Now I head into the Kattegat, northwards. Where I’m going today is not decided at the moment. Somewhere along the Swedish west coast I will spend the night; somewhere from where I can ‘easily’ get to Skagen in Denmark, because from there I want to hop over to Norway…
Varberg is halfway, already decided. There is also supposed to be a boat filling station there, ideal. And once again I am amazed at how generously the harbours are laid out here; on entering I recognise a leisure harbour (the one with a petrol station) and a fishing harbour (here fishing seems to be allowed, unlike on the Swedish east coast), which on closer inspection is attractively designed and looks more like a tourist harbour, from where excursion boats ‘camouflaged’ as fishing depart and moor.
I glide along a large caravan park – and hear many German-speaking holidaymakers (who comment on my entrance) as I drive up to the furthest pier of this harbour, right into the centre of this little town!
Here I stay, here it feels good. A little exposed perhaps (tourists marvelling at tourists), but once again right in the middle of life.
I pay my harbour fee, get the codes for shower and toilet, and go exploring (and shopping) with the folding bike. – Nice, spacious town, extensive bathing beach area, and as I said, many German campers who have probably escaped their homeland – Corona drives away the best people, at least the free-thinking ones, it seems to me.
Next to me on the Quai wall is a reconstructed Viking boat in the water, the fragments of which have been dug out of the marshy ground near Varberg and replicated piece by piece. A small photo documentation on a harbour building reminds us of this work.
I climb this reconstruction with great interest to examine the many ingenious details of this exact replica. – It’s ingenious how the sailors built and equipped their boats back then. The main thing is that it floats even in raging waves…, glides along quickly and easily steered when the sea is calm…, and offers space for crew, weapons, food and transport or robbery goods. There was no roof, at most a tiny cabin for the fire that was carried along. A tarpaulin and personal clothing had to suffice even in bad weather. (If it was like that in those days, it was probably mostly bad weather). Weatherproof guys they must have been!
Towards evening, some beautifully preserved ‘ships’ from the 60s leisurely roll by the harbour – rock ‘n roll blows through Varberg! By ‘ships’ we slangily mean big American cars with wingbacks, pink or light blue and with lots of chrome, usually as convertibles… because that’s how we all hear the deafening music blasting from the loudspeaker systems. – It seems to be a hobby, because the drivers (and co-drivers) are dressed as my parents probably once were; two handfuls of such cars roll back and forth, little corso, but apart from me it doesn’t seem to impress anyone. But I walk over, take a photo and we smile at each other. Cool. When nothing else is going on here, they get something going.