Country: Sweden
Distance travelled:
Weather: Overcast and surprisingly humid
After a good nights’ sleep last night, I decided to create another rough itinerary for our day. Working from our AA road atlas and Autoroute again, I picked out a McDonalds, a scenic view, a famous garden and then a few camp sites near the Glaskogens Nature Reserve. Breakfast is a standard affair by now, except that today I managed to burn my fingers on the caramel oozing out of my stroopwaffel. Must find burn cream in the next chemist we see, since I tend to burn my fingers frequently anyway.
Our first stop was McDonalds where we indulged in a Jordgubb and banana smoothie (strawberry and banana to us English speakers). A quick check online showed that the famous garden wasn’t going to be our style and a review of the campsites showed both of them would require payment. We will definitely be looking for a free spot tonight before we resort to them.
From there we strolled over to some large shopping centre type places in our search for a hose fitting to fit the narrow taps in Sweden. They appear to be about 1/2 an inch but although we found fittings in 1″, there was nothing smaller as they seemed to be all sold out. I remembered to ask at a chemist for burn cream but the assistant didn’t seem to know what I was talking about.
A detour to Hallesnipen for the scenic view over Lake Vänern supplied us with a lovely forested lunch spot and we decided to walk through the forest afterward to find the promised view. The walk wended its way though coniferous forest with intermittent damp patches so I was keeping my eye out for foreign fungi and luckily stumbled across a few different types. I don’t know whether these are early bloomers or if the season starts sooner here since the Nordic winter would be much longer than at home.
We had heard horror stories about the ‘midges’ in this part of the world and if this walk is any indication, everything said is true. Thank goodness we have screens on the van. Mark kindly batted away the mozzies whenever I stopped to photograph a mushroom. The scenic view over this vast lake, almost an inland sea, was eventually reached and we returned to the van via a sunnier area with oak trees.
Hallesnipen lake view
Hallesnipen tree view
Hallesnipen fungi view
As we had taken quite some time on our walk, we decided to shorten the driving distance this afternoon and head up the north shore of Lake Vänern to where we had located a parking spot with possible shower access. Away from the coastline, it was pleasant to see many more forested areas interspersed with patches of farmland, mostly crop fields. Eventually we reached our target and, changing our minds again, ended up on a promontory jutting out into the lake, wild camping near another motorhome.
Mark has whipped up spaghetti and meatballs with the rest of our packet of Swedish meatballs, fleshed out with a tin of red kidney beans. Another use for them should we decide to stock up before Norway.
Promontory view