
As we were working our way out of Göteborg, we saw the couple we camped with last night, Elke and Gart (that's probably spelled wrong). We actually met them at the campsite where we stayed for free when no one was in the office. The next night in Falkenberg, they stayed at the campground we didn't want to pay for. They are from Germany (so Christian can talk to them, but they speak a little English too), and are also headed to Oslo. They shared the one picnic table in the tent site last night. Anyway, we met them just as we were going over a bridge. The bridge that we could see this building from.
We stopped and said hi, then continued on over the bridge. I stopped at the middle to take some photos. They rode by us. Then we followed them, and rode out of town with them. Gart had the route in his Garmin (they have a laptop, and I think they upload the route to their Garmin each night). With him leading, we only made one tiny wrong turn, but it was nothing.
We were no longer following the Ginstleden. It ended in Göteborg. Now it was just the Cykelspåret. Still signed pretty good, for awhile anyway. We did, what I think, was a gratuitous climb over a hill just because that was the way they routed it. When we got back to the bottom, it looked like we could have just taken the road we came back to. Granted, it was prettier. On the climb, Christian and I got ahead of Elke and Gart. Then when we were stopped, trying to decide which was the right way, they caught up. I said, "Which way?" Gart pointed, and we were following them again. Then we got behind, and didn't see them again.
We had come to this Fortress. It's called Bohus Fortress. The first picture is from the back. The next is from the front after we rode around to it.
At this point, I briefly lost Christian. He was messing with his clothes, so I rode up to get a closer photo of the Fortress. I told him I was going to go up for a closer look. When I came back down, he was gone. I thought, maybe he thought I said I was going to go on. So I continued on. But, I didn't see him, so I turned around and went back. Then I saw him by the toilets (he wasn't there when I came down from the Fortress). I asked him where he went. He had gone back to a parking lot to change his clothes. I told him I almost left him. He thought I could see him, but I couldn't.
We rode into the town. Christian wanted to get his lunch (it was already noon--we had come a whopping 12 miles). I found some grass in the shade and fixed my lunch while he went and got his. While I was waiting for Christian to finish, a guy walked by and asked me about my Da Brim. I showed it to him. He wanted to know where he could get one in Sweden. I said he could probably get it online. Then he said he thought he could make one. Good plan!
The afternoon's ride was mostly up and down. We finally got away from the urban areas, and were out in the country. Christian had listed this one town as our destination for the day on the itinerary. I saw a sign for this town. Christian thought that must not be right, so we continued straight. We were on a bike path that dead ended. We went up to the road, and were riding along when we saw the path had resumed. I rode down a gravel bit and on to the path. About 200 feet or so, it dead ended again. We saw some path a little later, but I said, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." I wasn't going to try for a third time. We stayed on the road.
We were rolling along when we came to a ferry, and the end of the road. That's why we were supposed to turn at the sign! But, we had seen another sign for the town we needed, not too far back down the road. We went back and made the turn. It was another good climb. When we got to the town (it has a long name that starts with Lj--we just called it the LJ town), I turned on my Garmin to look for a camping place. It said there was one in Uddevalla about 10 miles away. Perfect! As we were following the Garmin, it made us turn onto a gravel road. Except that it was a steep climb, it wasn't too bad, and it was shorter. While we were deciding if we wanted to go on the gravel or stay on the paved road, a guy whizzed past us on a road bike. When we returned to the paved road on the other side of the gravel, the guy passed us again. Yes, our way was shorter!
Back in the country.
So, we came into Uddevalla and rode right to the spot where the Garmin said there was a camping spot. Only, there wasn't. Like the other day when the Garmin took us to a non-existent camping place, there was nothing here either.
A lady was riding by, and we asked her if she knew of a camping place. She told us Unda Camping was a good place, and it wasn't "too far away". She told us how to go (it was not in the Garmin). I thought we were following her directions quite well. Nope, we weren't. So, we asked another guy. He said he didn't know the exact way, but he pointed in the general direction. We went back the way we came. I was looking for a restaurant landmark that the lady had said to turn at. Never found it. We continued heading in the direction toward the water (we thought) and what the second guy had said. We came to a restaurant, but it wasn't the one the lady told us. We stopped and went in to ask for more directions. A guy gave us pretty detailed directions, but we still didn't find it. We decided we would just go to another campground that was listed in the Garmin even though it was another 5+ miles. Well, that didn't work either. Garmin wanted us to go on this really busy road. We were at a loss. Then a gal rode by and asked if we needed help. We told her we were looking for Unda Camping. She said the best way was to go back, turn right at Bauhaus (a store like Home Depot...I think). Only, when we got back to Bauhaus, the road didn't really go right.
At one point, we had been on a road called Undavegän. I knew if we could just get back to that road, it would probably get us to Unda Camping. That's what we did. But, in the process of retracing our steps, it was a little confusing. We asked another guy just how to get to Undavegän (not the camping, we'd had enough of those directions). He said just go down the road until you come to a main road. That's Undavegän. No, it wasn't. We went back up to try again. I saw a path that, in my head, seemed like it would lead to Undavegän. An elderly lady was walking by. I asked her if the path went to Undavegän. She said, "Yes, and Undavegän will take you to Unda Camping." We hadn't even asked her about the camping!
Finally we were on the right road! We also finally saw a sign for the camping. I said, "Hallelujah!" Christian said the equivalent in German. We pulled up to Unda Camping at 8:15. We had left the other camping place at 8:45 this morning. Long day! We don't know how many miles it would have been if we had ridden straight here, but with all our riding in circles, we did 77 miles. Now I must go to sleep. We go to Norway tomorrow...that's if we can figure out how to get away from Unda Camping!
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