From Iceland it is off and onto the greener shores of Norway and Sweden. Opting for the travel recipe that had worked for us all so well in Iceland, Emily and I decided to hire a car once again and travel as we pleased around these two countries. A little trick we discovered when facing the abhorrent expense of hiring a car in Norway was to actually pick one up in Sweden. This little gem saved us over 50% on our rental.
Set with a car which we picked up in Stockholm, we next had to procure the camping essentials. Swedish shops, unlike most in other European countries are pretty easy to navigate. The people are friendly and offer you a perky "hey hey" as you efficiently make your way from giant store to giant store in a feat of well organised consumerism. A few hours of shopping and we had our bbq for the road along with a stupendous amount of charcoal to make sure every meal was a cracker. With a host of other essentials as well we returned to Norway.
BBQ makes Emily happy
Norway is by far the most expensive country of the three we traveled. We found that the only way we could afford to travel in any sort of sustainable fashion was to camp. Luckily the weather at the time was great and finding a campground could not have been easier. Finding a friendly local on the other hand was more of a chore. Such a shame for such an overwhelmingly beautiful country.
A view from the tent
Making our way through the south of Norway we headed for the town of Levanger where we were to meet two of Emily's friends and recieve a great introduction to the local way of life. Emily's friends Richard and Maria put us up with the greatest of hospitality, the kind I am more readily used to receiving in my part of the world rather than Europe. For us travelers this was a grant of fresh air from the more usual indifference and nonchalant attitude of the general European crowd. With Maria working, Richard invited both Emily and myself to come hiking and fishing for 3 days up around the Swedish/Norwegian border. This was Scandinavia at its best. Aside from the beautiful nature and vast surrounds, I really admire the Scandinavian desire to be outside and experiencing it all. Hiking, skiing, fishing and many more activities are all embraced by the general public in numbers that boggle the mind. The general fitness and outdoor education of people is quite amazing, especially for countries blessed with what I consider to be less than ideal weather. But the weather is no deterrent. It can rain, snow or sleet, these guys just get out and do what they want to. They really are crazy, but in a cool kinda way.
Perhaps a dip in the lake was not such a good idea...
We also got introduced to the game of kubb, a lawn based sport best suited to a few beers. Having a blast of a time I decided I should give making my own version of the game a go when I got home.
My version of the game kubb, made after my return to Australia
Loving the time spent with Emily's and now my new friends, we moved north along the fjords towards the Lofoten Islands. It wasn't long before we were again greeted by the ever so consistent grunts and general unsociable mentality of the locals. After our time spent with Richard and Maria though we were more resilient to the situation and managed to keep ourselves distracted by such things as reading internet lists of the top 10 things others hated about the Norwegians. Hahaha, there were some crackers!
Along the way to the Lofoten Islands. This is a beachside view from north of Bodo.
Traveling Norway is a lengthy affair. Not only is the country long and the roads winding but one thing we did not anticipate was that the national maximum speed limit being set to 80km/h! This really ate into our time and forced us to consolidate our travel plans. But none the less we made the Lofoten Islands and were very happy to do so. The islands are every bit as stunning as they are said to be. The weather maybe not so much... We did manage to jag a few good mornings/evenings here and there which we used to do some quick hikes. The vast open spaces and shear accessibility of it all was impressive. If you couldn't see a track, make your own. If you thought you could climb that mountain, well just do it. It was fantastic. I only wish the photos we had taken could truly express how impressive the nature is on these islands.
The locals even help out and provide you with a few essentials
Though the Lofoten Islands are well frequented, you can still find your own patch without too much issue. With the weather not being the best however, camping is a fairly rough way of getting around. It is good for the short term but looses its flavour after a while. The Lofoten Islands also reside within the Arctic Circle, a fact you don't readily miss during this part of the year. The day extends 24 hours as the sun never sets below the horizon. Aside from messing with your sleeping patterns it really seems to make a mess out of some of the local birds. They seem to sing and cowl at all hours until they can do it no longer. They then zonk out, reset to do it again. The poor buggers have no day/night cues to set their rhythm to!
Beginning in the west of the islands we slowly made our way east and back to the mainland. As we did, the weather began to change. What was now bad pockets of rain and cold had become days of rain and cold. This weather really put a hamper on our hiking plans for the Abisko National Park in the north of Sweden. Looking at the state of some of the trekkers to have traveled the King's Trail we realised this to not be a good idea. That's okay, camping on snow was never my thing. So with these plans foiled we thought "how about we just focus on a sole achievement. Seeing a moose in the wild". Well good luck to you on that one! Here are a few little known facts about the moose (called elk in this part of the world):
Firstly, there are approximately 300,000 moose in Sweden. To protect the forestry, permits for 100,000 to be killed each year are granted by the government. About 250,000 Swedes flood the hills over a very short period each year to bag a moose. Now for the pertinent part. Moose are goddam ninjas and I guess they have to be! Actually they are more like four legged Chuck Norris'. You can't find one unless you go all commando and join a posse of about 249,999 others. They are as big as cars and yet almost cannot be seen unless by shear accident. They have stealth features like you wouldn't believe. How can a 400 to 700kg animal be so hard to see! Well, they can run 60km/h, jump from a standstill over 2m, hear you coming with either of their ginormous ears or smell you with one hellava nose.
So we just let that one be. If we saw a moose great, if not, well I'm not going to freak. And so we devised a plan to beat the weather. We would just drive to a place where the forcast said it would be sunny. Simple! This probably had something to do with the fact that we ended up putting nearly 9,500km on the car in 5 weeks... The plan kinda worked but now that we were in Sweden, at least the people were friendly. And when I say friendly, I mean fantastic. Crossing between Norway into Sweden was such a contrast and added a whole new element of joy to our travels. Getting into the throw of things we even celebrated the coming of Midsummers with more than a few beers. We also had a secretly stashed bottle of rum and a biiiiiig roast. Emily really got into the swing of things and pushed her new fire bug status into overdrive managing to burn holes in our tent and duck down jackets... Way to go Em... Luckily we were both too "festive" to figure that out until the morning.
Or you can meet a guy who has some pet moosen.
Moving camp away from the shame of our antics we setup 50km down the road in order to recover. Little did we know that the Midsummers celebrations actually seem to properly start on Midsummers day and not Midsummers Eve. Huh, maybe we jumped the gun... We were greated at midday at the new camp ground by about 20 over 65's absolutely banging off their heads drunk and singing Swedish tunes! Wow. This is when I gained a new found respect for these people. They carried on with their very social festivities until about midnight when most of them passed out on the grass next to a campfire they had made. Some passed out face down, utterly unable to walk. Again, they were over 65, some even around the 80 mark!
1am The morning after Midsummer and it is still light south of the Arctic Circle.
The following day, clear headed and feeling good that others were now taking over our mantles for feeling bad, we looked to the weather maps for predictions of sunshine. Following our new objective of sun at any cost, we made our way through Gothenberg and onto Lund, a town just outside of Malmo. Here we found the sun and all its beautiful, beautiful warmth. To celebrate we went strawberry picking in one of the local strawberry fields and ate great bakery food until our eyes bulged. Sunshine and contentment! Loping our way around we finally traveled for Stockholm and our flight out. Stockhlom itself is a nice city but suffers the plagues of gypsies the same as most big cities now in Europe. One pretty memorable highlight is the Vasa Museum which houses an old wooden ship salvaged ,intact, after sinking in the harbour during the 1600's. Recovering the ship was apparently the largest salvage operation/restoration ever conducted. It really is spectacular.
All in all, Scandinavia is a very visually impressive place. The stunning nature is a real draw card. We spent more than a tidy sum traveling around and are happy to have done so. Would I go again though... Nope, I'm heading somewhere stupidly warm instead!
No comments:
Post a Comment