Three bicycle tours on Gotland – Wednesday May 11 2018

This article is part of the series “2018-05: Gotland”.

A bicycle tour in seven scenes

1. To Ihre by bus

It’s Wednesday. As yesterday we’ve planned a bicycle tour, this time north from Visby again. Today we want to try to take the bus and cycle back. We have to get up early, the bus leaves at 7:55. As we hoped, the bus driver will transport our bikes. The way however is a bit unexpected: Two bus drivers lift the heavy bikes on a transport rack attached to the back of the bus. It doesn’t look very stable. The bus driver however observes the back camera to check the bikes and it works, we arrive in Ihre without any problems.

Checking the bicycles in the back camera

2. The beach at Irevik

This stone beach is one of the beaches, where you can find fossils, e.g. Rugosa. There are so many fossils that I find them though hardly looking. (I found fossils however on almost every beach in Gotland.) As a child I collected fossils and it would have been almost impossible to remove my from these beaches. Now I love to look at the white swans as well, but I have many stones in my pockets.

3. Lickershamn

Probably the highlight of the day: Lickershamn, a cute old fishing town where you can buy both smoked fish and ice cream (a good combination if not eaten simultaneously!). We sit outside, it is warm as if it were summer and we enjoy the smoked salmon pieces and the shrimp salad.

4. Raukar near Lickershamn

We saw them already on the way to the sea: The raukar near Lickershamn. A rauk or sea stack is a steep rock formation formed by wave erosion. Due to the post-glacial rebound these rauks are quite far away from the Baltic Sea that formed them.

5. Lickershamn fornborg

Quite near there lies a fornborg, an ancient refuge castle. If you are not into archeology it’s hard to find the leftovers from the iron age in the forest. So I decided to take a picture of the blue flowers that bloomed everywhere in the light pine forest.

6. Ungemiss gård

We pass a farm, now café and art atelier, too. A chicken comes closer curiously. We however want to reach the Krusmyntagården before the kitchen closes and do not take a longer break.

7. Krusmyntagården

We’ve been there two days ago; Krusmyntagården is a wonderful place with great food, even though Annika and I do not fall in love with the saffron pancakes, a speciality from Gotland. It’s really nice to sit outside, have an ice cream, a lemonade and relaxing.

Extra: Brissund bathing place

Next stop: the near sandy beach in Brissund. The water feels much colder than the day before and is hardly more than knee deep. Refreshing however since the air is so warm.

After the bath we head home, first along the main road, then along the beach promenade, then through the old town. The dinner (taken on the roof terrace of our apartment): green asparagus with ham and potatoes.

First impressions of Visby, Gotland May 7 2018

This article is part of the series “2018-05: Gotland”.

And now to something completely different after all that snow and ice.

Yesterday Annika and I took the plane. First to Stockholm Arlanda and then to Gotland – Swedens largest island – where we’ll stay in the Visby – Gotland’s main town – for a week.

Some first impressions from our yesterday’s walk through this wonderful medieval town:

Ice report 5 May 2018 May 5 2018

This morning I took the car to the lotsstation – the pilot station – on the peninsula Näsgrundet and took a closer look at the Baltic Sea. It was mostly free of ice, but the sheltered parts between mainland and the nearer islands were still covered with grey old ice. The rocky shore was partly covered with ice, too and some white ice floes floated on the ice cold water.

During the day it cleared up and the temperatures rose to 17 °C. Seven hours I returned to the same place. The floating ice I had photoed in the morning was gone by now. Had it melted or drifted away? I had to go to another more sheltered spot to be able to make probably my last ice photos in Skelleftehamn this season:

Why “the last snow” and “the last ice”? The reason is simple: Tomorrow Annika and I will fly to Gotland for a week. According to the weather forecast the next week should be warm and sunny, both in Skelleftehamn and on Gotland. I guess when I’m back, all snow and ice – beside of some huge manmade snow piles – has be melted away.

Then I’ll take a bath in the ice cold water and call it “spring bath”!

P.S.:

Snow report May 4 2018 May 4 2018

Winter lovers in Skelleftehamn, you have to face it: winter is over and the snow is melting fast. Almost the entire property is free of snow. There is however some snow left round my house, so let’s check it out:

1. Next to the neighbours garage (45 cm)

There’s a pile of snow next to the garage. Anyway, that doesn’t really count. It’s remnants of a roof avalanche that slid down weeks ago.

2. Behind the garden hedge (33 cm)

There’s snow in the shadow of the garden hedge. Anyway, that doesn’t really count. That’s the place, where I had my personal snow dump.

3. On the garage driveway (47 cm)

There’s an icy pile of snow on the garage driveway. Anyway, that doesn’t really count. That’s the place, where my neighbour dumped the snow when he cleared the snow for me while I travelled around in February and March.

4. On the lawn (2 cm)

There’s a shallow spot of snow in the progress of melting. That snow does count as a matter of fact. No one moved snow to this place, it’s the last real remnant of the long winter 2017/18.

Incidentally, the last photo reminds me of Dr. Seuss’ children book The Cat in the Hat.

This will probably will be the last article about snow for a longer while. I probably won’t find any snow in June, July, or August. Or what do you think?

Skellefteälven in the fog May 2 2018

The first rain for ages Apr 20 2018

This morning I was awakened by a strange noise. The noise of dripping water.

First I thought of the smelting snow on the roof but that noise sounded differently. More like many tiny drops of water everywhere. Like precipitation of liquified snow, what do you call it …?

Ah yes, “rain”. It is called rain.

Of course I still know the word for rain but it was a long time ago that I experienced it, at least at home. I tried to remember the last rainfalls I witnessed.

2 March (Domen between Vardø and Kiberg) – a short and light rain shower (temperature: -6 °C!)
1 March (between Varangerbotn and Vadsø) – plus temperatures and rainy weather.

But before that? I even search the January and February articles of my own blog in for the word “rain” but only to find the words “train” and “terrain”.

But last year then?

29 or 30 December (Bremen) – that’s Northern Germany, far away in the south. That doesn’t count.
20 December (Skelleftehamn) – that’s the last rain at home I remember.

Exactly four months ago! The rest was snow. That’s the winter how I like it!

Since I consider blog articles without images as boring, I added an upside down image of Skellefteå today.

Between the seasons Apr 18 2018

Still a lot of snow in Skelleftehamn, still freezing temperatures every single night, still no rain since last year (if I’m right), but …

The snow around the tree trunks is thawing

Instead of spring flowers: cars reappear

… spring comes nearer. According to smhi spring has already come to the town Skellefteå some days ago. Seems to fit, because I saw the first coltsfoots in bloom in Skellefteå yesterday. Unlike Skellefteå, Skelleftehamn is located by the Baltic Sea and the Baltic Sea is still covered with ice that cools down the air and causes the beginning of spring to delay by several weeks.

The snow piles on the first two images are remnants of the continuous snow clearing the whole winter. When walking around while taking these photos I experienced snow depths between 0 and 60 cm. Round 60 cm of snow lie in my backyard, too. At least all fences look out of the snow again.

Translation:

English	German	Swedish
coltfoot	Huflattich	tussilago

Skitour to Bergskäret Apr 8 2018

Today I took advantage of the marvellous weather and joined a ski tour over the frozen bay Kågefjärden to the island Bergskäret. Bergskäret is the island in the Kågefjärden that is nearest to the open sea. We were four: Hans and Stefan, with whom I have already made some trips, Kenneth and myself.

We took the car to Kågehamn where we started the tour. Round 5 kilometres over the snow covered frozen Baltic Sea and we arrived at the island. We were not the only ones. We looked for a good spot on the sunny south bank of the island where Hans made a fire with fire steel and we grilled the sausages that Kenneth had bought. I had a light down jacket with me but instead of putting that on I put off my soft shell because I felt so warm. Although it was hardly more than +2 °C the sun warmed us and the island protected us from the wind. After barbecuing, eating and resting a bit we went round the island and skied back to Kågehamn. Round 11 kilometres in the finest weather. A good way to spend the Sunday!

Tack för turen Hans, Stefan, and Kenneth.

Skiing with Hans, Kenneth and Stefan (from left to right)

Kåge Prickgrund with Bergskäret in the background

Postscript 1

On the way back we saw the first whooper swan of the season. Another spring sign.

Postscript 2

While the snow and ice on the Baltic Sea are still beautiful the minor streets are in a very poor condition. The ice on the street is so deeply rutted that I’m quite glad about the high ground clearance of my Subaru. Anyway I learned that even a car with permanent all-wheel drive can spin out although driving slow.

Ongoing winter Apr 6 2018

It has been a long winter and it’s continuing. The fence behind my backyard is still mostly snowed under and this night it has started snowing again.

Snowed in fence behind the backyard. The fence is round 80 cm high.

The temperatures however have been gradually rising. While the minimum temperatures have been mostly between -5 °C and -15 °C the last weeks the minimum of the last night was a mere -1.2 °C. And the permanent frost stopped. Day temperatures have been above zero the last ten days and despite the mean temperatures still being below zero the snow has started to melt, especially on and beside the streets.

And if the Swedish weather forecast is right we’re expecting a sunny week with temperatures up to 7 °C. This will cause more snow to melt making the streets especially in town extremely ugly and rubber boots the preferred footwear, but that’s a necessity for the spring to come.

The other years?

April 2017 – the Baltic Sea is mostly open, some snow showers. The first tussilago flowers on 8 April.
April 2016 – open Baltic Sea, some rain and small streams cause local flooding.
April 2015 – kayak tour on the Baltic Sea, whooper swans and again the first tussilago.

Snowmobile tracks Apr 1 2018

When the sea ice is safe + the weather is calm and sunny + it’s Easter holidays you can bet that many, many people are outside. A zillion times more than in January or February when the locals think it’s too cold.

Some people walk, some even ski but most people use their snowmobiles. And that’s how the snow covered ice on the Baltic Sea looks like: covered with snowmobile tracks. Sometimes only one or two of them, but often it’s many tracks making the ice look like a German autobahn.

What a contrast compared to my hike less than two weeks ago where I was almost alone on the ice.