26th August 2016. Trelleborg, Sweden.

We were determined to explore further along the coast to the nature reserve before we left so rather than take the van we took our bikes.

This time we followed the cycle path and didn’t make the foolish mistake of riding along the busy road!

As we cycled along Darren spotted a rather unusual orca!  I think it just about makes up for not seeing any in Norway!

As we’d driven along the sea road previously we’d noticed there were statues dotted along the promenade/cycle path and I’d been looking forward to seeing them close to.  I discovered that stopping to photograph statues slows the progress down considerably but they were well worth stopping for.  (Apparently this area is called the Falsterbo Open-Air Museum and was the culmination of a life-long friendship between the sculpture ,Gudmar Olovson, and Swedish philanthropist Bo Hjelt who donated the five statues to the city of Vellinge and the council placed them along by the sea).

We discovered the road is dissected by a channel which allows boats to cut through to the sea on either side of the land and there was a bridge which they raised for larger boats.  That may have been what had caused the hold up when we tried to drive along that road or we could have just chosen the worst time of day to drive down there, either/or!

By the time we got to the bridge I was getting hungry, as usual we weren’t organised enough to bring a packed lunch with us so we were pleased to find a pizza restaurant (Ljunghusen Restaurang & Pizzeria) once we’d crossed the bridge (we VERY nearly tried to ride across the bridge because we couldn’t see a cycle path but luckily we dithered about so long that a lady we’d seen riding up from the town on the other side of the road suddenly appeared on the opposite side of the bridge and Darren spotted her.  It turns out there was a cycle path running along beside the bridge but it was out of sight behind the roadworks.)

While we were waiting for our pizza to be made the waitress brought us out some ‘salad’, the pickled cabbage that I’ve mentioned having in other restaurants, it’s very tasty, I wish our restaurants did the same thing, I’ll miss that.

The restaurant made great pizzas, I couldn’t eat the whole of mine so we took it with us to have for tea later.

I wasn’t too keen on our dining companion who made an appearance half way through the meal!

While we were eating we noticed a few people jogging or cycling down the lane behind the restaurant so we cycled down there.  It was a very smart area, the houses had large ornate gates.  Just past the house the nature reserve began and we’d seen some cute hairy cows grazing, they were similar to Highland cows, unfortunately I couldn’t get a decent photo because they were hidden amongst the trees.

We also had our first sight of two school boys who were dawdling along the track on their bikes.  We didn’t try to overtake them because we thought they’d be much faster then us and we assumed they were on their way home.  We were wrong, they got slower and slower until eventually Darren rang his bicycle bell to go past them.  We cycled past and then they decided to speed up, the little darlings!

The track carried on all the way to the area I wanted to visit but by the time we’d got two thirds of the way along it the heat was making it a chore and we decided to turn down another track that looked like it went to the sea, for a paddle.

It turned out to be a tease because although we could see the sea it wasn’t possible to get to it.  We  discovered we were at a gun club when Darren noticed there were lots of broken clay pigeons by our feet.

However the plus side to our wasted journey was we could just see our motorhome on the opposite shore AND we saw a sign for dogs, I hope they can read it.

When we got back to the cycle track we thought we’d go up to the main road, under the assumption that there would be a cycle path up there, and so we could see the sea on the other side of the road on the way back (what is it they say about assuming!).  We passed a man who was wheeling his bike towards the road and had a puppy on a lead so we thought there must a cycle path up there, to our dismay we discovered there wasn’t!  As we cycled back towards him he asked if he could help us (stupid tourists that we are!) and Darren asked where the cycle path was.  He told us that we had come up on the only one (I wonder where was he going with his bike and his puppy?).  The puppy was very cute and excited to meet new people, he had extremely sharp little teeth too.

We went back to the track and had just started making our way along it when who should we see in the distance but the two ‘little darlings’ from earlier.  One of them looked over his shoulder, noticed we were there and from that moment kept looking back.  Then, ‘out of the blue’ they suddenly stopped! One boy left his bike standing in the middle of the track and started taking photographs of the hedgerow with his phone, turning round to face us as we cycled past. It was all very strange.  He got back on his bike shortly afterwards and they continued on their journey.

When we got to the bridge we heard a lot of splashing and laughing.  Suddenly a dripping wet teenager in swimming trunks scrambled up from the track beside the bridge, climbed onto the bridge column and leaped into the water followed closely by two others who did backward flips into the water.  While we were watching them the ‘little darlings’ reappeared and while they were absorbed in what the teenagers were doing we took the opportunity to lose our little convoy and hurriedly carried on with our ride.

We cycled back along beside the sea then pushed our bikes down to the beach through a gap in the sea grass so we could go for a paddle.

We watched a couple walking through the water with their dogs about 100 metres from the shore and we were just about to step in the water when we noticed the water line was covered with the same type of jelly fish that had stopped us paddling at the beach in Norway.  Thankfully we couldn’t see any in the water so we stepped over them and cooled our feet down.

We didn’t stay in for too long because every so often a jelly fish would float past.  We realised it’s unlikely that the couple walking their dogs through the sea would be doing that if they were being stung but we decided it wasn’t worth testing to see whether they were harmless.

After we’d managed to push our bikes back to the cycle path through the sand who should we see cycling back the way we’d come from the bridge but the ‘little darlings’ again.  We’d obviously kept them highly entertained for the afternoon and they’d either suddenly realised the time and raced home or they’d decided that they’d lost us.

We carried on back along the cycle path, we were going to do some shopping at the supermarket but decided it was far too much effort to cycle all the way there and carry the food back to the van, we’d go in the van instead.

After I’d cycled for about 10 minutes I decided to check to see why Darren was being so quiet.  The reason for that was that he wasn’t anywhere to be seen, whoops!  I turned round and started cycling back just as he reappeared in the distance.  He said he’d seen a notice board not far from where we’d seen the jelly fish and he’d gone to see if it mentioned them, in which time I’d put on a burst of speed and disappeared!  He told me he’d taken a photograph so that he could put up his own ‘Where’s Wally’ photo in retaliation for the one I did of him.  Lucky for me his camera was playing up and when we went to look at it it was nowhere to be seen.

When we got back to the van we packed up and drove to the supermarket.  I know this is mean but we were both thrilled to see another couple on their bikes merrily following the same route that we took up to the scary roundabout three months previously.  If we’d been closer I would have pointed to the cycle path on the lane below them but they had reached the petrol station where we’d scrabbled down the bank to get off the busy road and they had the same look of confusion on their faces as we’d had.

When we arrived at the supermarket I contemplated bringing my camera in with me but decided I was unlikely to see anything exciting while we were shopping.  How wrong was I?  We walked into the bread aisle to see a fully grown stuffed reindeer standing on the top shelf of the bread counter.  I think he was advertising the reindeer brand of bread products!   What a weird thing to put on the bread counter but certainly a talking point.

We did the shopping and went and got an iced coffee in the shopping centre.  The assistant asked whether we’d like a large coffee, in Starbucks or Costa you don’t seem to be able to get a ‘small’ coffee so I said I’d like a medium one.  He looked at me as if I was mad and said they only did small or large.  If only our coffee shops were that sensible.

Our last stop was Trelleborg.  I wanted to have a quick look around the town before we left but as we drove through we realised there was nowhere to park because they were holding a festival in the town.  We could see a fairground ride above the tall buildings and roads were shut off and had stalls all along them.

We got out of there fast and went to find the Trelleborg ställplats.  Unfortunately we discovered it was going to cost 100 Kr and we hadn’t got enough cash.

Luckily on the way in we’d seen a motorhome and caravan parked up beside the sea but before we came to that car park we saw another one with a couple of motorhomes in it so we parked there, we felt a little uncomfortable about being there because there was a sign that said ‘No Camping’ but we remembered the German vet telling us that she’d noticed that Swedes and Norwegians took no notice of those signs so neither did she now and the vans in the car park were all Swedish registered.

We went for a walk on the beach, watched people picnicking and an elderly (and extremely hardy) woman go in for a swim (you can see her in the main photo near the steps of the pier).

I was pleased to see two people sitting on the pier, it was a good photo opportunity and when they left a man walked along it so I had another excuse to keep clicking away at the sunset.

I had a paddle but as seaweed kept winding itself round my ankles and the water was rather cold (I’m definitely not as hardy as the elderly woman) it didn’t last long so we wandered off to see what was on the other side of the sand dunes.

We found another smaller and very uneven car park which was where the motorhome and caravan were parked, the sign there also said ‘No Camping’.  We decided no one was going to be racing round that car park in the middle of the night so we popped back to our van, drove round to the smaller car park and stayed there for the evening.