Norwich to Uppsala (Sweden) day 9. Plan b

Day 9. Plan b

With cold, wet and windy weather in the offing plus a lack of available accommodation whilst  being too pooped for another long day I had decided to implement plan b. The route now looks like this with a bus filling the gap.

Mrs Crusader and the team at Mission Control had been working hard overnight and sent me the details of how to book a bus/bike ticket from the nearest bus stop to Nykoping about 130 miles from Uppsala parkrun. Once on the site I found there were no bike spaces left on the 14:45 bus so I had to book the 16:00. With only a 50 mile ride to the bus stop I thought I was going to have a very long wait at Jonkoping and imagined shivering at the bus stop for a couple of hours. As it turned out I had had a very lucky break.

It was good to see the rain and strong winds had returned as I left for Jonkoping after an overaly leisurely breakfast.

I was then straight on to a super smooth cycle track that went through forests and past lakes for twenty miles.

In the right conditions it would have been spectacular but as I was tired, cold and wet, then boy was it dull as the miles slowly ticked by.

The only excitement came from needing to lift the bike over a number of fallen trees

and having to do some steering at a very occasional bend.

Despite the scenery it felt the longest two hours of the ride.

I was very relieved when that section was over but my troubles had only just begun.

I rely on the Komoot app for all route planning but on this occasion it tried to send me down 10 miles of duel carriage way. With lorries whizzing by I obviously got off it as soon as possible and had to work out an alternative way to avoid the highway. This add several bonus miles but was, at least, rather pretty.

With that obstacle successfully negotiated I was then presented with 10 miles of sandy off road track. This was super draining on the legs and made progress very slow.

I realised that if I had opted for the 14:45 bus I would have certainly missed it. Another lucky escape.

It was just past 15:00 when I eventually arrived at Jonkoping bus station. In fact, it was a very good bus station with a nice cafe where I had time for an excellent hot chocolate and interesting cake. A solid 6.83 rating.

The bus waiting area was inside too so no hardship there. The bus arrived on time and with bike strapped on the back I could at last relax (sort of as obviously was concerned about the bike falling off) and look forward to another day. 

Tomorrow I hope to do the first 66 of the final 130 miles to Uppsala. The section looks very interesting as it skirts the East coast and includes a bonus ferry. It does look quite hilly though and it’s getting rather cold. What can possibly go wrong?

Tomorrows weather forecast 

Stats 

	Miles	Time on bike	Average speed	Meters climbed	Miles to go
Day 1 Norwich to Harwich	77.64	6:05	12.8	784
Day 2 Hoek of Holland to Deventer	102.95	9:02	11.4	366	884
Day 3 Deventer to Cloppenburg	103.48	8:16	12.5	231	782
Day 4 Cloppenburg to Jork	90.45	8:20	10.8	538	678
Day 5 Jork to Heiligenhafen	96.11	8:18	11.6	604	582
Day 6 Heiligenhafen to Daley	86.59	6:47	12.7	637	483
Day 7 Daley to Bastad	95.67	7:36	12.6	705	388
Day 8 Bastad to Tranemo	95.09	8:19	11.4	856	173
Day 9 Tranemo to Jonkoping	55.54	5:25	10.2	517	123

Todays route