Day 15: Hermanboda Vindskydd to Gallo

July 16, 2024

Live radio interview from the forest

“We can see your car, you were almost to the trail,” Patrick answers the phone call from Frederick, the radio reporter. “Are you awake?” he asks. “Yes, we are packed up”. We are also expecting a reporter for a local newspaper also at 0730. Patrick has answered her calls a couple of times explaining our location. This is all Anders’, the Biking Viking, doing from his Facebook post.

Last night there was roaring thunder, almost cracking like lightening along with a little bit of rain. It was good that we were able to fit the tent under the shelter, everything is dry this morning. Then Frederick, the reporter for radio Sweden arrives at the shelter, “We go live in 7 minutes,” enough time to get back to the road. It’s great that he helps with putting the heavy picnic table back under the shelter and with Rachel’s bike down the trail to the road. Just before our little dirt road reconnects with the road there is a picnic table, garbage can and an outhouse. He even brought us beer and not the low alcohol stuff you buy at the grocery store, but the real stuff from the state’s liquor stores.

Frederick the radio reporter finds us at the shelter

Patrick had told Anders, we'd tell him where we are if he's bring beer. He brought us 4 beers!

Then he is asking us questions, all in English. He has a microphone and a backpack. He also comments some in Swedish, so we are not sure what all he says about us. Just as he finishes the local newspaper reporter arrives and we answer questions all over again. It is all fun. Back to the main road, they want to take some “action” pictures. All this was good as we were going to go a longer way back to the road we need today, and we were pointed back to the junction, he says “it saves a big hill.”

We are now on the Stolavsleden Pilgrim Trail that goes from Sundsvall Sweden to Trondheim Norway. We stop at a monument marking the trail and Patrick stamps Rachel’s artbook with the trail seal. After long flat hills, we have a long slow downhill. This mainly a hiking trail, but parts are also for cycling.

Patrick getting the Pilgrim Seal Stamp in Rachel's artbook

At Bracke, we stop at a gas station and have another food break and coffee. We’ve been following a long skinny lake. We also get more bread at an ICA. We reach Gallo and the Camp Viking. The owners are from Belgium and Patrick is looking forward to a Belgium beer. Except the beer costs 130KR (about $13). We get to our cabin for the night and enjoy Frederick’s beer instead. We clean up, Patrick goes back to a store in Gallo for dinner groceries. We had also planned to eat at the Camp’s pub and bistro, only to find out it’s closed today for food. The cabin is situated on a lake and has great facilities to cook dinner.

Camp Viking. We are out of luck with pub and bistro, closed today.

The owners are Belgium. They sell Belgium beers for 130KR ($13.00USD).

We enjoy the beers given to us by Frederick. Thanks Frederick!

We have rented a small cabin, called a stuga. There is a bunkbed, small table, power and internet. We spent the afternoon doing some route planning. We are definitely not going quick enough to cycle all the way to the North cape, back down Finland and through the Baltic States, all in 89 days. Our plan has always been to skip some sections and we decide to take the Hurtigruten boat from Trondheim to Bodo.

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Today's ride: 57 km (35 miles)
Total: 658 km (409 miles)

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