Country: Sweden
Distance travelled:
Weather: Sunny and about 20 deg

When I woke up this morning, I decided to try to plan a sort of itinerary for the day instead of us just meandering through the countryside. With no internet, I could only source ideas from our AA road atlas but we had seen on the nature reserve sign last night that there was some barrows nearby as well as some scenic cliffs so that seemed to be a good place to start.

With our fresh water tank down to quarter full, we needed to refill our water supply and some internet access to research the unpleasant smell which we thought was coming from the grey water tank meant a McDonalds would also be handy. The locations of possible water points and McDonalds could be found in Autoroute and I finished off the GPS programming with a selection of places we could probably stay in Varberg.

I had stepped out to check the name of the barrow I was interested in visiting on the nature reserve signage when I noticed the “No Camping” note at the bottom. This raises the question, are we actually camping since we put nothing outside or are we just parking overnight? It was close to 10.30am by this time and the last motorhome was leaving so, as we were feeling a little conspicuous, we did too.

Since we had no internet, I could only approximate the location of Dagshög barrow, the largest grave mound in Skäne, dating from the early Bronze Age. We navigated to the village of Angalag and had almost given up on locating the mound when we found a sign pointing the way to go. The area was quite interesting, with the barrow, an old disused stone quarry from the early 1900’s which belonged to the Danish and more gun emplacements built during the German occupation. The tourist information signage here is great, with text in Swedish, German and English. We found out later that Swedish students learn English as soon as they start school. Certainly makes it easy for us pair of language illiterates.

According to the sign:
There is a legend according to which the Viking king Dag and his warriors lie buried in the mound. A great battle is supposed to have taken place on the shore, King Dag and his men fighting against men from Halland and Blekinge recruited by the Swedish king in Uppsala. King Dag lost the battle and to honour their king, the surviving warriors built the mound, Dagshög (Dag’s Mound).

The barrow has not been excavated but, unfortunately for the legend, can be dated to about 2000 years before the Vikings. Spoilsports.

Dagshög barrow

Bunker

View from within

Fortification

From here we moved on to Hovs hallar to see the scenic cliffs. It was very rugged coastline but, we both agreed, probably not as impressive as the Great Ocean Road. Heading North, we lucked out on several locations which may have had a water supply, including a motorway service point which had quite a number of hulking big semi-trailers but no water tap that we could see. The drive was still rewarding as I got to admire the drifts of blue and pink lupins growing roadside in a similar manner to the daffodils in England. Eventually we made it to a McDonalds where we spent a rewarding hour or so checking emails, doing some banking and researching our mystery smell and possible cures. Strangely it only occurs as we start to drive off.

Hovs Hallar scenic cliffs they say

Suitably rugged

Once we reached Varberg, we toured the possible accommodation options. The first, a possible wild camp site had a very definite No Motorhome sign. Oh well, our reference was from several years ago. There were two different aire type sites, one of which had electricity but no water and the other had almost no signage at all and was very difficult to judge the water access situation. It appeared that the neighbouring company had decided to put their spare paddock to good use and was very nicely set out. It would have been very pleasant if we hadn’t needed water rather desperately.

Eventually we decided to pay for the Apelviken campsite. This place is huge with static vans, both long term and touring caravans, motorhomes and tents. They insist on being paid by card and supply you with a nifty watch type thing which lets you swipe into the amenities block and camp kitchen and, more importantly, turns on the hot water in the shower. It was two kroner for two minutes but you could stand there and swipe as long as you had credits. I washed my hair….

Apelviken campsite

Since electricity was included and we had filled up the water tanks, I washed some clothes and dug out our little electric heater to encourage it to dry. Mark decided to cook the Swedish meatballs we had bought and we had them with vegetables and gravy. We have read that they can be an economic meal easily carried into rumored expensive Norway. I’m not sure how many packets we can jam into our fridge nor how many I will be able to eat before they wear thin, but I’ll certainly give them a go.