We woke up at 7am, but my rides were still asleep. Eistla and I went to the beach. It was a quite cloudy outside, but the fjord was calm and serene. Some people were taking morning swims.
We went for a little walk along the fields. They were still asleep.
I slowly started packing my things as it was getting towards 10am, unsure what to do. Should I wait or try to find someone else? We were quite far from a bigger road. Some campers were coming and going, though.
Eventually they woke up, but said they’d be taking a slow day, since there was another predicted storm and they were also going to walk their dogs first and go shopping. I decided to find someone else, but wondered if I’d be seeing them again somewhere on the road.
A Danish guy with an empty car was leaving the beach and agreed to take us into Roskilde, to a gas station close to the motorway. I ran and gathered my final things and we hopped in his car. He was a local who had lived there his entire life. He showed me the building where he had had a flat for 20 years.
The gas station was quite small with barely any traffic, so it was better to stand at the road towards the motorway. Since my old sign was full and used up, I had to write a new one. At first I just wrote Sverige/Norge, but realised it would be better to write cities like København and Malmö. We stood there for quite a bit. Nobody stopped. I don’t remember the faces there, but sometimes it was fun to interact with the drivers and smile or joke about full cars and wrong directions. Some would speed up or look a little judgy. But later I felt like that was even more so in Sweden than Denmark.
Eventually a 19yo Copenhagener stopped and took us almost to the airport where the Öresund bridge starts. He was a fun guy, who laughed a lot and he just came back from his artist cousin, whose art he showed me on Instagram. It was insanely good. He also showed me some songs and beats he made. Wow! We drove past his house which was right opposite the school he went to, but it was now under construction.
He dropped us off at a small crossing with a traffic light. I crossed København off my sign and added Göteborg. That may have been a little premature, as it was a further distance than I thought and most people in that direction were only going to Helsingborg.
But a Polish car stopped after a bit and the lady was going to Malmö where she lived. She was a bus driver, driving tourist busses all over Europe. Her car was full of packs of small water bottles. Leftovers from a bus tour. She said to take as many as I wanted, so I took one for the car ride.
The Öresund bridge was a little anticlimactic. We had already crossed a bridge to Sjælland which looked exactly the same, but was longer and a little more impressive actually.
We got dropped off at the first of many XXL shopping centres in Sweden on the north east side of Malmö (Bernstorp) . This however was the first place we got kinda stuck. The shopping centre was massive and kinda hard to navigate. It took a long time to find the right exit and also a long time to walk there. The last shop before the exit was a Biltema. My Swiss rides had talked about wanting to go there and I also wanted to check if there was a backpack Eistla could carry because I remembered they had some in Norway some years ago that for some reason I never bought. But sadly no dogs were allowed in and it didn’t make sense to buy something for my dog I wasn’t allowed to try on first.
So I stood in front of the parking space for a while, holding up my Göteborg/Norge sign, but nobody was going there. I could barely see the drivers faces because of the glaring sun. A few looked nice and apologetic, but a few also sped up or purposefully looked away. I was starting to get a headache and I also got kinda dizzy and stumbled a few times. Not sure if it was from standing so long and the noise of the road or maybe dehydration. I decided to take a break and eat and drink something with Eistla. I felt a bit better afterwards, but I started to lose hope and motivation after standing there for so long.
But then a car honked at me and guess who it was – the Swiss campers. That was a fun surprise. We said hi and they went into Biltema and we went back to the road. They weren’t going in my direction. This was where they took a different road, sadly.
A really nice lady stopped as she was driving out from Biltema and gave me a bag of chocolates while cheering me on and asking me to stay safe. That was really sweet of her!
There was one Norwegian couple driving to Oslo, but only the next day. I decided to try to find something that day, but got their number in case I didn’t.
After some more time, I felt like this wasn’t working out. I checked the map and decided to walk closer to the actual motorway ramp. The biggest problem here was that the motorway was mainly going to Malmö which was where we came from. People to Göteborg would have to take the first exit again and were probably unlikely drive off at this place to get gas or food. There was a crossing right before the ramp that looked promising. At least it was easier to interact with people there. But it was also full sun instead of shade under a tree like the spot at Biltema. Eistla and I were getting a bit hot, but it was still manageable.
Finally, someone stopped. A Swedish guy was going to Löddeköpinge. I didn’t know where that was, but the map said it was in the right direction at least and he also agreed that this was a bad place to try to get towards Göteborg. I think we were stuck in that place for at least 4h. I started realising how important it is to pick good places.
Löddeköpinge was a little bit better, but also not great. Most people had full cars and were also going in the wrong direction. Especially the Norwegians I targeted. I ended up asking people multiple times because it got hard to remember faces and cars. I went into the fast food place that was there to get a wash and refill my water I think. I started feeling like a homeless person and got some weird or judgemental looks. I also realised that I still had a banana I didn’t have time to eat for breakfast in my bag and that it was completely squished and had smeared over a bunch of my stuff. That was pretty disgusting and I tried to clean it as best as possible. At least this solved the mystery of why my bag had been looking so wet on the bottom.
There were lots of cars, but not too much traffic in and out of the charging station, so I realised after a while that I had probably asked everyone and tried just holding up a sign in different places where they were most likely to take the Göteborg ramp. Not too much luck.
Finally, a truck driver caught my attention. But he drove past. Or so I thought. He came back the other way, turned around in the roundabout and stopped right next to me, holding up traffic. He said he was going to Helsingborg which is on the way to Göteborg, but then would take a different road more towards the east. I was hesitant, but decided to hop in. It was quite a challenge to lift my stuff and Eistla above my head because the truck was so high. I sometimes get a bit unsure about loading my stuff and dog into a vehicle before I get in. But so far I’ve been able to trust everyone and I’ve even left my stuff on the side of the road for a bit while walking around with the sign. The backpack is so heavy that it would be a challenge to quickly and stealthily steal. Or so I hope. But I also feel quite safe here in that regard and I always have one eye on it whenever possible.
Some people observed us getting in to the truck. I’m not sure if they were worried, but on several occasions I kinda started observing myself from the outside doing things we’re normally warned not to do. Oh well.
In this case it tuned out an uncomfortable experience. The guy was nice and all. He was from Macedonia, driving toilet paper. I’ve never ridden in a big truck before and it was kinda fun with the bouncy seats and big view. He spoke English fine at first buy then started having to use a translator. The 3rd or so message ended up being “Let me take you with me”. And eventually “If you want we can sleep together tonight”. That was a clear no from me and some awkward silence afterwards. I asked him to drop me off only half way to Helsingborg. But this was also partly because there wasn’t another gas station right on the E6 road in Helsingborg. He said he could wait for me until I found a new ride. I said no, that wasn’t necessary. I didn’t pay too much attention to his truck after we got out, but quite a while later I think he drove past and waved at me, so he must have waited a while. Better to quickly forget this experience and move on.
This gas station was quite a small one. It was also getting late in the day. Traffic was getting less. Few cars were driving in to stop there. Most of them were going to Helsingborg or were full. Some were apologetic, some didn’t want to be talked to. The first guy that seemed open and was going all the way to Göteborg was scared of dogs. He had a Danish car. He agreed to take us, but suddenly said he was too scared of dogs. He offered to have her in the trunk of the car, but it was so narrow that she wouldn’t have fit. I tried to convince him that Eistla was nice and not dangerous since he seemed to want to take us, but I couldn’t tell if it was happening or not. He folded over a back seat to create more space which would have worked fine and I could have sat in between them, but then he also didn’t want that anymore. I tried to figure out what he wanted, but he ended up getting frustrated with languages, so we switched to English. We must have stood there for several minutes and discussed it. I said it’s fine if he said no, but then he agreed. I asked if he would drive to my bags which were just before the exit, but once he arrived there, he had changed his mind again, but somehow was still standing there contemplating. He said he could drive only me, but not my dog. Eventually I told him to drive on and that it was okay with me and finally he did.
Another guy tried to give me 4€ because he couldn’t read my sign and thought I was begging or something.
A highlight, but sad one, was the camper car from Troms that stopped there. They were in fact going all the way to the area I want to go to, but they were full and also had dogs. But it was nice to meet them.
It looked like they were going to camp at the rest stop, so I started considering to put up my tent somewhere on the side also, doubting we’d get another ride that day. It was getting towards 8pm.
A car drove in that I first didn’t consider because it was a 3 seater with 3 people, but 2 got out and he started driving, so I quickly waved at him and asked if he had space and where he was going. He was in fact going to Halmstad, which was finally past Helsingborg on the way to Göteborg. He had just picked up the first hitchhikers he had seen in 20 years in Malmö and taken them there (to continue to Stockholm) and so we had a flying change which was quite funny. For him probably even more so than me. He was on his way back from Spain and had driven from Hamburg that day I believe.
In Halmstad there was a hotel with lots of parking cars as well as a gas station and some stores. He felt bad about leaving me there so late in the day. I also started feeling a bit unsure, thinking about where we would sleep that night. We had driven past some nice beaches and a gas station with some nice meadows that I considered if we should call it a day. But I didn’t take the initiative.
The Norwegians I saw were either full or staying the night.
I sat down on a rock, unsure what to do.
A car stopped and asked if I needed help. He wasn’t going anywhere, but he offered to buy me a train ticket or something. But the train would have taken me into Göteborg at 11pm and I didn’t want to be stuck in the city that late. He even started calling people and asked if they were driving somewhere. But nobody was. Eventually he also moved on.
Another car stopped too and asked if I needed help. But he couldn’t help either.
I decided to call it a night and walk a little bit to a forest that I saw on the map. I did start to feel a bit uncomfortable because it was right behind this industrial/shopping area and there were individual trucks parking there for the night as well as some really loud motorcycle gangs and lonesome men walking. I crossed the road and walked into the forest which turned out quite nice and sheltered. I still hoped nobody saw me.
There was a pretty little birch forest and that’s where we set up our tent.
It was a bit hard to settle down for the night. Once I had to stick my head out of the tent because there was a really creepy rustling outside that could have either been a human or an animal approaching. Eistla wasn’t bothered though. Either she was too tired or I was hearing things.
Day 2 stats:
6 drivers
224 km
2,22 driving hours
10.30-21h