Telemark

Before leaving Bovallstrand, we thought long and hard about our next step.  If we were to bike north to Oslo and then south towards Telemark, it would add at least three days to the trip.  We decided instead to take a ferry from Strömstad, Sweden and Sandefjord, Norway.

While planning this trip, one of the things I wanted to visit was the area where the Kittleson name came from.  Over the past few years I have learned that they lived in the Telemark region of Norway and they left for the United States from the Porsgrunn port. So as we left Sandefjord, we biked towards Porsgrunn spending Sunday night in Larvik.  Museums are closed in Europe on Mondays so we were unable to visit any museums, but we were able to check out the area.

After leaving Porsgrunn, it was time for the biggest decision of the trip, how we would get to Kristiansand, Norway.  By far the most common way would be to follow the coastline and major cities of the south, but we wanted a little more adventure.  It took about an hour of research but we had come up with our plan.  We would ride straight west towards a series of lakes in Telemark and then south to Kristiansand.  This would give us the chance to see more wilderness as well as more of the Telemark region.  While the total distance would only be around 250km, it would be much more mountainous and the most challenging of the trip.



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Norway

One more stop to make before Norway.

Tanum, a site with stone carvings from the bronze age (1800-500 B.C.) 

Holy Mackerel!!

When we returned to 'the Swedes' house after camping we got a chance to meet his friend Janne.  A long time friend who was willing to take us Mackerel fishing on his boat.  So the next day we loaded onto Janne's boat and he would take us for a tour of the local islands and then we would anchor down and do some fishing.  In an instant Brad is pulling up the first of what would be 26 Mackerel in just over an hour of fishing.  Everyone in the group caught fish and it made for one hell of a good meal. 

 

Konny ('the Swede') and Janne

Minnesota style.

One of the goals of the trip was to give Jalen a chance to do some camping and fishing and we made the most of it by taking two days and posting up near Munkedal, Sweden.  We rented a canoe, fished, cooked brats and hot dogs, made s'mores etc.  Just like the type of camping Jalen would get if we were in Minnesota.

Jalen and Uncle Brad

Bovallstrand

So our destination in Sweden would be Bovallstrand, a small fishing community 145km north of Gothenburg.  Brad's dad worked with 'the Swede' in Sauk Rapids, MN and he was nice enough to invite us to join him at his summer home.  When we started planning this trip we told Brad's brother Jason about it and he decided to drive up from the Düsseldorf area and meet us in Sweden with his son Jalen.  So after a lot of hard work, Brad was able to convince me to ride the whole 145km from Gothenburg to Bovallstrand in one day with the final 60km in the absolute dark, finally arriving at 2:00 am (by far the most dangerous part of the trip).  As we pulled up to the house Jason met us at the door with a couple beers and we were able to celebrate our second major accomplishment of the trip.

Falkenberg, Sweden

Ängelholm, Sweden

Ängelholm was a small village we found on the map and we set out in search of a good campsite when we arrived.  We followed the first path we found and it led us straight to one of my favorite sites of our trip (Which is a good thing as I needed to replace a tube on my bike).  We were able to have our first campfire and we finally got a chance to put the mandolin and guitar to use.