Kallinge Calling

The next excursion went in the complete opposite direction - north and slightly east. The destination: Kallinge. This is the town where the airport in Blekinge is located, and it's very nearby to Ronneby. It's like they are twin towns, because Ronneby would be the largest and Kallinge the second largest town in Ronneby Kommun. I had decided I wanted to see this place, as G had been to the airport there when arriving in and departing from Ronneby. I, on the other hand, had come by train and bus via Sölvesborg and had not seen Kallinge.
Anyway, the most direct route to get there is Kallingevägen which later becomes Ronnebyvägen. I know...really original street names they have here :-P Here is a photo of the "you are now leaving Ronneby" sign along that road, near the E22 highway. Not much later, you come to the entrance sign for Kallinge.

At the main intersection on the east side of the river (the Ronnebyån flows through Kallinge, basically dividing the town in half, on its way south to Ronneby Hamn) is Kallinge Kyrka (church). Ronneby Blåsorkester will be playing Christmas carols here in December. It's a fairly large church, with a very interesting steeple. Here it is, behind a row of tall trees.Here's one of the tower and steeple.
And here's one of me...yes I'm being a good boy and wearing my helmet.
The main street crossing the river (perhaps the overall main street) is Kockumsvägen. No, it's not what you're thinking! Not named after a brothel or anything like that! Kockums is the ironworks facility in the town. Here's a giant wheel thingy.
Closer inspection of the sign below it reveals it is a flywheel. I'll get around to translating the rest later.
And here is the main building.

Here's one of the posh houses along that road, with a really nice big garden. If you keep travelling along Kockumsvägen, it becomes Bredåkravägen (the reason will become clear in a future post, but you can probably guess) and you reach the boundary of Kallinge.

My goal in making the journey had been to get to the airport, basically because that was the limit of my map. Not very far past the Kallinge boundary is the airport. Here it is: Ronneby Flygstation. Positively miniscule, even compared with Perth Airport. But it helps heaps and heaps of people get here every year.
Having accomplished my main task, I now had to get home. There is a real aeroplane feel to Kallinge (again, you'll see evidence of this in a future post), for example this deightful metal design in the centre of one of the main roundabouts. There's an aeroplane encircling the symbol of the flag of Blekinge.
Nearby, I found this manmade pond with a few senior citizens relaxing in the afternoon sun in the background.
Crossing back over the bridge, here is the Ronnebyån with its almost mirror-like surface. So still...
Here's where things started to get interesting. There is a lake marked on my map called Lillasjön (Little Lake) in the southeast corner of Kallinge. I decided to pay it a visit. The problem was, the map didn't show the trails which would enable you to reach the lake itself. I had to just follow a dirt path and hope for the best. Here is perhaps the best photo I could take of it. It is surrounded by a lot of plants and is hard to approach.
But I was hoping for a better view, so I just kept following the path. Here you can see it, next to the very green grass.

It was a bit after this point that I started to feel rather lost. I mean, I knew how to get back, I just had to turn around and follow the path. But I had no idea where the path was taking me. Eventually, after what seemed about half an hour, I made it back to civilisation and found the other side of the lake. Unfortunately, it was fenced off. Here's the best I could do with my camera.

There were plenty of mushrooms in the area, just like this white one.

On the way back out to Ronnebyvägen, I passed this house with some lovely wooden creations in the front yard.

And here is the vattentorn, or water tower, as seen from Ronnebyvägen. However, it is located near another lake called Kallingegölen, and given my previous antics with the other lake, I didn't want to chance getting lost this late in the day. So, I didn't try to get any closer to the tower. I just kept riding home to Ronneby.