Waking up to the mazing views from our little overnight cottage on Kloveron Island, a peaceful and serene place.

Sunday morning and a conga line of boats start to head out from Marstrand Marina for their days adventures.

We enjoy a lovely breakfast on the deck delivered by the enchanting Astrid, 12 year old daughter of our host Magnus.

I could spend more time here, easily. We have discovered that there are trails across the Island that are rideable.

But, life goes on, and our adventures need to continue.

Looking off the deck early morning:

We had organised a private transfer with Magnus in his boat to Ronnang, which would save quite a few hours of waiting for different ferries.

The map below shows Ronnang in the north. We were on the large island to the south of Marstrand and Arvidsvik.

Today, the first day of summer, was to deliver the wettest day so far with 9-10mm predicted for mid afternoon.

Whilst we awaited the agreed time, we cleaned our bikes.

Off we went, bikes snuggly on board, with gear removed. Magnus at the helm, the most chilled boatman. We both really liked him and were thankful for this transfer.

If ever you decide to head to the Bohuslan archipelago, you need to stay there! Contact me for more info.

I sat next to Astrid who talked to me about her school in Marstrand, going to the Fort at lunchtimes, the curriculum that includes a compulsory Swedish programme for 11-13 year olds that incorporates subjects include mental health, your body, exploitation and so on.

I was very impressed at the depth of her knowledge, and her grasp of English as a second language (she also speaks German).

At this stage she would like to become a psychologist and help troubled teenagers supporting other current Swedish mental health care programmes.

With young ladies like Astrid, Sweden’s future is in excellent hands.

Some of the views along the journey.

Within one hour we arrived in Ronnang and bid farewell to this lovely family.

We headed along the marina and back out onto solid roads.

Crossing a large and high bridge afforded views across the Stigfjorden Nature reserve.

Our path today was a mixture of Bohuslan archipelago views, rural views as we rode through mid sections of islands, nature reserves and small villages.

A lovely church with the skies darkening.

Curios roadside.

There is a walking trail in the area, as shown by the map. We noticed many of the road post indicators.

We liked this view from a lay by we pulled into.

Another lovely old church.

Back to the coastline and the first of two ferry crossings. These are free and operate on demand. The ferry is winched across with cables.

I like this view. There are so many rocky outcrops. little lighthouses dot the area.

Rain wise, we kept dodging bullets. There were wet roads in places. The skies darkened numerous times and the wind got stronger but we kept moving forward.

Tony checked the radar numerous times as it was changing fast! We are the blue dot and the weather is either side.

On we went, loving these islands.

The second ferry we were super lucky timing wise. Tony saw it was about to leave and put his foot down just as they started to lower the entrance. He made it, they lifted it and on I then went.

The excellent thing about these ferries acting as a bridge, we likely have no cars passing us for 10 minutes.

The last 20 km or so are a series of sharp and short climbs, up to 12-13%.

With only 5 km to go, the rain gods could control themselves no more. Down it came.

We arrived into our destination of Fiskebacksil, riding along my least preferred surface, cobbles.

I am still super cautious on cobbles having broken three teeth and two ribs on cobbles back in 2018 in Switzerland.

Fiskebacksil is at the mouth of the Gullmarn fjord. A smaller town with around 400 permanent residents, boosted by tourism.

It is another glorious setting, but it took us 30 minutes to appreciate this as it was pouring, I needed to check in.

I knew they previously were ok with bikes in the room, but they were now very wet. They were still ok with that much to my surprise.

We are in one of their apartments, and it took us far too long to figure out the lift in the rain! We over complicated it as it had a key pad with numbers. Google scan and translate and we had it sorted, transferring our bikes and gear up to our apartments ( oh and one set of stairs to carry up up as the lift did not go to our level).

Although not as clear with the rainy weather it is a great view with Lyeskil over the water, where we stay riding tomorrow.

We get better photos after dinner and showering.

We walk into accomodation always sussing out how we will dry our clothes after washing them! Given it was raining, using the balcony (where we put our wet bikes, but under the overhanging canopy) was not an option. This is the setup I came up with.

Tony’s bedside table, rubbish bin inverted, fan! Needed to be in this position as the hangers are those non removable one, which we hate!

We booked into the hotel restaurant and this turned out to be an expensive meal, quite fancy, but nice, as we sat there in our clothes that have been stuffed in touring bags….

A nice assortment of bread to start. Main meal we both had veal cooked a few different ways, and decided to go full hog and have a less is more dessert.

My dessert is a rhubarb creation, deconstructed! Tony’s was a caramel something!

We went for a wander as the rain had cleared. We think our best photos were those a bit later from our balcony overlooking the fjord.

Another awesome day. Loving this north west section of Sweden.

Tomorrow is our last full day riding in Sweden as we close in on the border with Norway. What a ride it has been through Sweden.

A shorter day today with 70 km ridden, but over 600 metres climbing. We’ve now done Everest once with cumulative 9205 metres.

Thanks for reading.