Summer 2014
Week 10 - Bl**dy Dog!!
Monday 11th August 2014
We arrived at Caravan Club Sollerö Camping yesterday it is quite a large site but well laid out with, so they say, the seasonal campers mixed in with the short stayers so as to prevent a “them and us” type situation. This is a Swedish Caravan Club site which it seems is run by volunteer members as we have never had to wait for a “camp host” to show us to our pitch and give any help we needed before, by coincidence the “camp host” is on the next pitch to us. He left his pitch this morning at 7:50 to go to work and returned for breakfast at 9:05. We know that because 7:50 is when his bloody dog started Yapping and 9:05 was when it stopped. I was all for moving on as, those who know me well will know how much I love yapping dogs. Fortunately when he had finished his breakfast he took the dog with him to work.
As far as I was concerned we were leaving today, fortunately calmer reason prevailed and we went for a ride firstly to find the Grannas Anders Olssons factory at Nusnäs, the home of the best known emblem of Sweden - The genuine Dala Horse. The horses are still made by hand, albeit with a little help from a band saw in the early stages and are therefore quite, no not quite, therefore very expensive for the genuine first quality, there is another place in the same village that also sells “dal a horses” but you don’t even need to put them together to see the difference in quality, fortunately when you are in a caravan you cannot buy souvenirs although I did buy a pin badge and that, by pin badge standards, cost a small fortune but then it too is hand made, hand painted and signed by the craftsman or woman who made it.
From Nusnäs we went looking for the Leksands factory. Leksands Knäckebröd make Sweden’s famous round crisp-bread we didn’t quite know why we were going but it was marked in one of the tourist information guide leaflets, when we arrived it turned out to be a factory type outlet selling now’t but knäckebröd (crisp-bread). It was so cheap (when compared to the supermarkets) that we came away with far more than we should have and a recipe for knäckebröd pizza.
We tried out those Knäckebröd pizza’s for our dinner - delicious, we’ll have them again.
Tuesday 12th August 2014.
7:50am and the bl**dy dog is barking again
9:15am Caravan Club Sollerö Camping is disappearing in the extended rear view mirrors, pity as it was a good site and we had wanted to stay longer and explore the area further but for that yapping alarm call at 7:50am each morning that you couldn’t turn off.
1:45pm we are outsde Duse Udde Camping, but see on the door that the reception is closed from noon till 4:00pm. What sort of camp site shuts for most of the afternoon? I was about to suggest we move on to another site when a receptionist arrived, she came, it seems, to placate an angry camper who had arrived with two fractious children and wasn’t prepared to wait around for two and a quarter hours before starting her holiday. While there the receptionist with evident ill grace booked us in before locking the door and returning to her long lunch break.
Wednesday 13th August 2014.
Housework day.
Thursday 14th August 2014.
Did the tourist thing today, on the Dalsland Canal we went to the Håverud Aqueduct. A solution to the problem of crossing a gorge and a 9m (30ft) waterfall was four locks, the long steel Håverud Aqueduct and then a fifth lock. Just a few yards from the aqueduct was a museum of local life, run by - a Geordie lady, allbeit one who's accent was more home counties than her native Newcastle, that was most interesting (probably it had been designed to entertain children).
Friday 15th August 2014.
We were going to move today but every campsite as we go south is dearer than the last, so we are going to stay here until Sunday when the high season is officially over and we can start using the ACSI card again.
More touristy things today. Close, well close(ish) to where we are camped is a Viking Centre, we had visited the one in York last year, known as Yorvik Centre and was surprised on arrival to note that this Swedish centre was also called Yorvik Centre, all was explained when we read that the main display had been bought from the York centre when it last upgraded. From the static display we went outside where volunteers dressed in viking clothes showed us how to throw axes and explained the finer detail of the replica viking longboat that they had built and rowed/sailed to Canada.
Our next tourist event was “von Echstedtska Garden” a 1760’s Carolian manor known for its murals. Even the privy has burlesque and, to say the least, educational paintings. Unfortunately the house had been abandoned at one stage in its history and all the furniture removed, some had been recovered but someone had filled empty spaces with irrelevant tat. Why did someone feel the need to put a set of golf clubs in what had been set out as the masters bedroom, and why was a Victorian evening wear laid out in a room purporting to depict the 1760 era? For me it ruined what was otherwise a good experience.
Saturday 16th August 2014.
Got nothing planned today so did the last of the housework (or rather Sue did) and got as ready as we could for tomorrows move.
Sunday 17th August 2014.
Awoke this morning to pouring rain and the wind blowing an absolute hooooooolly. Spent a long time wondering wether discretion was the better part of valour when you are towing your home around, nah! Course not. We went and spent virtually the entire journey in pouring rain, arrived at Apelvikens Camping in pouring rain and set up camp in pouring rain, oh well another day tomorrow.
I spoke earlier about using the ACSI card and where we are would normally cost SEK 355 (£30.89) per night for this pitch, with ACSI this is reduced to just SEK 115 (£10.00) per night if you stay four nights - result!!
Week 9 - Waterfalls, Waterfalls.
Monday 4th August 2014.
We were going to move on this morning but we had yet to see the caravan museum so we elected to visit that today and leave tomorrow.
Closed. It’s closed again!
Rather than spending another day at the van doing nothing we headed off to Hällingsåfallet Waterfall which like the others we have visited was amazing, very high with a good amount of water flowing over it. In spring with the melt waters coming down the river it would be unbelievable.
On this trip we have seen many roadside warning signs, beware of reindeer, beware of moose, beware snowmobiles etc, etc, today we saw “Beware of Bears” sadly we saw none despite looking hard.
Having nothing else planned we bought a chicken which we BBQ’d whole together with potatoes, sweet potatoes, we cooked broccoli on the stove and had a traditional roast chicken dinner complete with stuffing.
Tuesday 5th August 2014.
At last the caravan museum is open for visitors, there is a small newish fibreglass caravan outside that despite it’s short length and narrow width was a real “Tardis” inside including a separate bedroom with a double bed in it. Inside the museum were caravans dating from the early 60’s to the late 90’s some with very interesting features, although the most interesting fact was that a huge number of the 90’s vans are still in use today. It was an interesting visit and one we would recommend.
We stayed in Dorotea at Doro Camping while we explored the “Wilderness Road” but the distances were sometimes long and in hind site we may have been better to have taken the caravan and wild camped (there are apparently no official sites off the main E45 road) but a number of beauty spots do allow wild camping in parts of their car parks one or two even providing electricity.
Wednesday 6th August 2014.
Moving day again today. We have moved another couple of hundred kilometres further south to Krokum. The site we are staying on Krokumvikens Camping is, if not the worst site we have been on, is certainly not the best as the ground is a very boggy, which was not helped by last night suffering the worst thunderstorm we have ever experienced in the caravan, it lasted several hours while the rain came down in monsoon like quantities, after which the site was more a 100mm (4”) deep lake than a caravan site. The facilities while clean are more of the 60’s school showers and inadequate for the numbers on site.
This area has one major thing in common with Scotland - Nessie, known locally as Storsjöodjuret or The Great-Lake Monster we looked hard but never saw it any more than we saw Nessie herself at Loch Ness last year. This link goes to a YouTube video about the monster.
Thursday 7th August 2014.
We went of for a drive to what is billed as Sweden’s largest waterfall today. On the way we spotted a rather strange church bell tower so stopped to have a look, there was a tourist information centre in the village just a few yards from the bell tower but the lady there was non-plussed by our enquiry about the tower saying it was just a tower quite common in these parts and not thought to have any tourist interest, she did say that if we went and found the caretaker he would, she was sure, unlock it and let us have a wander round, unfortunately he was no-where to be found but the church itself was open so we looked in there, it was quite different from churches we have visited in other parts of Europe and with carpeted floor and gated pews was warm and inviting.
We had been advised to visit the village cafe for waffles before we left so we followed a path to the rear of the village where we found first a tower that was also a museum of local living and, when we reached the top, a great viewing gallery. The cafe was in a little clearing behind the tower, and what a gem. we were served large flower shaped waffles with cream and cloud berries, a sweet wild berry. My word they were delicious.
During our time in Scandinavia we have found the scandinavians very reserved, people don’t say a cheery “Good Morning” as they pass you on your way to the facilities and unless speaking for a reason will generally not make eye contact they seem very shy. I was certainly surprised when a young lady wearing a see through blouse and no bra ran, yes ran across the car park - I had to lay down in a darkened room to regain my composure.
After our stop and snacks we continued to the waterfall. Another great spectacle, I’m running out of superlatives for the waterfalls we have seen so have a look at the photos, not that they do justice but they give you an idea. From the waterfall we were off for a cable car ride where (according to the blurb) you are whisked straight up for 800 metres. Unfortunately we arrived at twenty past four. Twenty minutes after it closed for the day, Oh well thats a couple of hundred quid saved.
It seems that as a result of last nights storm many mobile WiFi credit/debit card readers have ceased working. The mobile phone system did go off for a while during the storm and it seems it may have damaged the card readers either when the mobile phone system went down or when it came back on either way we have been having to pay cash for out shopping and site fees - nightmare!!
Saturday 9th August 2014.
Today we visited a stone age exhibition that nearby had drawings carved into rock six or seven thousand years ago. Driven by an extraordinarily enthusiastic person the local community have created a museum of the elk. Or to be more precise the people whose lives revolved around the elk and it’s traditional migrations. None of the items in the museum are original but copies made using the tools and materials available when the the rock drawings were cut into the rock. The beauty of this is that you are encouraged to pick up the items and examine them, feel how sharp a flint scraper actually was, how heavy and well balanced an elk antler axe was. It is used mainly for school groups who spend the day dressed in elk skin clothes, studying the rock art and making a musical instrument of the time with the tools etc that would have been used all those years ago. We had a traditional flat bread wrap with elk meat served on an elk shoulder bone plate, it was delicious - the wrap not the bone plate!!. The whole place is staffed by local volunteers, who if the chap we spoke to is anything to go by are very keen and very well informed. A great afternoon.
Sunday 10th August 2014.
Moving day. They seem to be coming thick and fast. We were going to stay longer at Krokumvikens Camping but it’s not getting any drier and there is no internet. We have stayed in over one hundred mainland european sites and every one has internet access of some sort, some good, some bad, some expensive, some free but they all had it, except here.
Week 8 - Back into Sweden.
Monday 28th July 2014.
Today turned into something of a waste of time. We went to book the ferry from Svolvær to Skutvic billed, by the ferry company, as the most beautiful ferry ride in the world. We first went to the ferry dock at Svolvær where we found a young man in a shed that advised us that the there was one ferry out of action, so the timetable was cut from around eight crossings per day to just three, one at 8.30am one at 4.00pm and one at 7.00pm and as we were so long we should either get to the dock well before the ferry was due or pre-book and no, he was not able to take bookings, that had to be done by phone or internet. The 8.30am crossing was the only one that would allow us to reach a reasonable campsite before they filled up in the early evening so we went back to the van and fired up the computer to book on line. The crossing would cost us NOK 880 (£83.38) that was OK it was a three hour plus crossing, the only problem they wanted to charge us a booking fee of NOK 350 (£33.16). We went back into town to the tourist information office to ask why they should charge a booking fee? it seems it’s because they have a monopoly and they can. The tourist info lady questioned the “most beautiful ferry ride” claim suggesting that the crossing was over three hours and for most of that time you would see sea and not much else.
Rethink needed!😚😗😙
Rethink done!😃
We would backtrack 100 km and catch another ferry (pre-booking not available) that runs hourly which the tourist info lady said she thought was just as pretty and that would put us in an area we had not previously visited.
Had a BBQ tonight we had bought, at huge expense, a ready marinated pork leg steak around (in old money) 12” diameter and an inch thick After BBQing some potatoes and beetroot for 30 mins, we slice, oil and season these then put them in foil and place them around the coals, the steak was put on the hotplate for ten minutes each side. We should have invited another couple to share there was so much but we managed with the aid of a bottle of wine to eat the lot - small wonder we are the shape we are 😱
Tuesday 29th July 2014.
The ferry ride was everything we hoped for, except sunny, there was some blue in the sky but the clouds hid the sun, never the less it was dry and clear and the scenery was great.
The site we are staying on tonight is the first site we have used in Norway with anything like good facilities, these were first class, not brand new but very well kept and spotlessly clean.
Wednesday 30th July 2014.
Back on the road today we are now south of the Arctic Circle, we visited the souvenir shop and would have liked a spot of lunch but being tight we declined to pay over ten quid for a basic burger, still I did get a picture of the caravan under the sign that said Welcome To The Arctic Circle so that should make me eligible for the Order of the Bluenose Caravanners, not that I’m holding my breath on that score as, last time I looked, the web site was gone and Google turned up nothing on them so the order may now be debunked.
We are now back in Sweden and the difference between last nights site and tonights could not be greater in the facility stakes. This site has showers very much like those at a 1960’s school, a room to get undressed in and to one side four shower heads. The loos do have all the necessaries except someone to give them a good clean. I’m certainly pleased we are moving again tomorrow.
Thursday 31st July 2014.
Third day in a row we have moved on, today we have come around 300 km south to Dorotea, in what is said to be the last true wilderness area in Europe as it still supports wild bears and wolves. We were hoping to see wild bears and Doro Camping, where we are staying, normally organise bear safari’s but the weather has been so good the bears (who are herbivores) have gone deep into the forest and will not be seen again until food starts to get short as winter approaches.
Sadly the showers in this site are very much like those at last nights site, although the toilets are good and clean.
Friday 1st August 2014.
Not moving today. Had a lie in with no alarm to wake us at 8.00am; heaven!
We had bought our booze supplies as we left Sweden and entered Finland and am pleased to report that we finished the last bottle of wine and last two cans of beer last night and still have some gin and a liqueur or two. Today we were able to visit the local Systembogolet the state alcohol shop and stock up. The cheapest wine we bought was equivalent to £3.11 per bottle and the dearest £4.18, the beer came in at £1.13 for a 440ml can.
Polar caravans are a second big caravan manufacturer in Sweden (remember Kabe from a few weeks ago?) and have their factory here in the town. They also have a caravan museum, thats advertised as “The only one in Sweden” I would think it’s the only one in Europe. We were planning to visit it today but learned it is closed Saturday and Sunday. I had a look at the Polar web site and WOW they make some fabulous caravans, I fancy the Polar 900 TRX TDS, trouble is, it is 10.36m long and our present one at 7.92m is we, understand the longest allowed to be towed by Joe Public on UK roads, it also weighs 2650kg so very few cars would be able to tow it but then if you could afford the SEK 795000.00 (£68865.73) to buy one you could probably afford a Toyota Landcruiser or similar to tow it.
Nothing else was planned for the day which was probably just as well as early afternoon the rain started and came down in bucket loads so we just flopped until mid afternoon when the fridge started beeping at us. No electricity, oh well change the supply socket, erm! that one is off as well. It turned out that a piece of Sweden, if reports be true, 250km long was without power, the site owners were in a panic as, of course, all their freezers went off and they only use electricity to cook in the restaurant. There had been a great storm earlier in the year that had badly damaged a major electrical distribution installation which although being repaired ASAP was still a work in progress. The locals were fearful that if that had failed completely virtually the whole of northern Sweden could be without power, possibly for a very long time. The only information they could get from the power supplier was no information at all. All the shops shut as without electricity they have no computers and without computers they have no tills. One couple has booked into a cabin on the site as they haven’t enough fuel to get the 100km home and the garage cannot, obviously, sell fuel without the electric pump to dispense it.
Fortunately after around four hours, back came the power. No explanation from the power company though!
Saturday 2nd August 2014.
Went for a drive into the wilderness today. Drives here are quite long as there are few roads so our circular route was over 200km (124miles). It didn’t start well as when we had gone just a few miles I realised we may not have enough diesel to get all the way round, so back we went to fill up. Fortunately that turned out to be the only hiccup in an otherwise very pleasant day. On the route there were several community art works ranging from poignant, a pair of marble prayer kneelers that overlook where 14 people were drowned in a boating accident in 1936 when returning from log driving, to a bit strange, the concrete bowl described in the tourist blurb as “. . . an opening in the concrete exoskeleton invites us to step inside the 17 tonne heavy and classily clean-lined structure. The ravaged landscape outside is left behind and our eyes find refuge in the curved room . . .” what did that Booths Gin advert say about pretentious rubbish?
I have been meaning to un-tick the “avoid unpaved roads” in the sat-nav as unpaved roads here are very different from those in other parts of Europe. The one we used today ran for over 25km (15 miles) it was well constructed, two lanes wide and shortened the trip by over 100 km but had a gravel top rather than tarmac.
The highlight of the day was visiting Trappstegsforsen waterfall, it is high and wide and very spectacular, and unlike UK tourist attractions (I know they have lots of space and few people here) but parking is free and there are dedicated spaces for long motor-homes and even longer caravan/car combos. We had lunch there in a little snack bar/souvenir shop, Sue had “two sausages in bread” which turned out to be two hot dogs and I had sausages and chips Sue washed hers down with tea and I washed mine down with coffee and the whole came to just SEK 140 (£12.08) which we thought good value for money.
Parking here is totally different than in many perhaps all other parts of Europe in that although the bigger towns charge for parking most have a carpark dedicated to motor homes and car/caravan combinations. It is quite common to see cars with 10m long caravans on the back in supermarket carparks - try that in a Tesco carpark.
We’ve turned into real gadabouters today first lunch out then tonight we went out to eat in the site restaurant, our first meal out since the start of the trip. It was an enjoyable meal but one I would not like to repeat to often as like some other parts of Europe Sweden is very fond of it’s processed foods (we find supermarket shopping quite difficult as there is so little choice) and much of the menu consisted of different types of burger. We eventually settled on Bison Burger with chips etc for Sue and Reindeer with chips for me. My reindeer meat was, when it arrived, processed, and not fresh as I had hoped still we both enjoyed our meals but it will be a while till we eat out in Sweden again.
Sunday 3rd August 2014.
Another one of those exciting housework days today. The laundry was charged at SEK 80 (£6.89) for a two hour period which seems quite expensive but Sue managed three washes and hours dryer use in that period (most camp sites charge around £3.00 per wash) and when she mentioned to the site owner that she had used the wrong drier setting and had not got everything dry he gave her another 1/2 hour free so this weeks washing was cheap.
We wandered round the supermarket trying to find something we fancied for our dinner when we spied a lunch “thing” that we had fancied the day before when at SEK 140 (£12.07) but now on it’s sell by date it was 1/2 price. Well we didn’t know quite what it was but it was around 8” long X 4” wide and 4” high, had lots of prawns and baby tomatoes on it and what looked like cheese wrapped around it, it looked good so we bought it to go with a salad. When we opened it up it was a very large sandwich, but what a sandwich made with delicious soft bread and spread thickly with a sweet creamy mayonnaise (probably béarnaise sauce as there are more containers of this than mayonnaise) and piled high with prawns. It was the best sandwich I can ever remember eating and with our salad made a satisfying dinner.