We have arrived!

Now if someone asks us how far it is from Sweden to Italy we can finally say: "Not too bad, you can go by bike." I have been waiting so long to be able to say that!

Late last night we finally made it to Gothenburg on the Swedish west coast. This is the destination we had set as our goal to reach together and the fact that we actually made it in time is pretty crazy. It has been a really fun experience. Hard work of course and some days better than others but that is how it always is. We knew from the start that we had set a very optimistic time goal. Especially since we had more than one goal to fulfill along the way. Get here in time, shoot video along the way and then try to share the experiences as we progressed. The idea was also to be able to take a day off every now and then. So now with three weeks and about 2100km behind us we can say that we at least managed to sort of tick all boxes but maybe not completely how we initially planned. To begin with, an average of 100km per day may not sound like that much and fully reasonable to think that we would be able to do and take some days of at least a few times. Well, our first (and ONLY) day off was two days before we reached our final destination. Ie. two days ago... Besides that we were on our bikes every day from morning to night. Our next priority was to shoot video along the way, which we have except that there hasn't been a whole lot of time to edit and upload along the way. In fact, Internet access has been more rare than we expected and it is not always easy to plug in computers to charge batteries when you are sleeping in a tent. But with that said, the idea now is that we will take the footage that we have and release a series of short video updates from the trip now instead. Kind of like a roadside Field Guide in the form of short videos to plants and animals that we found along the way.
But even if it right now feels like it is over and we have all the time in the world, the rest will be short.

Early tomorrow morning Rob and Haley return to the US to prepare for a new expedition that I will keep a secret for now and let them explain more on later. Louise and I will instead stay in Sweden complete the bike journey through Europe. Our plan is to continue north past the Arctic circle and up to the Arctic Tundra of northern Sweden. This means that the comfortable couches we now sit in and solid roof over our heads is only going to be temporary. In about 4 days time we hit the road again. And even if we won't cross any more national borders we are actually only half done with the trip. Sweden is seriously one long country...

So how far it is to the north of Sweden? Hopefully soon we can say that it is biking distance but give us another 4 weeks first.

We will keep the updates coming as much as we can. Please also check out the Untamed Science Facebook page for more pictures and updates.

Jonas