Valberg and Gothenburg Islands

 

The next morning we got up early and headed to the next northernly town called Valberg. There were a couple of things we wanted to do here but it ended up being a bit cloudy and looked like it was going to rain but as they say up here, there is no bad weather just bad clothing. So we got our coats out and headed to look around the fortress and quickly got lost in it and then we quickly headed back to the van for a quick bit of breakfast and to grab the camera. Whilst on our walk back we managed to see a tour going on which included a recreation of some sort which was entertaining to watch even though we had no idea what was going on. There seemed to be people dressed in traditional clothing running around and dragging a tour group with them, who also appeared to be having fun. If we were in the area again I think we would have done the tour just to see what it was all about. After walking back towards the fortress it all got a little bit exciting, an ambulance and police car drove up the footpath towards the fortress and we could see a fire engine up a head. It appeared there was a man in the fortress in places he shouldn’t be and they were concerned or wanted to arrest him (we couldn’t tell). He darted off at one point which made the police and ambulance move on quickly towards the fire engines and then it all went quiet so we think they resolved it. The other thing we had planned to do in Valberg was the bath house but as the weather wasn’t as great as other days and due to the fact we have been in the sea most days we decided to give it a miss, although I have to say its one of the most beautiful bath houses we have seen. We decided to walk around the town a little and grabbed a drink in a coffee house (that had WIFI so we could upload some pictures and blogs from the last few days) and then headed to a local vegan café which was disappointingly closed so we decided to head on out of the town after a bite to eat in the van.

 We headed to a place on the way up to our next stop to try and get some water for the van and the van in front took ages to fill up all their various water containers which was a little frustrating and then once they moved Rich drove into place and tried to fill up only to find that due to the pressure and the tap fitting it was fruitless. All of you who know him can imagine the grump he was in after that! So we decided just to go to the camper stop. We knew we had enough water for the night but sometimes its good to carry a little more than you need for a night or two as you never know. Anyway we headed to the stop for the night which was in the middle of a forest and only a short walk away. Having scouted out the lake Rich hot footed it back to the van to get swimming shorts (there were a couple of other people on the other side of the lake so he had to wear swimming shorts) and in he went for a dip. I declined a swim this time knowing we were headed to the beach tomorrow (plus I didn’t know what was in the lake!)

 The next morning Rich decided to go for another quick swim before we headed off, this time to some islands just off Gothenburg. While we try and do as much research on the go and before hand as possible there are some things which we just have to go with and find out the answer on the fly. We had looked at which islands we could take Jeff to and picked Foto which is the bottom island of the archipelago and we knew there was a ferry, but what we couldn’t find was the price, I had read something that said it was free but Rich couldn’t believe this would be the case so off we went to the ferry port in Gothenburg and drove in slowly so we could find the right ferry to get us over here and then got into the right queue for motorhomes and vans and then the light was green as we approached the final part so we boarded the ferry. I soon said to Rich are we moving which he said of course we aren’t but he quickly realised we were and on our way. It was a 10 minute ferry ride (although it seemed less as we didn’t realise we were moving for the first minute or so) and we got off at Hono and drove south over the bridge to Foto.

 We parked up in the motorhome stop which is going to be our first paid stop since we started travelling three weeks ago and while Rich set up I went and paid. I made a little error and bought the ticket right away when I should have waited until 12 (it was 10.45) but we put the ticket in the window with a note explaining what I had done to hopefully get away without having to pay for another ticket. At £16 its not a bad price for all the services, some toilets, showers, a cheap washer and dryer and great views out to sea. We were quickly accosted by a local who was very happy to see British tourists and said that not many come here in vans and that he has only seen a couple in the last few years and while we have been in Sweden we haven’t seen many English vans. They are mostly German, Swedish and some Dutch.

 Once we were settled we decided to get out on the bikes and explore the islands so first we cycled back over the bridge to Hono where we found a lovely park with an outdoor gym, and a great place for a our morning run tomorrow, which we tried out and then found a lovely swimming area so we decided to jump in. As we were getting ready to go in another local asked if we were okay if the dog came in as well and you know what we are like, I think it made Rich’s day. The owner was talking to us about life over here and gave us suggestions on places to go, including how to get to the highest point in the island. We continued to relax in the water until a little nasty jelly fish stung me then we got out quickly and got dressed. It was only a minor sting and while it stung (a bit like a stinging nettle) on and off all day we didn’t let it stop us. Next we headed to the highest point on the island which is a disused water tower so we tied the bikes up and walked up several flights of stairs to get to the top where we could see for miles and all the way over to Gothenburg.

 Once we climbed back down we headed quickly to an ATM as we needed a little bit of cash for the washing machine later and then as we had to break the note it gave us we went and bought an ice lolly from the shop before heading off to Ro-berget which is a nature reserve on Hono. Again we tied the bikes up and walked around the reserve and then hiked to a cave on the reserve which was pretty cool (although fairly difficult to get to). After that we headed further up north to Ockrto which is the biggest island which had a pretty church on it before continuing up to the next island Haslo where we again found a place to get in the water for a swim. After my earlier encounter with a jelly fish I was a bit nervous and we ended up seeing another one (although this one was a moon jelly fish and doesn’t sting) but that was me done and so we got changed and cycled the 30 minutes back to the van for dinner and a naughty gin and tonic. There is a high deck behind the van and we thought it would be lovely to have our dinner up there only to discover just how windy it was (after we got everything set up) and we had to eat while not letting our dinner fly off the plate. We ended up sitting on the floor behind the wall to give us some wind protection but soon as we were done with the food we got back down to van level where it was still windy but considerably less so.

 The next morning we put a load of washing on and headed off to the park, on the bikes, for a run, a circuit in the outdoor gym and a swim before cycling back. There were no major issues, a few moon jelly fish spotted but it was a lovely way to cool down. Once back at Jeff we put another wash in and bought a new ticket as we plan to spend another night here before getting ready for this afternoons festivities for Midsummer eve. The local football field is being used for what can only be described as a village fair. The poster said lotteries, dancing, music, coffees and more. It turns out lotteries are basically tombola’s from what we could see and the music and dancing happened around the large leaf covered  post in the middle of the field. We stayed and watched the going on for quite a while but I have to say we had no idea what was going on for most of the time.

 After all that we headed back to the van for dinner and to sort ourselves out before we head off the island tomorrow. We have really enjoyed our time in Sweden so far and the locals and other campers have been so welcoming to us. We haven’t had an issue with the language as everyone speaks really good English and they always like to chat and tell us places we should go.

The Midsummer monument

The view of Jeff from the windy observation deck

Rich in the nature reserve Ro-berget

The midsummer party

Rich in the cave in Ro-berget

The church in Ockrto

The swimming jetty in Haslo

Ro-berget cave 

More views from the island

The cave in Ro-berget

More views from Ro-berget

more views from the island

The free car ferry

Rich swimming in the lake

The lake rich swam in 

The bath house in Valburg

a little statue in Valburg. There was a theme to them as there was also a set of watering cans and a tap on the square

The Valburg fortress centre

Island views

Views from the water tower

Sweden part 1

 We decided at this point that our game plan was to head up the west coast towards Gothenburg before heading into Norway. This meant missing Stockholm for now but we figured we could hit this on our way back down later in the season when it’s a bit colder.

We stopped in Landskrona which had a nice citadel to wonder around. We got stopped by a 6 month old Husky who demanded our attention – Catherine was very happy. We didn’t stay long but I got a quick workout in the outdoor gyms which are everywhere in Sweden. We continued on to Helsingborg where we found a great spot to spend the next couple of nights in the woods. We planned to use the Sauna but the lighting storm turned us around back to the van for the night. Next morning we were able to get a run in the morning along the promenade which usefully had 100m markers and another outdoor gym. We spent the day exploring the town trying to find a new pair of sea shoes for Catherine (as I accidently left her sea shoes on the back on the van and drove off!) We got into the bath house and enjoyed a couple of hours sea swimming and saunas before heading for lunch at a vegan Vietnamese restaurant. We really took a liking to Helsingborg and especially enjoyed the concerts in the evening which we could hear from our spot in the woods. Never heard of Hakan Hellstrom before but he is very popular here!

Catherine said we weren’t allowed a morning run as she had planned a short 20km walk around the Kullaberg nature reserve. So we drove and parked up in the reserve and headed off around the coast of the peninsular heading first to the lighthouse and then down the coast. We quickly came across a sign for a cave which was 55 meters down, at sea level, and so we thought it would be good to see it and started the climb down which was a little more difficult due to recent rock slides but there was a rope to help. Once down at sea level we saw the cave and were disappointed as it was very small. We climbed back up the hill and continued on, with the agreement that we wouldn’t bother looking at more caves. We continued on through woods, fields cliff edges and saw so many different things including a climber scaling the cliff edge with no ropes and a diver jumping off a boat alone, these Swedes like adventures! We also found some animals including deer, cows and goats (which Rich loves) before wandering into the town, and continuing around it and back into the reserve. I did have one area I really wanted to see in the reserve which was called Nimis and Arx which are art instilations which were put there by Lars Vilks, who tried to ensure they could remain by selling them (using a contract on a piece of drift wood) and declaring the land an independent called Ladonia with 15,000 nomad inhabitants (which was fine until there were applications to citizenship from a group of 4,000 Pakistani’s who wanted to move there and did not understand the concept of a micronation).

Nimis is a tower built of driftwood and is 9 stories tall and can be climbed, we chose not to climb it due to the sheer number of nails we could see, let alone the ones we couldn’t see. Arx is made out of stone and concrete and looks a bit like a melted sandcastle.  

 While these two things were great to see it had be a hell of a climb down from the cliff top to sea level and we had to climb back which really got our heart racing. We still had several kilometers to go on this walk and it was now getting really hot. There were some optional detours from the main path, up to high view points but at this point we were around 16km and ready to get back to Jeff so looking at the optional hills we decided to stay on flat land. Just before we got back to Jeff there was a detour down to the sea which we decided to take and Rich considered a swim but we decided it was a little rough and headed back to jeff and on north slightly to a camper stop next to the sea with 5 other campers.  

The next couple of days were beach days in Tylosand which is a beautiful beach area. On the way there it was looking cloudy but we had a couple of jobs to do like servicing the van and picking up some shopping so we got these done and then found the beach just in time for the sun to come out. We headed down with some lunch and chilled on the beach for awhile before heading out into the sea on the paddleboard. After awhile on the paddleboard we came back and thought we would have our snack of some crisps only to find them missing, we were sure we had bought them and then the realisation struck us…..the bloody sea gulls had got into our backpack and stolen the entire huge bag of sealed crisps and eaten them all. Sure enough a little behind our chairs in the sand dunes was the wrapper, those little buggers!

 We spent the rest of the day enjoying the beach, watching the sea gulls try their luck with other peoples food and swimming/paddle boarding in the sea until the sun went behind some clouds at 6. We headed back to Jeff and set ourselves up to for the night. There were about 10 campers staying with us at the beach and it was a quiet night. The next morning after a run we headed into the local town on bikes to have a look around and see the Picasso statue of a ladies head (1 of only 14 in the world) and a fountain before heading back to spend another day at the beach (this time without crisps). Its been nice to have a couple of chilled days at the beach and now we are planning the drive up north and what to do for midsummer which is coming up this weekend and is the second biggest holiday over here, after Christmas.

Arx the Art installation 

We walked in Arx and looked out to sea

The beach at Tylosand, you wouldnt think it was Sweden would you

A broken man on the walk, it was a long hard walk, constantly up and down

The citadel at Landskrona

The castle at Helsingborg

The sea view from our walk, it started off cloudy but it soon cleared up

More cliffs from our walk

and more

The climb back up from the disappointing cave

The disappointing cave

Vegan food - the Vietnamese vegan restaurant

The forest part of the walk

The fountain in Tylosand with Mermen

Goats on the walk

The second part of the castle in Helsingborg

The lighthouse on the walk

A manor house in Helsingborg

Nimis from the top

Nimis from the bottom

Picasso ladies head statue

Tunnel of love in Helsingborg

Denmark and our first two days in Sweden

 Next morning we did a short run before embarking on what we named “Bridge Day”. Bridge number 1 was called Den Nye Lillebaeltsbro, our only free crossing. We parked up just underneath the start of this bridge where we found a nice viewpoint and picnic benches to have some breakfast. This crossing took us to a place in Denmark Middelfart which Catherine found rather amusing. 2^nd Bridge to cross was Storebaelt. We again stopped beforehand as there was a nice stop to explore around and get some good pictures of the bridge. It had a nice walk down the coast and we watched a couple of local swimmers brave the waters. This crossing was very impressive however Catherine wasn’t impressed when she had to jump out at the toll booth as we soon found out that the bridge doesn’t recognise foreign numberplates. Luckily for us and our wallets we had a ‘biz’. A little device which could be used in the same way and meant we could cross this bridge at a total cost of £33.67 rather than the PAYG amount which costs double that. 

We wasted no time heading for our final bridge, the famous Oresundsbron bridge. This was the one built in 2000 and cost an eye watering 2.6 billion euro’s (To build, not to cross!). It started with a lengthy tunnel before emerging out of the Oresund Strait. It’s the longest bridge in Europe running nearly 5 miles excluding the 2.5 mile tunnel. It had a little island in the middle which was dredged out of the water. Only biologist were allowed on this island once a year to check out the wildlife that had emerged. The usual birds and insects but also strangely enough there were white rabbits here! Much to our delight the number plate recognition worked and we were in Sweden! We very slowly creeped past the customs officer who looked busy breathalysing a car next to us. The officer asked us to wait so we did while traffic built up behind us. Couple of minutes later he sent the car to another officer and approached our van. Not interested in our passports, he asked us where we were going (Sweden), where we had come from (Denmark) and where the van was from (UK). Unsure what the purpose of these questions were but he seemed satisfied and we went on our way. We were planning on exploring Malmo in the afternoon but not wanting to rush, we found a nice spot an 15 minute drive away which allowed us to chill and plan a nice cycle into the city tomorrow.

 The next morning we headed into Malmo on our bikes knowing it was around a 16km cycle. Now we normally prepare with planning the route but the signs suggested that we could follow a long distance trail which should take us into the city but this wasn’t the route our planning apps were taking us. Deciding to trust in the trail we headed off through the woods which took us down some fun hills and we popped out near the next town and the trail continued through several towns and straight into Malmo (no sat nav needed). Once we arrived we were starving so we headed to a farm to table vegan café for breakfast and a tea/coffee. While the menu had loads of healthy things I had to have the Apple pie pancakes while Rich had a healthy Spirulina bowl.

Once we were full we decided to head out into the town to go mural spotting which is always a favourite thing for me to do. There were loads dotted around the city but we managed to see a few using a map someone had done online. We then headed to see the Malmo castle which is a red building which was built in 1434 and has been fought over many times since. In the park nearby was a lovely old windmill which we cycled to next to have a look at. Finally we went to look at the turning torso building which is a twisted skyscraper 

Now it was starting to get really warm at around 24 degrees so we decided it was time to try the traditional Swedish sauna and cold baths so we cycled down to the sea front where the Bath house was located. This was going to be an interesting experience as it was split male and female and was completely naked. There are specific rules you have to follow as well. We paid and decided to meet outside in an hour, which turned out not to be long enough but as we only had 1 padlock meaning I had both phones we couldn’t communicate so we had to stick to the original plan.

I think we had different experiences of the bath house as we all know Rich is happy being naked and has no issues with it. He managed to try a couple of different saunas, use the hot tub and swim a couple of times in the sea. I also tried a couple of saunas but the first one I walked into was the one and only mixed one (men and women) which was a bit of a shock to me. Once over that I did also try swimming in the sea but didn’t get time to use the hot tub (which wasn’t that hot, more of a warm tub). The bath house was on a pier so you get great views over the sea front and it’s a really calming and we both decided we would go back and do it again (in fact we are already planning a visit to another bath house).

Next up was the 18km cycle back to the van and this time we used the map to get us there and it was a harder cycle as there were more up hill sections but we made it in just over an hour and we had a snack before heading to the next stop for the night.  

the boarder into Denmark

Bridge 1

The water around the bridges, it looks lovely but I wasnt going to swim in it

Bridge 2

Brave swimmers

Bridge 2

On our way to Sweden

Bridge 3

Bridge 3 from Sweden

The castle opposite our first Swedish camper stop

Murals in Malmo

Malmo castle

Malmo windmill

more murals

The tuning Torso building

The sea by the bath house