Northward - Forests, ten o'clock screams and reindeer

Counting myself lucky that I didn't get caught stealing a shower from the sports club in Copenhagen, we made our way north to Helsingor to catch the ferry to Helsingborg in Sweden. We could have gone over the big bridge from Copenhagen to Malmo but, even though bridges are awesome, ferrys are exciting and motorways are boring. On the way to Helsingor we were pulled over by a policeman who I assumed was going to ticket me for only having one head lamp working (they have to be on day and night in Scandinavia). He went to Amanda's window, naturally, and was surprised to find we were from New Zealand and were planning to drive all the way to Lapland. He said good luck and wished us well. There was no mention of the busted headlamp. The ferry crossing was uneventful and Helsinborg was nothing special. There was a distinct lack of internet cafes so we resorted to grabbing a coffee at McDonald's and hooking up to the wifi for an hour or so to check future travel plans and couch surfing arrangements. This turned into a filthy habit for the rest of our trip; they are just so easy to find, and always have internet. But the coffee is so awful.

Our last Danish in Denmark

Once we left Helsingborg we felt like (to quote Reon Murtha) we were on the track proper. Hundreds and thousands of pine trees lined the smooth and straight single laned roads that regularly dipped through small valleys with lakes on either side. Nearly all the houses were red with white trim (a throw back to when red paint was cheap because of all the iron ore mining). It was pretty easy to find camping spots as the country is so sparsely populated. We'd spend our days easing ever north and taking walks in cute little towns, and our nights cooking awesome one pot meals on the gas hob and playing cards or board games in the back of the van. We visited Öland, an island off the south east coast of Sweden. There are tonnes of stone age and iron age ruins here and we spent over a day roaming around checking everything out. When night fell we found what appeared to be a pretty normal camp spot in an area called Trollskogen (Troll's Forest). We went for a stroll in the dark and it was spooky as hell. The knobbly old oak trees look like Ents and I swear they were watching us. When we woke the next morning the sun was rising over the Baltic sea and streaming directly into the back windows of the van. It was surreal. 

Eskjo

Runestone -  Öland

Mushrooms on Öland

Our camp site near Trollskogen

After Öland we made our way to Linköping where Emma, another friend from Dunedin, was home for a few months visiting her parents. We stayed there for a few nights and got treated to some amazing Swedish hospitality. Fish bake with apple sauce was a revelation. As was lingon berry jam with cheese! We had to check out IKEA and their amazingly cheap coffee and hotdogs (although the dogs were about the size of my pinky finger). Emma took us to Gamla Linköping (Old Linköping), where we got shown the workings of an old printing press by some enthusiastic old timers, then for a walk through an amazing local forest. We even got to meet some local horses. Emma and her parents were amazing hosts and we felt quite at home.

Amanda and Emma in a forest

 I will buy a horse one day and ride him around like a train in the night. 

We said a fond farewell to Emma and family and then spent a couple of days in Stockholm, camping in a huge park near Saltsjö-Duvnäs and catching the train in to town to avoid parking and congestion charges. We didn't plan to see anything in particular and just roamed the city for two days. We watched the All Blacks destroy the French in a packed Irish bar, again avoiding all the chest thumping racist code heads chugging pints and making dicks of themselves at 10am in the morning. After the rugby Amanda went looking about while I busked for an hour or so on a big tourist alley. I got a pretty good response and made a few kroner. Stockholm is really lovely but riddled with tourists and so bloody expensive. We found some nice parks to relax in the awesome autumn sun. I think it must have been around late September by this stage so we had to start adding layers to our summer attire to keep out the fresh northern air.

Our sneaky Stockholm camp site, next to an abandoned forest hut

The green arrow is the camp site and the red marker where we got the train each day

Our friend Nick lives in Uppsala, just north of Stockholm, so we went and stayed with him for a few nights. He was pretty busy with uni so we showed ourselves around the town and generally chilled out. He lives in a large student accommodation complex so there's lots going on, and awesome (free) commercial laundry facilities nearby. It's the little things, aye. Every night at 10pm every student in his area screams out their windows. It's called the ten o'clock screams and cracked me up every time I heard it. I took this recording of it.


10 o'clock screams


We planned to go out drinking one night so had to take a bike ride into town. Two bikes between four slightly drunk people meant some awesome old school doubling went down. It was pretty crazy. Our bike was an old hack that Nick had fixed up and was a bit of a beast to ride but it was hilarious. Back pedalling to brake is awesome, especially when there's two of you going down a huge hill towards a busy intersection/pedestrian area. It was a grand laugh. When we got to town, all the pubs were shut for some silly reason, but the student bars were open. No student ID meant no entry so we missioned back home to Nick's, getting a little lost on the way and generally fighting to keep the two of us upright on the old bike.


There are some cool op shops in Uppsala, but we didn't really have a need for vintage clothing. We did find an awesome thick woollen blanket which was going to be essential as we progressed north. Just before we left Uppsala I noticed a bit of diesel on the ground under the car. I thought I'd have a crack at seeing if the seals were all okay and tried to undo a bolt on the injector pump. It snapped straight off. It turns out it was made of gravy. We managed to get it back together with the tiny bit of thread that remained and went to the nearest mechanic. He was the first Scandinavian we'd met who didn't speak English, because he was actually Turkish. With the clever use of google translate he quoted us 8000 kronor (about $1600nz) to sort it out. No thanks mate. We tried a few other places and none of them would replace the small bolt we needed, they all wanted to put a whole new fuel pump in. Money grubbing bastards. It was still working, but the fuel pump was literally held together by a thread. So after a day of deliberating and staying at Nick's place another night we decided to risk it all, gaffer tape the bolt to the pump so if it came off we could find it again, and leg it the 1200km to Lapland in the North. 

Gaff fixes everything

I saw an Elk just north of Uppsala, but Amanda missed. I made a bold promise that we would see another before getting to the far north. Elk (or moose if you're North American) are hilarious looking and sometimes get drunk on fermenting apples and try to climb trees.


The journey north took us three days. We avoided driving after dark so we didn't hit any elk or reindeer on the road. Everyone in Sweden has HUGE mother fathering spot lights on their cars to see animals from 200m away. We had one headlight with a range of about thirty metres. The first night after leaving Uppsala we stayed just north of Sundsvall, and the following morning took the scenic route along the Höga Kusten (high coastal route). Endless hours of easy driving roads breezing through never ending pine forests. Our next camping spot was a little south of Lulea next to a small gated village. It was a nice spot right near the water and we spotted some red squirrels in the morning. While I was making coffee an old local came down to check out what we were up to. He didn't seem too phased, maybe a little suspicious. We had a brief chat with him, and he continued on his way. Around lunch time we stopped in a rest area next to some flooded huts. I have no idea why they were there.

Morning wake up north of Sundsvall

Breakfast sunrise

Buzzy flooded huts

Later in the day we finally crossed the Arctic circle, which was pretty exciting. Somehow the fuel pump was still holding together so I did a dance under the sign and wondered if anyone else had danced there. We saw quite a lot of reindeer on the way, grazing in some tasty green fields by the road. At bout 5pm we finally made it to our destination. After keeping our eyes peeled for elk all day we saw one just as we got to Muodoslompolo and my promise held strong. 

Happy and free Reindeer

Blue team GOOOOOO!!!!!!!

A month earlier we had signed up to a website called workaway, and organised a stay in Lapland where we'd be volunteering in exchange for food and accommodation. Out host, an awesome English guy named Oliver, needed help to renovate his massive place. As soon as we had arrived and unpacked, Oliver took us to a restaurant in Finland where we had some deliciously huge pizzas with smoked reindeer and other exotic goodies on them. They were AMAZING! When we got back to the village we had a tour of Oliver's gargantuan house and met his Norwegian tree cat, Holly, and her kitten Mini. Our accommodation was bunk room style cabin, separate from the house and attached to a sauna! Really nice place. It felt like being on school camp.

Holly the Norwegian tree cat and he amazing tail, 
with Mini the half Norwegian tree cat/half one-eyed-cat kitten

The stars were amazing up there and on our first night we were lucky to see the Northern lights. They were not too active, but it was still bloody incredible. There was also an uncanny amount of shooting stars, maybe one every thirty seconds or so. I have never seen a sky that impressive. Tekapo comes close, but the sky in Muodoslompolo is HUGE. You feel like you are above the atmosphere. Every now and then a shadow would pass silently over us. It was a snow owl checking us out, in super stealth mode. Complete silence on the top of the world. Surreal.

Some faint aurora action over our cabin; not the last we saw of the Northern Lights