Day 13: Fredrika to Rusksele

Fundraising Tour 2021 2 Minutes

Distance: 121km

Elevation: 870m

After a good night I woke up around 7am. It had gotten cold, so no swim this time. For the second time long legs and arms in terms of clothing.

I knew that I needed to stock up because I would go through territory without shops today. The local shop only opened at 10am. This left me enough time to take care of my digital vaccination certificate. This will become important for entry into Norway in a couple of days. By 10:15am I was in the saddle. My navigation system said “turn right in 68km”. So, I followed a very lonely road through a moor for many hours.

I had been asking the universe to see an elk or a rain deer during my trip. After a short while on my long road, a rain deer just ran into my way. We were both shocked at first. Then I turned around and followed her and gladly she came out of the woods again.

The rest of the day was pretty eventless. I changed the position of my saddle since I still have soar skin in my “seating area” which is quite annoying. And I started listening to another audio book by Anselm Grün and Bodo Janssen.

After 90km, I reached Lycksele, a small town with a camping site. It was very tempting to stay – especially since I knew that the alternative was wild camping. After a longer internal debate with my inner team, I picked a spot from iOverlander (an app for wild camping) and cycled another 30km to reach my target for the day.

The place was nice with picknick places, toilets, and a big river nearby. The toilets even have warm tap water, which I used to get a proper shower in a little hut by the river.

While I was having dinner, another cyclist came by: Roos, 28 years, from the Netherlands. She had been an instructor in a climbing gym at home and was now on tour through Sweden since mid May, so 1.5 months roughly. She did not reach the North Cape due to closed borders and is now on her way back home.

She made a camp fire to cook her vegetable ls and we had a good chat whilst being surrounded by thousands of mosquitoes and knots.

By 10pm I was in my tent but I found it hard to sleep because of all the itching of the mosquito bites. I will not miss that part of the trip.

Learning of the day: Ask and you will be given.

Published by Karsten Drath

About 30 years ago, two zis scholarships helped me to broaden my horizon, expand my understanding of what is possible, and develop more self-confidence. zis is a non-profit organization that has been awarding scholarships for study trips to young people between the ages of 16 and 20 for more than 60 years. Today, the word we use for tenacity and grit is resilience - and I've made it my profession, to help managers around the world to develop more of this inner power. In retrospect, the experiences I've had on these trips to Scotland and Iceland have been priceless for my development. After having had a childhood with some challenges, I learned that I could cycle 1,700km on my own and get wet every day without despairing. I have learned that I was able to get along with only 300 € for 4 weeks and still had a good time. I have learned what it's like to be threatened with deportation and how to get an interview with the President from such a crisis. I have understood that limitations are primarily constructs in our heads, and I want to make these insights available to as many adolescents as possible.

Published

One thought on “Day 13: Fredrika to Rusksele”

Leave a Reply