Day 13 - Garden to Guesthouse

After a good night's sleep in Mike and Sara's garden (in spite of the heavy overnight rain) they helped get us going with a coffee in their warm, dry kitchen before heading to work. We were treated to the sight of a woodpecker picking nuts from their bird feeder while we took in the caffeine.

After that, we stuck around for a bit to wait for the rain to settle, then broke camp and set off in full waterproof gear, expecting the rain to hit us again on the ride.

Pretty soon afterwards, I was stripping all those layers off, as it is now a lot warmer than it was in the North (double figures, even!). It didn't seem to matter anyway, as the day remained cloudy but mostly dry.

Based on Mike's good advice, we took a slightly longer route that guaranteed sealed roads while also avoiding a return to the E4. It was hilly, but proved a nice ride between small towns with shops and services. Along the way we stopped to watch (and hear) a pair of migrating cranes as the milled around a front garden before flying off into the distance.

Eventually we came out onto the 84, which was our road to Bergso. Unfortunately it was a lot more similar to the E4 than we had hoped and included multiple steep climbs. So the last part of our ride was back alongside lorries and fast-moving cars, cycling nose to tail for safety. Still, we were rolling into Bergso before too long.

Bergso is a town with plenty of campsites, and with a thunderstorm predicted overnight, we had planned to hire a cabin for shelter and a chance to hand-wash clothes. Unfortunately, unlike all our previous stops, none of the campsites in Bergso are open until June. So, faced with the possibility of wild camping and waking up wet with no dry/clean clothes, we opted to stay in a B&B for the night. So it's an evening of clothes washing, hot showers and comfort before a proper breakfast; all to set us up for more wet weather cycling tomorrow.Читать далее