Saturday 26 juni 2004

We got up at 3.30 am and packed the last stuff. We had a relaxed breakfast and left Almere around 5 in the morning. Into Germany where we had a cup of coffee, and on to German's Autobahn 1.
We were at Puttgarden around 12.15 and saw the tail end of the boat leaving the harbour. Fortunately there is a 30 minute service, so we only had to wait 25 minutes. The price to get to Rødby was EUR 48. The boat ride was unpleassant because of the wind. Most of the trip was spent outdoors.
We skipped Denmark alltogether, and rammed through in one 2 hour drive. Right afetr Kopenhagen we took the tunle that turns into a bridge. Once at the Swedish side we paid EUR 32 and were in.
We arrive at the Formule1 hotel by 16.30, check in, and have a quick thai dinner and a walk in town.
By 20.30 we are too tired to look around, and go to bed.

806 km
hotel formule 1, Malmõ
SEK 310,00
Dry... barely

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Sunday 27 juni 2004

We got up at 8 and had a large breakfest. We got bread for the rest of the day at a nearby supermarket.
Via Helsingõr north in direction Stockholm. Somewhere along the way we took a "self drive safari" we passed. On a 3 km long road we saw 4 mooses...

We leave the hotel at 9.15 and take the subway "downtown". The actual center of Stockholm is on a tiny island where you can wander through small narrow streets. We have lunch at the old harbour and leave town by 15.00.
We arrived at the first campsite by 19.15, but they were closed (|!), so we drove on for another hour. We found the people that should have been at the reception, checked in and put up the tent.
Dreaming at 23.00

207.5 km
camping Sandsnäsbodet, Ön
SEK 100,00
Reasonable weather, it gets darker along the day

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Tuesday 29 juni 2004

We got up at 8.15 and try for a walk after breakfest. After 15 minutes it starts raining. When after half an hour the rain pours down so hard the raincoats can not hold the water back, we give up. We decide to take the car for a drive.
We wannder around hard, soft and forest roads. A scary but fantastic journey !?Unfortunately the weather is scary and not fantastic. Rain and light change so often that before I have changed from sunglasses to normal glasses the weather has already changed again...
We had a hard time finding the camping back ! (Note: DO NOT buy the Freytag & Berndt scandinavie map !!!), and went to sleep around 23.00

254,3 km
camping Sandsnäsbodet, Ön
SEK 100,00
Crazy weather. Too much sun, and too much water

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Wednesday 30 juni 2004

I had to leave the tent at 3 in the morning. Indeed it is still reasonably light. Barely enough light to read a book by, but enough to have a clear view of the surroundings.Strange !
We got up at 8.15 and tried desperately to dry the tent during breakfest. We failed because of new rain.
We try to locate a wlking route suggested to us by the dutch automobile club, but mainly because of the worst roadmap ever we fail in finding the starting point.
Along the way we see an old watermill. We play around it a bit, and Niels ends up with the first hole in his head in 38 years... Trees should not hang lower than 2 meter !
We try the "official" youth hostel in Orsa, it is filled. We learn there is another one right next to the bear park. That one has plenty of space left.
Inge looks at the soccer games while Niels takes a walk around the bearpark. The first Lynx and bear are spotted.
We sleep at 23.30

328,4 km
Hostel international, Grönklitt-Orsa
SEK 260
Rain with some dry moments.

Thursday 1 juli 2004

Up at 8.15 and leave the hostel at 10.30.
We strawled through the bearpark until 13.00. It is a great litle park, but the entrance fee is a bit on the steep side for what you get. The "cages" are very very big, too big to see the wolves for example. There are 2 wolves on an area 5 times a soccer field filled with shrubbery. Ofcourse superb for the animals, but for onlooking humans it is less. We are lucky and see all animals, including the wolves (!)

After a night filled with rain de tiny litle flies are not gone. They jump us as if they had not eaten for centuries. We skip breakfest, rip down the tent and run.
We walk in the national park to the highest waterfall of Sweden. A 4 km walk takes us there. We take 2 hours for the walk, it is less easy than it seems. Both the walk and the fall are worth visiting.
After lunch the rain poors down.
Around 18.00 we found a litle cabin along the way, and we turn in at 23.00.

289,5 km
Stuga, 2km south of Östnar
SEK 300,00
DRops that keep getting bigger.

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Saturday 3 juli 2004

We want to go north. We take route 45 to Stromsund. Inge sees a fox with prey. The humonguous camping in Storuman is filled to the brim, so we drive a lilte further and stumble upon a small fishermans camp. We rent a micro cabin for the night.

379,6 km
Stuga, avasunds fiske camp
SEK 150,00
Rain.

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Sunday 4 juli 2004

It is so quiet on the camp we barely get started today.
We hope Norway has a bit better weather, so we head west. Straight through the mountains. We even pass snow. Because of rain and high temperatures the rivers are filled to the brim and are almost overflowing with water. We managed to walk for 30 dry minutes today
The roads in Norway are way worse than in Sweden, so we go a lot slower now. It does not matter much, we have to slow down anyhow because of the amount of rain that comes down.
We reach the polar circle. There is a huge building with a souvenir shop, a post office, a bar and a tiny museum. Outside we walk to the actual polar circle and are surprised because of the stacked stones.
Despite the horrible weather the route is fabulous. We continue to Fauske where we find a cabin for the night. At night we try to have a look around, but the view is minimized to 50 meter because of low clouds (yeah right... it rains so hard we see nothing).

451,1 km
Stuga, Fauske camping
NOK 200,00
Rain ofcourse

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Monday 5 juli 2004

We are woken up by the sun ! We have breakfest in the sun and leave around 10.15. We continue alongside the Norwegian Fjords until we can not go any further. We must take a boat to go on. It costs 99 kronen (10 euro) and takes 30 minutes.
We cross the mountains to Sweden and enter Kiruna straight away. It is the largest city but one in the world as far as surface goes. 20000 square kilometers ! And for a change it rains. A lot, a whole lot...
We search our heads of to find a camping outside the city, but Swedish roadsigning is so bad we don't find it. The youthostel is full, and the citycamping is outrageously expensive. so we try a cabin at the edge of town.
Into bed early because the musquitos will not let us sit outside.

We are up early, and fortunately we arrive 5 minutes before the German/English mine tour starts at the tourist office. Kiruna is home the one of the worlds deepest iron-ore mines and they have a visitors center at 540 meter (590 yards) below the surface. The tour costs 195 kronen (22 euro), takes almost 5 hours and is worth every øre. An extremely intresting tour in which you learn a lot of new things.
After we have lunch we decide the weather is really too bad and we move southwarths and not further north. Ofcourse it rains, and we are truly fed up with it. We are still not in the vacation spirit, although we are already two weeks on the move.
We find a cabin at around 17.00 at a camping in what looks to be somebody's front yard. A beautiful camping. We take a shower do our laundry and Inge has a finnish sauna.

230,6 km
Stuga, camping Jarhois
SEK 250
Rain, rain, rain

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Wednesday 7 juli 2004 <>

We demand the holiday spirit. We stay another day in Jarhois. We take the car and drive to Pello in Finland. According to the camping's owners there is shopping to be done there. All we find are 2 banks, 3 gasstaions and 4 supermarkets. No shopping.
We drive into Finland a bit and try to have a walk. The first walks deadends after 5 minutes. For the second walk we decide to follow a path that seems to be used by cars also. We are met by a curious reindeer taht follows around a bit and after an hour and a bit we return to the car walking the same way.
We search our heads off for a restaurant but aside from a pizzeria in a gasoline station we can not find anything.
We return to our camping cabin made our own dinner and were invited for the Finnish sauna again. Niels runs from the heat and Inge enjoys it very much.

273,3 km
Stuga, camping Jarhois
SEK 250
Rain, dry, rain, dry

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Thursday 8 juli 2004

We leave southwarths alongside the finnish border. At the Biskaje golf we go right and follow the Swedish coast.
We arrive in Gammelstad Pitea. An old church village. Because of the distances in Sweden in the old days people needed a place to stay to get to church. There are over 400 huts, cabins and houses here from that era. Some small, some huge but all not used for anything else than to sleep in when you visit church on Sundays. The open air museum is also pretty cool, but unfortunately already closed when we arrive. We walk around for almost 2 hours here and ride into Pitea city where we find a cabin on a camping.

At the tourist info we find a flyer on a "laptown" near Arvidsjauer. Somewhere along the route so we decide to go there to get some Laplandic impressions.
Along the way we draw attention from a couple of mooses along the way, but as soon as I get out of the car they run. The laptown in Arvidsjauer is really undescribable. A complete waste of time. There are 2 dozen of cabins that were supposed to have been built by Lap people but there was no info, everything was locked up. A waste of time, a waste of kilometers and a waste of resources.
From the corner of my eyes I spot some old railroad material. To not have a complete waste of time I decide to take a few pictures. While I do my thing Inge spots a poster on which it is announced there is a steam locomotive ride every friday and saturday for 150 kronen (16 euro) per person at 17.45. It is now 16.00. We scramble into the tourist info and arrange for a place to stay. We make it back in time to the train and have a great evening on the train. We bought our tickets in the train for indeed 150 kronen, and because we did not have time to fix dinner we eat typical Swedish food onboard. Swedish kebak and dried reindeer meat. Delicious, and a steal at 250 kronen (27 euro).

We had a great breakfaet on the porch of the cabin.
Before we really leave south, we walk by the tourist information again, because we really want to get some information on Sami (lap-)people. This time the information guy sends us on a 70 km drive to a sami farm where they do tourist tours. It is called "Batsuoj forest lap center" and the owners try to show tourists what they do and how. For a one hour tour we pay 125 kronen per person. After 2 hours we kow lots and lots about the sami culture and way of living. It seems they really like inquiring minds.
We built a barbeque at the camping where we stay tonight.

After 10 minutes sun in the morning the weather goes bad again. We drive southwarth on none major roads. Because of the map and Swedish roadsigns we get lost again, and decide to get on the E4 and stay there.
We drive by the so called "high coasts", en see a lot of cars on a parking area. It turns out here is where "the kings cave" is. Information at the tourist info learns us the walk up is 1.5 hours and getting down takes at least the same amount of time. It is 15.00
We arrange for a cabin at the nearby camping, put in our walking boots and start up the mountain. A superb walk, but the first part is extreme. Total distance is 3/4 of a mile and it takes us one and a half hour to get to the top.
The route down is alongside the other side of the mountain and takes us a litle more than an hour on a reasonably smooth path.
Eat, shower and bed.

177,5 km

stuga, camping "skulebergets", Dockstra
SEK 195
Great weather for a walk. Not too warm, not too cold and... dry !

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Monday 12 juli 2004

We oversleep this morning, but since we spent the rest of the day in the car we don't care. We really need to get south now.
We have very much troubles finding a place to stay for tonight, but finally after 9 in the evening we succeed.

492.0 km
Stuga, Sifferbo Stugby, Sifferbo
SEK 300
Big sad drops fall upon us.

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Tuesday 13 juli 2004 We put the pedal to the medal again on central Swedish high(ahum)ways.
We end our second car-day in Håverud where we arrange for beds in the hostel right next to the aquaduct.
Through the tourist info we figure out there is a boat tour on the rivers, lakes and canals that takes 5 hours and isn't even that expensive. The decission is made we will do that tomorrow.

511,0 km
hostel, Håverud
SEK 280 not too bad weather at all.

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Wednesday 14 juli 2004

We drive to Göteborg to check the boat prices from there. Around 15.00 we know that a ticket will set up back over 350 euros, excluding food, so we decide to drive on to Helsingborg.
We arranged for a room at the toourist information at Halmstad.

324.8 km
Inger Svensson, Halmstad
SEK 345
Fair, nice and sunny

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Friday 16 juli 2004

We took the ferry from Helsingborg, Sweden to Helsingör, Denmark. A combination ticket withg the ferry to Germany costs 70 euro. We ram through Denamrk and are at German soil by 16.00. We use the mobile phone to arrange for a room at the formule1 in Bremen, and arrive there by 20.00

576.2 km
formule 1
EUR 25
Good weather

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Saturday 17 juli 2004

Long story short, we are home by 15.00

571 km

Statistics: We used 2000 euro and 8000 km...