Angelholm to Vaster, Saturday 10th September
The first horse box tools up at 6:45. We get showers and by the time we are ready to head off we are surrounded by horse boxes, there were at least 8. We manoeuvred out of our spot but 2 white horses were on the road as they had run out of space. Hamish had to rattle and roll across the rough ground.
We headed South past Malmo to check out the services for tomorrow at a marina. It was another beautiful day and it was Sunday and the marina was absolutely heaving.
We parked H and set off to deploy our best sleuth like tactics to find the services. They were indeed there and inbetween cars that were queuing to pick up their fish from the little shop we managed to squeeze Hamish in to get some water dodging kids, bikes and people meandering along we got out and escaped from the madness..or so we thought.
The idea was to find an overnight spot nearby, fill up first thing tomorrow then we have enough resources to stay in Copenhagen for 2 nights.
4 car parks had been highlighted as possible overnight stops so we set off to the nearest. It was absolutely rammed with cars waiting till others moved to get a spot, no room for H.
We headed back and seeing another car park sign we headed down a forest track. This car park was busy but we found a space. As it was scorchio we had done some washing, drying it in the pretty glades of a forest isn't easy. While everyone else was arriving and heading off to the beach we sat around reading and moving the washing around the car park to try to dry it.
We were loving our little spot and Alastair went for a reccy. Big mistake. He found a sign saying that overnight stays were not allowed. Shit. We had had a relaxing afternoon and this is well past our settling time down.We packed up and headed to the next car park. This one was 150kr to stay for the night. Every other car park that we had originally thought was available was in the park area so we were stuffed and had to think again. While passing our tablet between us that contains all of our info and is where we write the blog, it dropped off the table and smashed the screen.
Our next nearest possible spot was at The Viking Museum for 100 kr. We drove for about 20 minutes to a small field that stank off grey water having being emptied on it, it was next to the sea so a pretty view, we debated but decided to look elsewhere.Further North was a car park that was free so we headed even further away from the services but we had little choice.
The car park was huge, next to beach and had amazing views over The Oresund Bridge, tomorrow's journey. Droves of people were pouring off the beach. We found a little spot away from the main car parks.
Over tea Lisa suggested that we could have the screen replaced on the tablet, Alastair was despondent but had a look on t'internet and began to cheer up when he discovered it may be possible.Alastair felt a little unsafe so didn't sleep brilliantly, Lisa was out for 10 hours.
Tomorrow: THE BRIDGE to Denmark!
Stobstorp to Angelholm, Friday 9th September
At first light H moves to a car park in Falkenberg near the sea for breakfast. We treat ourselves to veggie sausage sarnies, the last of our feezer food from the UK.After breakfast we take a walk along the sea front and to the end of the pier infront of a spa hotel.
What starts as a beautiful blue sky is beginning to cloud over.
H drives South along the coast to a spot that our app said we could find water but the address just takes us to a residential road. H drives on.
We drove to Halmstad, another port city, to an aire on the riverside. We have a good look around but cannot spot a warden or any prices. We are just about to use the facilities anyway when a man appears with a ticket book. He kindly allows us to use the facilities for free.
Water sorted we decide on an over night spot and head off. We arrive at Angelholm and walk onto the beach. A cold wind is blowing and we soon scurry back to H to get some lunch. We aren't ever so keen on the spot and Alastair identifies another car park, the other side of the national park. We decide to check it out.
As H drives along the road there were clearly some roadworks taking place and there are traffic signs. Not having time to get the translator out and seeing a car on the other side driving towards us H decides to just go for it. Hamish is soon: dodging diggers, reversing out of little roads, bumping along an unmade track and narrowly avoiding being squashed by a reversing steam roller. Hmmm Indiana Hamish! Guess the signs meant "not meant for driving on". Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
H continues down a single track road to a car park. We feel very pleased with ourselves for finding this remote place. Four motor homes are already parked up! It is a shaded carpark with ancient woods to the left and a short walk to the beach. We snuggled H up in a little bay and go for a walk.We walk into the woods on our left, past an impromtu fire pit into an area of pine trees.
Alastair stops to look for a little bird that we can hear chirruping around us. It is a charming little bird with a huge quiff and a constant busy chattering. He doesn't seem at all bothered by us and we stand watching him for a while just above our heads in the stunted old pines. When we checked the bird book later this was our first Crested Tit; only to be found in the very north of scotland in the UK.
Eventually we turn right onto the beach and start to walk back. By now the cloud was clearing into another beautiful blue sky evening. An Italian sheepdog came to play with us showing off his frisbee but refuses to share. Eventually we walk on but when he later catches up with us in the car park he greets us like old friends and friends who aren't going to make him get in the car and go home like his Mom was trying to.
In Hamish it is now about 4:30pm and we are quickly realising that we are the only people in Sweden who hadn't known about this car park. First there are the campers, mainly men and their kids who unpack a huge amount of gear and head off into the woods to find a camping spot.
Secondly the horses; several horse boxes appear. We watch and became familiar with the routine: back the horse out, get a broom and shovel, clean the horse shit out throwing it behind the nearest tree, saddle up, chat for ages until both us and the horse are bored, lastly get out some steps and clamber aboard. After the ride: take the saddle off, embark on persuasion, cooing or downright force (one occasion involving 3 women pushing the horses backside) to get the horse back in it's box. Lastly the pirates. Yes that confused us too. One man dressed in full pirate outfit the other as a shipwrecked sailer. They spend time doing things with a pirate treasure chest and we are baffled until four cars pull up and about 15 kids jump out. They are led off up a track then the pirates ran over to one of the remaining grown ups. Things are hidden in cars and we gather they are the main attraction for a childrens party; ingenious.
After tea and before the Archers we set off to the beach to watch the sunset. Alastair thinks it slightly odd that dogs aren't supposed to be let off leads but there are three huge horses galloping up and down the beach. Also where are the horse poo bags?
We go to bed and the car park is dark but some horse boxes are still there. Perhaps they are going to play at being highwaymen or customs officers after pirates?
Kungsbacka to Stobstorp. Thursday 8th September
We go for a walk hoping to spot some wading birds but there isn't much about so after breakfast we get going. We nudge along the coast stopping at Varberg initially to do guerilla services by the port. Varberg is a port city with a college whose windows overlook the port and some beautiful reproduction medieval boats.
Back on the road and we pass a huge Coop Forum with a system bogalet. We pop in for supplies for this evening and basics such as a beautiful loaf named after the place we are visiting later- Glommen.
The cloud has cleared and this is turning into another stunningly beautiful day. 
We arrive in Glommen at lunchtime (a recommendation of Johan's) and we are the only people in the car park. The village is set around a little fishing harbour and we walk to the edge of the coast with amazing views along the headland. We while away the afternoon here. When we leave our little car park is full.
It is so lovely to meet Anna, Johan's wife and one of his sons Joel. Johan has cooked an absolutely delicious pasta meal for us. We sit outside as it was such a gorgeous evening and have a wonderful evening with some local beers and special whisky: Springbank 12 cask strength from a port pipe and a Hazelburn 11 Bourbon from the cage.
Kungshamn to Kungsbacka in a layby next to the sea, Wednesday 7th September
We wake to a cloudy morning. We spend the morning finishing off our jobs, making sure everything is charged and getting the shower that was included in the cost of the campsite. The shower was alledgedly for 3 minutes. mmmm. Lisa washes as furiously as she Can but still has to rinse her hair in cold water. Alastair only just finishes and his hair is a wee bit shorter.
We manage to get off by 11am. Hamish is feeling and smelling much cleaner. We pick up LP.G. to prepare for Denmark and crunch some miles on the motorway.
We find our overnight spot on a piece of wasteland between the sea and the road. The wasteland leads to a hut for windsurfer and SUP hire. A. tempted but luckily it is closed. It's very quiet. We have a view of sand and shallow water with a variety of birds. It's lovely to be back wild camping. It's not as hard work as staying on a campsite!
It drizzles rain and we catch up on our social diary by adding to facebook and arranging visits with Johan, Jesper and Morten. We also mull vague plans for the next few weeks. We feel that it would be good to try to access some of the unique cultural opportunities that Copenhagen has to offer and then make for Germany after a turn past Legoland. We think we may find travelling in Germany easier in terms of: finding places to stay that we can afford and allowing occasional treats because it is undoubtedly cheaper for our main spends of food, alcohol and petrol.
Smogen to Johannesvik Campsite, Kungshamn, Tuesday 6th September
We are up and off early again, the less chilled we are the less we sleep. We plan to attempt a campsite again but fearing another rejection we have a plan B.
We nip to the supermarket to get some bits for tea. We are finding Sweden a little more restricted for veggy/vegan food than Germany and Denmark so we are running out of ideas.
Next, petrol as we used it up on our marathon futile road trip yesterday. Then we set off for the campsite. We drove up and down the same road without finding it. Alastair spotted a town map, ironically next to a 'system bogalet', the state booze outlet, easy to find when you don't need one.
Spotting the campsite on the map we found it within 5 minutes. We arrived at reception just before 10am. The receptionist looked at us askance, most people hadn't even got up yet. We showed her our ACSI card, do you accept this? Yes! Yes! Yes!
We find our spot and check in picking up a pile of coins for washing and dying. We park , bag up the first load of washing and head to the machine. It's being used. We walk to the second lot of services which we checked earlier when it was empty. It is now in use. A is now feeling despondent. Not to be outdone we walk to the end of the caravan park and the last lot of services. The washing machine is empty. Bingo we were in!
Ten minutes later we get back to H (it's a huge campsite) and start to sort out pile number two. Alastair is getting the bikes off to collect our washing, now about half a mile way, when an English couple come to say hello. Like us they have hardly seen any English people. They have been doing this for a nearly a year. It reminds us how green we are.
Wash no 1 is done. In an attempt to get everything done, with the change we have, Alastair sets up two washing lines. In what is rapidly becoming a gale force wind the washing billows; terrifying Alastair that it would take our awning with it. Wash no 2, towels etc go into the tumble dryer so we brave wash no 3. No idea how we manage it but we got this one for free. So if this bedding dries, even though it's becoming very overcast now, we have come out in profit.
Meanwhile carpets are out and Hamish is given a much needed wash and brush up while Alastair uses the wi-fi time we have bought to add the Norway photos. We used to think coming to a campsite is relaxing!
We finish our jobs at 7:30pm and catch up on The Archers, it's trial week.
Smogen, Monday 5th September
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| Stunning Havstenssund- sorry to leave... |
Probably the least said about today the better. We are desperate to get to a campsite to get our washing done.
We haven't done any since Denmark and even our emergency bedding set needs a wash, let alone towels and our other bedding piled up in the garage. Also we need to get H's carpets out and have a good clean because however much we try to keep on top of it as we go we have collected grit. Being able to camp for free in such lovely spots means we keep putting it off and we love the beauty of North Sweden.
So a compromise, there is a campsite about an hour South of us still within an amazing location. As we set off we empty the grey water but don't need to get water etc so we can travel light and we are off just after 9am . We want to get to a campsite early enough to do our jobs.
As we are travelling and it's Monday we put a 'systembogalet' in sat nav. There is one in the next village. We park up in the square and go into the supermarket which has a hopeful green sign on the outside 'systembogalet'. There is a woman begging outside; a sight we have seen a few times in Sweden.
We investigate the alcohol: just the usual Staropramens which isn't really as it's 3.5% and alcohol free wine. We return to H. empty handed. What we later discover is that they can't sell alcohol until 10am so we may have just been t'wirly.
Back on the road and Lisa gets to drive for the first time since Denmark. As we leave the motorway and start to drive towards the coast we pass through a reasonable sized town. Lisa stops H and we see if there is a 'system bogalet' here, there is so we try again.
This time we were far more successful. It is a whole shop just selling alcohol. Whilst controlling alcohol sales since 1955 the Swedish state also wacks high taxes on it. We buy enough to get us back to Denmark and carry on.We arrive at our campsite at 11:30am. The office is closed until 4pm. We are gutted. It's absolutely scorchio and we could have our washing sorted in no time but there is no point arriving at 4pm. We decide that we will find on overnight stop and come back in the morning.
Just as we were about to leave a woman arrived and kindly offered to open the office and let us in, hooray. We went to check in but she takes one look at our Acsi card and shakes her head. To stay there we would have to buy another card costing £15 plus the campsite fees. She points out another campsite for us about 45mins South. We thank her very much and retreat to H.
We drive to the little village across the bay from the campsite to mull. It is another one of those picture postcard villages set on the sea. Again it is like a ghost town now and was probably packed out a week ago.
We decide to head South to the campsite she pointed out to us. Within an hour we could be sorted although we are sad to leave.
We arrive at the place and find two campsites. As we pull up at the first a woman apologises and explains they have just closed.
It is now 2pm. We are in a place we don't want to be in. We probably do not have enough water to camp wild for the night. We don't want to go further South and we have no other easy options.
According to our app there are two other campsites: one North East about an hour away, one virtually back where we had come from, an hour and a half away. We want to try North East it is closer and we would be seeing more of Sweden but on our other app there are no aires up there. If we arrive and are turned away again we will be stuffed and would have to keep driving. We decide to head back to where we came from because even if the campsite is closed we can get all the services nearby that we needed to carry on. We arrive back at the aire we left at 9am this morning at 3:45pm having just driven round in a circle wasting a beautiful day and petrol in the process.
Trying to salvage something new from the day, having got water, we drive ten minutes to Smogen which had been recommended to us by Johan. We find the aire. There is another British motor home, our first since Bremen. We park and walk, slightly spaced.
The original part of the town is pretty, wooden houses snuggled together along the edges of the marina with wooden boardwalks in between.It's obviously a tourist hotspot though and again while it is mostly empty today as the season has ended.
Smogen is growing into a sprawling town with apartment blocks being built on one side of the marina. It is not as pretty as some of the other places we've visited: a victim of its own success. Back at H. we try one of our Swedish beers and Lisa cooked pasta.
Stromstad to Havstenssund. Sunday 4th September
We wake to a clear blue sky after our best nights sleep in ages. This little marina has been so healing for us and we feel so much better than when we arrived. It will be hard to leave.
Alastair tries his new toy out for breakfast. It toasts the bread and Hamish is not engulfed in flames although the avocado is largely too bruised to have on our toast but it is delicious. After breakfast and more drying of the wetsuit we get back on the road.
First stop is Vitlycke Museum which is next to Bronze Age rock art that had been discovered nearby and is now a UNESCO world heritage sight.
We follow the trail that takes us past smooth rocks with amazing carvings of ships, men and animals.
The trail continues to a clearing at the top of the hill with two huge burial mounds of many stanes and a great view over what would have been sea in the Bronze Age.
We walk back down the trail to the main Vitlycke Rock, a huge rock covered in rock carvings: absolutely stunning and fascinating.
Some of the carvings in particular are famous such as 'the lovers or bride and groom'.
Women are rarely represented. Men are distinguished by their large members.
There is a woman thought to be in mourning.
Many ships are drawn and some men with swords.
Judging by the representations Alastair becomes convinced that these people had met Ancient Egyptians who were sailing around the world at that time in their papyrus boats.
A blue whale has been carved and possibly an elk.
Neither would have been known in that area during the Bronze Age indicating travel.
Having spent so much time there we needed to get back on the main road to head to our overnight stop.
En route we pass a huge shopping centre. We need to get Lisa some bottles of sparkling water so we get a trolley and walk in. And walk. And walk. Our worst nightmare. Merryhell x 10. Eventually we reach a co-op, put about four things in our trolley and start the several kilometre walk back to H. We are drying some clothes in H. so left him in the full glare of the sun. On return we find a motor home the size of a double decker bus parked next door completely putting H. in the shade.
We still haven't worked out how to buy alcohol in Sweden. At the moment we are still managing with Norway leftovers. Supermarkets are only allowed to sell alcohol below 3.5% and Johan tells us we can only purchase anything worth drinking from 'systembogalets'. We are still looking.
We arrive at our aire at Havstenssund. It's Sunday afternoon and although busy when we arrive most Swedes go home for the week and there only four motor homes and a caravan (cheeky!) left.
The town is pretty and completely based around the marina which is lined with boathouses.
Most people have packed up for Summer and a couple are getting their boats out of the water. There is a restaurant which is absolutely heaving. Late lunch or early tea we are not sure.
Further along the shore is a sculpture exhibition partially set up into the cliff side. Rock art is our theme for the day.
The view across the sea is spectacular, small islands made out of this red, fluffy rock. Alastair decides that if we win a million (hardly likely as we have never played the lottery) we will have a boathouse and a little yacht here. Flights to get here for the weekend may be a bit pricey but who cares!
As the sun sets we scrabble to the top of the rocks to watch it disappear over the horizon.
It looks like this is the town's beacon as there are fire remains here and wood stacked up ready. Torchy is very tempted but we resist and scramble back down.
Stromstad Marina again. Saturday 3rd September
Another great night's sleep and we wake to a mixture of blue sky and low clouds.
After a quiet day we plan an 'action packed' one.
First stop is slightly North of us. A walk across a field to an amazing stone ship.
A stone circle but in the shape of a ship. Only two of the 52 stones are missing. It is incredibly impressive.
Surrounding the ship are graves, green mounds in the landscape. Nothing on this site has been excavated. They obviously don't have Swedish time team.
Back to Hamish and across another field to a stone circle with 2 burial mounds behind.
In Sweden the stone circles are called 'judge stones' as there are an odd number so it was thought someone stood at each stone passing verdict on whoever stood at the central stone. Again nothing has been excavated.
As we walk back through the woods to Hamish we see about 4 different types of mushroom. It's beginning to feel autumnal although the clouds have gone and today has turned into a stunningly beautiful day.
Next stop is South. Heading towards the Coast we drive across causeways between pretty islands (lots of woods and baby meadows and rounded, vaguely pinky grey rock outcrops with the occasional swedish 'hutte') until we arrived at the last one: Salto. We park and get some lunch before our afternoon expedition.
Our wet suits and snorkels are two items we have packed but not used yet. Spotting a snorkelling trail Alastair thought this was a brilliant opportunity. So we load up with all the gear and head through the forest to a beautiful sandy bay.It would have been lovely just to relax, read, sunbathe. But no. We find a discreet spot amongst the trees and start to do battle with rubber. A sweaty but definitely not sexual exercise. Finding the front of Lisa's wetsuit, before it covers the body, is always a challenge but Alastair confidently finds it and we start a joint enrobing effort.
Together we manage to get the legs over Lisa's toes so she can stand up. There follows some nail breaking and jiggling to get it up to her waist.
Lisa suggests we sort Alastair at this point. More nail breaking and jiggling and he is in!Looking at Lisa, Alastair realises her knee patches are at the back of her knees! So her wet suit is peeled off and we start again. Both exhausted; Lisa is finally trussed. Then Alastair reminds her that the small square of rubber with a hole in the middle the size of a polo has to go over her head. Tears are nearly shed. Boots are relatively easy. We decide against headgear.
We wade into the water and head to the snorkel point. There is no trail to be found: supposedly an orange rope connecting fascinating information boards underwater. Undeterred we swim around seeing huge crabs and 2 sorts of sea snakes with Seahorse heads.
Determined Alastair snorkels back to the snorkel trail flag and finds the 'blue' rope buried in the sand. It leads to an information board which has an ineffectual tiny little brush to wipe away the sand but Alastair wipes away the sand with his hand. Hurrah we now have information. It is in swedish. No translation. There are a grand total of four boards. All equally incomprehensible. Slight anticlimax considering the huge physical effort required. Well at least we found them.
We swim back to shore and start the painful process of peeling ourselves out of the wet suits whilst hopping around on the forest floor.
Once free we trudge back to Hamish and take showers while everything starts to dry.
It is about 4pm by the time most things have dried out and too late to move on. So we decide to head back to Stromstad Marina.It is so lovely to be back. Alastair spreads the wet suits and boots out to continue benefiting from the evening sun.
After tea we walked into town for a couple of essentials and Lisa spotted a barbeque fish grill thingy for £3 in the Coop. Craving toast Alastair had the idea that we could use this very object to grill toast with over our cooker. We buy bread and avocado in anticipation.
At marina Alastair lusts over some incredibly beautiful..... traditional wooden sailing boats. It is probably a bloke thing.
We snuggle down and have our best nights sleep in ages.
Stromstad Marina again, Friday 2nd September
A great nights sleep and a relaxing start to the day, a rare treat. It's not until you stop that you realised how shattered you are.
Eventually we are ready to leave and dodging the showers we head to the co-op. Yesterday was an emergency shop but we need to restock. Shopping takes all morning with our trusty translator but food options look more promising than Norway. As we are walking we only get what we can carry.
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| Sausages?! |
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| More Sausages!!! |
Sadly around 4pm the rain stops, we gather our laptops and tablets and head to tourist information. Alastair manages to get one day of Norway photos uploaded to the blog before the office closes at 5 pm. Back at the marina Hamish has company, never mind we had the place to ourselves for one night.
After a wet day we have a beautiful orange sunset.
Stromstad Marina, Thursday 1st September
Blue sky. For us it means that we can get some washing in as the pile is growing because the weather has been too miserable for drying. We then get showers and H is back on the road.
The next town has services in a garage, so we can top up with water. Helpfully a car is parked one side of the services and a motorhomer, who is: ambling around, shaking his mats, enjoying the view, is parked on the other. We manage to squeeze in between them. Parking with consideration for others is not a big priority around here.
Hamish has been missing a beat recently (not surprising on the scary roads) so Alastair bought some diesel injector cleaner which we hope will help him.
Then back on the road. The weather is scorching so we pull up in a picnic spot to rinse our washing and start drying it.
Back on the road. The landscape has changed dramatically: flatter, more agricultural, cycle paths, many more buildings.
We need to spend our remaining Nok before we leave Norway. H leaves the motorway to visit the first garage that our app claims has LPG. Miraculously it does! We fill up and also fill up with petrol, which is more expensive because it is Thursday. It is a Norwegian thing! We are left with 40 nok (about £4).
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| typical shops |
Back on the road. For lunch we pull up at a motorway service station where we take our our 40 nok. They have a vegan salad for 25 so that was a dead cert, only 15 left. There is nothing in the whole shop for £1.50, not even one pack of chewing gum, apart from bananas. Bananas are the only thing we have an abundance of in H. Bananas are 5 nok each. We buy one banana just because we can and give up trying to spend the other ten NOK.
Back on the road. Then we are going over the border: country no7 is Sweden!
Shortly after crossing into Sweden we drive to an aire in Stromstad but it cost about £14 to stay so we decide to check out the only other parking spot for motor homes on our 'park 4 a night' app.
We find a few parking spaces at the marina. The sign says you have to pay between June and the 31st August, yesterday. Just to clarify that, the ticket machine has been wrapped up. We are in luck. We even have toilets open 24 hours; idyllic.
We walk into town to explore and find tourist information so Alastair can do his local research. Stromstad feels like a tourist, seaside resort with italian restaurants, bars and hotels. The season ended yesterday so lots of shops have end of season sales.
Having got some Swedish krona from an ATP we nip to the supermarket for a couple of essentials. Well we can never just 'nip' to the supermarket. First we have a general reccy of goods and prices. Then there's a comprehensive check of some goods complete with our translation app to make sure we aren't eating anything we shouldn't be. It takes hours.
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| Town Hall |
Alastair completes our Norway spends spreadsheet. We overspent by £5 and that was only because we twice had to pay by credit card so we had extra cash that needed to be spent before we left, we are very proud of ourselves.
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| shops |
Stromstad is a haven for Norweigans who come across the border to stock up. From H. we watch cars pulling up and goods being carried to boats. We imagine it's easier to smuggle across the border by boat.
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| Stromstad Marina |
Enjoying the sunshine and our picturesque view we work out a way of staying another night, it's so lovely here and all 3 of us need a rest.
