Day 13: Fredrika to Rusksele

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.

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