A Gawker In Bredåkra

The next trip was in a northerly direction again. I wanted to extend my trip to Kallinge, to go further than the airport. Instead of going via Kallingevägen again I decided to go along a street I had seen up in Sörby. Its name is Djupaforsvägen because it leads to the industrial suburb of Djupafors. It's a very plain road that is not used often, and runs next to the railway line. Here is the northern end of that road, at the railway crossing. The ÖoB (Överskottsbolaget, a bit like WA Salvage) is off in the distance on the right. Between Djupaforsvägen and the river are these huge stockpiles of wood.
Going up the hill, this is some of the industrial area.
Continuing along the street of Häggatorpsvägen (Bird Cherry Croft Way), there were a few a trees starting sport their autumn colours. This one looked particularly dazzling. There is unfortunately a very loud guard dog at this house, so I moved along quickly.
From there, I cycled through Kallinge again. No new photos, as I had passed through a few weeks previously. I went past the airport on Bredåkravägen. Here is a different view of the terminal.
And here is an SAS plane which had just landed.
Riding along a little further, you reach the town of Bredåkra, or roughly "Broadfields". Here's the entrance sign.
At the end of that road is the cemetery. The following few photos are pictures taken there.
This one's a very peaceful view of the sunlight being filtered through the leaves of a tree.
Here is one of the main paths of the cemetery, lined by giant matching trees. More of a landscape shot, this one.
And here is a view back towards the church at the intersection of Solhemsvägen and Eringsbodavägen.
And here is one of the church itself. I suppose it's very similar in design to a lot of the churches here, e.g. Heliga Kors Kyrka and the one in Saxemara. Bredåkra's church does have one distinguishing feature, though. I thought the numerals on the wall read 1737, however reading the church's webpage leads me to believe that it in fact says 1939. From there, I headed north along Eringsbodavägen, to the town of Hasselstad, which is apparently big enough to get a black and white sign, rather than the blue Bredåkra one. Yet again, there was not much there, and moments later, taking the righthand road at the Y-junction, I was out in the country again. I was going along Eringsbodavägen in a northward direction, parallel with the airstrip. Here are some of the sets of lights that I imagine are used to assist planes landing here at night. Again things started to get interesting. Time was marching on and I was trying to circumnavigate the airport in a clockwise direction. However, the road just seemed to go on and on northward. If I went too far, I wouldn't get back south again in time. So I decided to chance going on a smaller trail that was marked on my map. The corresponding trail in real life was nowhere near as well marked. Soon I started to get disoriented. But I just kept trying to follow the airport fence. At times I had to walk my bike rather than ride it as the trail was too bumpy and thin. Here is a bare patch of forest where I stopped to consult my map.
Eventually I made it out onto Värperydsvägen and I started the long journey southwards. On the way I had an unexpected find - Ronneby Garrison. Here is the scrolling noticeboard saying it was 10 degrees at 5:18pm. The coat of arms for Blekinge is at the left. The best find of all was this plane mounted on a concrete block just outside the entrance to the garrison. You can make out the three crowns of Sweden logo on the side. It would be great to see at night, being lit from below.
I decided I had just enough daylight left to try crossing Ronnebyån and cycle home via the eastern side of Kallinge. And here Google Maps stuffed up a bit. Their roads did not match mine and I ended up hitting a couple of dead ends. I was not amused. I reached a small bridge and crossed over the river. Here are the views to the west and east at that point.
Getting back onto a main road at that time was somewhat difficult. Google seemed to say the path to do it was basically straight and fairly wide. I found no such road, but there was another one of those thin trails. Having the only other option of cycling all the way back to the garrison, I pressed on. Eventually, success as I found Kallebergavägen. From there, my route was basically directly south. I had to hurry, as I knew the sun was setting. Here's a view of the setting sun from near Kallinge Kyrka.
Cycling back via the familiar Ronnebyvägen/Kallingevägen, I managed to snap this lovely picture of the clouds at sunset. To me, the clouds resemble the shape of an eagle in flight. Arriving again in Ronneby, I cycled past Snäckebacken to discover that the flower display about Multicultural Year 2006 had been dug up. Here is all that remains of it. And finally, here is one of a tree back at Hjorthöjden in silhouette as the sun sets.

Flats at night

The picture below was taken the night following the full moon in October, from my bedroom window. The moon was very bright. I tried using the 'night' setting on my camera and this is the result. Unfortunately, that setting seems to do weird things with lights in the image, causing them to become blurry. The next block of flats is at the bottom of the picture, with the moon in the top left corner.

Tour to Spjälkö

The next trip ended up being to a little town called Spjälkö, west of Saxemara. But it didn't really start out that way. My main goal was to try to find some of the lakes west of Ronneby. So I set out along the eastern bank of Härstorpssjön, and then turned right at Hjälmserydsvägen. This road is relatively hilly in comparison with Vierydsvägen. Also, there is no devoted bike lane. But still, I was going somewhere new and different. The first lake on my map was Långasjön (Long Lake, named for obvious reasons) however there were no forks in the road leading in that direction, so I had to give up on that one and try for the next one - Kroksjön, or Hook Lake. I found the correct turnoff for it. I remember it being a rather muddy and hilly trail. Forestry is a very important industry in Sweden. This tree stump right next to the road really symbolised logging for me.

I followed the trail to its end, only to discover that it terminated in a farm paddock. I could see Kroksjön, but there appeared to be a number of fences in the way. So, I gave up and started back along the trail to the main road. Part of the way back, I came across this herd of all-white cows. I think it must have been afternoon nap time for most of them.

Further along Hjälmserydsvägen, I came to a T-junction. I could either turn left down Svedalavägen, or keep going straight. I chose the first option, mainly because I didn't want to go so far that it would take too long to get home again. Here is a view of a paddock with some rolls of hay, and crossed by power lines at the T-junction.

The route along Svedalavägen takes you to Saxemara, but this time from the north. It's an almost completely straight road, fairly quiet, with a few farms right near it. Here are some piles of wood - quite a common sight here.

Cue music: Michael Jackson's "Black or White" here. One of those farms I mentioned with an assortment of sheep.

Eventually you reach Saxemara. But I had already been there, so I headed further west along Vierydsvägen. I turned off at Spjälkövägen, which is a U-shaped road, and not surprisingly the main road of Spjälkö. Here is a view of the bay (complete with more sheep) from between Spjälköviksvägen and Steningavägen.

Here's another just for good measure. I think Spjälköviksvägen is a private road, so I travelled down Steningavägen instead.

Here are the vapour trails from some planes that had recently passed by, in front of a bright October afternoon sun.

There are lots of houses that are built right on the southern coast of Sweden. Here is one of them that was tucked away. The water in the bay is just visible in the background.

With that, I decided I should get home again, but I promised myself to pop in to see the sea wherever I could along the way back east. After passing through Saxemara again in the opposite direction, I came to what I think was Varvsvägen (Shipyard Way). Here is the very pleasant view from the jetty.

And here's a self-portrait at the same location.

The next stop was Sjöhagavägen. Here is the partially broken jetty there.

If you look closely, you can see a jellyfish in the water. It was my first Swedish jellyfish (unless it had floated over from Denmark or Germany).

I still had a small amount of time left before sunset, so on the way home I stopped off at Persborgsgolen. It's a little lake off of Utmarksvägen, right near the apartments. I took a few photos while it was still light.

This one is from the top of the rockface on the south side of the lake.

I was really hoping for a spectacular sunset photo. I waited around for a good 45 minutes. However, there were very few clouds in the sky that night, so firstly, it did not create any snazzy sunset effects, and secondly, it started to get quite cold. Here is a view from the end of the jetty back towards the shore.

And lastly, here is one in the opposite direction, from the shore looking down the jetty into the distance.

Tjugosju

There is more than that to him,
If you would care to look,
There is more than blotched asymmetries
And more than just a hook.

He tires of being an output
For other people's data,
Tired of being the only one
Who's always told, "try harder".

He stares in horror at the growing toll,
The world's become a savage place.
Is that a reason to dismiss him?
Is that the downfall of his face?

There's but one way to rescue him,
Extract him from this bolgia,
Stop seeing him in binary,
He has more things to offer.

So he fights against the darkness
And defies the status quo,
Reroutes the ancient circuits
From where they used to go.

He took the steps to rise above,
For him, a feeling that's so modern.
But yet again he is flailing,
Yet again he is failing,
Yet again he is falling,
For he is now, and will always be,
The loneliest of the downtrodden.

Fun at Yxnarum

With my bike repaired, I was keen to get back out on the open roads around Ronneby. I studied my map and looked for a place to go. In the ESE direction, I saw a town called Yxnarum. It sounded kind of cool as I had never heard of a place beginning with those two letters before. I had also heard of a thing called the Blekingeleden. It's a cycling/hiking trail going most of Blekinge. From what I had read, there were sections of this trail between Ronneby and Yxnarum. I decided to try to follow it where I could do so. Unfortunately, there was a place on the map where the trail's location became unclear, and I took the wrong path. I remember going around a very twisted path for quite some time, until I finally found the correct trail again. Here is a view of Hamnvägen from Bofinkvägen.
Further east, this is the tunnel under the railway line at Gärestads Bygata. This is basically the edge of my map.
Here is the countryside of that area.
It was at this point, looking at the map I had drawn freehand from Google Maps, that I realised I was not going to get to Yxnarum very easily if I followed this road. I had to turn around and travel along Gärestadsvägen instead. Cycling for quite a distance, I eventually came to the turnoff for Yxnarum. This is not the best picture, but it is of a field of trees along that road, under an afternoon sun shrouded by grey clouds.

Here is a tree in another nearby field. The bird at the end of the sawn-off branch is in fact fake.
And here is the entrance sign to Yxnarum. It's not the same style as the black and white ones for Ronneby, Saxemara and Kallinge.

Yxnarum itself was a bit of a disappointment. It was really just a few houses and barns. It would have been a shame to go all that way for almost nothing, so I continued on and rode the three further kilometres to Listerby. I knew of Listerby because of the Listerby pizza place I had seen at the big roundabout on the way to Karlskrona. Here's a "you are now leaving Listerby" sign, just near the bridge over Listerbyån.

Here is a small group of Listerby cows I photographed.

And here is the Listerby church.

It was by that time beginning to get a little dark, so I cycled home using the lane on the side of highway E22 for part of the way, and then back via Gärestad. Eventually I made it back to Brunnsparken. I took this picture to show some of the lovely colours that Autumn was producing.

And finally here a few of the ducks crossing the path between the duckponds at Brunnsparken.