Road to Nowhere

Ronda in the Nowhere. GPS refusing to work.

We are driving on scenic roads northwest of Norrköping searching for our next camp site. The roads are small, winding through golden wheat fields, going up and down, and shaking Ronda and her passengers from left to right. It takes us nearly two hours and to cover just 80km.

In one of the blogs you have heard about the difficulties of finding the right camp site. Sometimes we know which the right one is, but actually finding the place is another challenge. We use modern equipment like Google Maps or Ronda´s navigator. The ZIP code of the address in the Swedish guidebooks can be found and marks an area 20km wide. Any farther detailed location is unknown. We decided to go to the centre of this area and hope to find signboards for the camp site.

Golden wheat fields accompany us for hours.

I like modern navigation assistants. For many years and in many countries they have helped me to stay on track. But sometimes technology is a real pain in the cockpit. My GPS navigator accepts postal addresses like ‘Schmiedstrasse 8 in 6330 Cham, Switzerland’ or GPS coordinates in the modern decimal notation like N 58.35321°, E 16.40882°. The official guidebook, of course, prefers the sexagesimal notation like N 58°26’47.24”, E 16°35’50.14”. And the poor driver is lost in translation.

This was two hours ago. My wife who is the DJ on duty has chosen Brit Pop hits of the 80s and 90s which we like a lot. JY played songs by Travis when she picked me up from the KL airport for our first date a few years ago. Now I am listening to Talking Heads’ “Road to Nowhere” which is inspiring to find our way. The navigator tunes into this scenario and displays the mystical phrase “Road with no name” (Strasse ohne Name). And we drive through fields and small forests with sporadic houses far off the road. But no signboard for a campsite, and nobody to ask.

Human navigator preparing the route of the day.

We decide to select another campsite close by and type in the name of the closest village. The navigator starts calculating. The result is not too bad: 24km distance, arrival time in 1hr 33min. OK, that´s is a bit faster than walking, but the road is not too good and we probably have to slow down. We continue meandering through the crops.

Suddenly the female voice in the black box says “please, take the ferry ahead“. We turn the corner and in front of us the sea appears with the campsite on the left that was lost in translation. There’s also a reassuring triangular traffic sign warning of a car slipping from land into the sea.

After this adventure I decide to build an EXCEL® based converter for the GPS coordinates to reduce the amount of adventure on our tour. Happy testing during the next trip.

Stegeborg's ferry indicating the end of today's tour.