The Baltic Loop: Blue Grey Days, Hats, Darts & Ass.

Woke in the night and lay awake for an hour or two. It was hissing it down outside and felt quite muggy, plus the animal in the bunk above was doing his usual night-time impression of a steam driven beam engine. Conscious of the 'tour' coming to an end, but mainly missing the missus.

So when I got up, I felt a bit blue and lacked a bit of enthusiasm. Steve was his usual even tempered self and, sensing I wasn't 'on it', quietly went about sorting himself out. We readied the bikes straight after breakfast and prepared to set off for Gothenburg. Neither of us much fancied riding straight down the E6 (mostly motorway), so I was quite happy (though you wouldn't have guessed it!) when Steve suggested cutting in land through Askim and Halden on more minor roads in order to miss a chunk of the motorway out.

It had stopped raining and was drying up nicely, but it was pretty flat grey when we set off. Once on the detour route, the roads got more and more interesting. The weather held until we got to Halden and stopped for petrol and coffee in order to get rid of our remaining Norwegian Kroner. When we resumed, the heavens opened and for about an hour we rode through the only storm we've encountered so far. The road was a bit of a twister, so it was making for a challenging ride and, oddly, my mood improved as we made progress. By the time we got back on the E6, the sun was out again and the roads almost dry. We blatted down the E6 to Gothenburg and having made good time, elected to continue further south and pick up a campsite on the coast somewhere.

We got off the E6 at Varberg and stopped in the town to pick up supplies for tea. It was spitting with rain again and the weather looked ominous, so we rode to the towns main campsite on the coast, intending to stay for the night. It looked big and corporate. 'Butlins' springs to mind. We thought It'd have to do though, so I approached the receptionist, "We have two small tents and would like to camp for one night please?".

"No problem", she replied, "That will be 350kroner (£35) for each tent".

"No, no, I'm sorry. I think you misunderstand me. I don't want to buy the pitch, just erect my tent for the night...". I grimaced. She smiled. I picked Steve up off the floor (he'd fainted at the 350kroner bit) and we quickly left.

Moving a few miles down the coast towards Falkenberg, we found an ace little campsite and hostal called Rodlix. The tents went up in short order and the sun came out as we cooked tea.