Blogs from Halland County, Sweden, Europe

Finally,finally on the road again So this blasted virus has not been very good for anyone to put it mildly. A lot of people have suffered more hardship than me and will continue to, i was lucky to be born where I was born and two shots of Astra’s crappy vaccine have entered my immune system and hopefully will keep me from croaking before the due date. Anyway I managed to get two weeks off, ok I know that I could retire but with our climate I can’t be on the road the whole time. Somehow the French Atlantic coast beckoned to me so off I went, 3 gruelling days on the bike with up to 33C made me rather tired and thirsty at that, black gear made me into human solar panel. The motorway down ... read more

The only survivor The Grimeton Radio Station is a piece of industrial heritage which is so unique that it has been listed as a world heritage site by UNESCO. Emma is not very interested in old radio stations so when Ake went to Grimeton Emma spent the time at an outdoor recreation centre a few kilometres away. In the 1920-ies it was possible to build long wave radio transmitters so powerful it was possible to send radio signals across oceans. This technology made it possible to send messages from one end of the world to another alsmost instantly. The messages could only be sent in Morse code, but was still far superior to any other communication technology available at the time. In a few years a network of radio stations using this technology was established. One ... read more

The next morning it did not rain, at all! So i went to Vilnius taking back roads as suggest by Mssrs Garmin, sometimes they do manage and I had a nice ride to Vilnius and a decent hotel. Vilnius is nice, I prefer it to Riga and Tallin, as it’s a bit off the beaten track for the cruise ships that plagues the Baltic. You have to sit in bus for a few hours to get there. Anyway I looked at the sky when I left the hotel and thought about a rain jacket, but no, the sky looked nice. Well 5 minutes later it laughed me in the face and let go of some rain, it did stop quite rapidly and the sun came back to stay, I just wandered around and enjoyed the splendour ... read more

I got to Munsanze in good nick, no major adventures and no problems bar some slightly hairy places where they were doing some road works, slowly I went past with a zillion brown faces looking at me, there can’t be many muzungis on motorbikes, lots of waving and smiling. I found myself a half decent hotel and just rode a round watching life as it went on, unimpressed by my presence. Basically I’m just making time as not to arrive in Kigali in three days time. Treks are out, according to my surgeon I should be gentle with my new knee, so no gorillas or golden monkeys for me. There are very few wild if any wild animals about, Rwanda’s on of the most densely populated countries in Africa so basically there’s no room for wildlife. ... read more

After my Soth African glove debacle I went to my purveyor of fine water proof motorcycle glove and handed the very expensive top of the line gloves back and got another pair from another maker of top notch motorcycle paraphernalia. Good one me I thought, now I won’t have to endure the entire width of the US with wet hands, so far so because as uup and until yesterday no rain. Well sooner or later it had to happen, sooner or later was to day, the day started with fog and a drizzle so I got my new gloves out and somehow the right hand glove’s liner had come unstuck so that neither my thumb nor my pinkie got into their respective holes. May the people who in the name of profit send everything to be ... read more