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Published: August 21st 2009
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Scandanavia rocks my world.
I was definitely a viking in a former life.
I had the most fantastic time in Scandanavia, travelling with Disa, Martin and Alberto over thousands of kilometres from Stockholm to a wee island in the north of Norway called Karlsøya (at 70 degrees north, my northernmost point, ever) and then all the way back to Stockholm.
After a very, very brief stop in Helsinki, a 3am bus to Turku and an 11 hour ferry ride to Stockholm, I began my Scandanavian adventures.
Disa had written to me, saying that she and Martin had met a Spanish guy with a van while busking in Stockholm and were planning to head to the north of Norway to a thing called Ting, how soon could I get there? Hence my brief Finnish visit...
They picked me up at the ferry building in Stockholm and we drove straight out of the city to spend a night at Disa's friend's place before setting off into the north. We travelled for ten days up the length of Sweden. We visited a folk/world music festival near Rattvik, camped at numerous beautiful places, swam in some gorgeous lakes, visited a
Northern Lights gallery north of the Arctic Circle and finished up in Sweden with three days hiking in Åbisko National Park in the very north of Sweden.
After that we crossed to Norway, stopping briefly in Narvik which is the end of the line for all train travellers in the north of Scandanavia. Narvik didn't endear itself - it was cold and windy, had an ugly industrial dock area and advertised fresh whale meat - yuk. We kept heading north pretty quickly, arriving in Tromsø in the evening.
The next morning we got on the ferry to Karlsøya, having no idea what would await us when we got there. A local in Åbisko had described Karlsøya as 'the hippie island - high tides and green grass', so, we were hopeful. We were early for the gathering, intending to set up as part of the seed camp and help get things cracking. We arrived on the island loaded down with food but couldn't see any signs or indications of the gathering's location on the island. The first local we asked said he didn't know anything about any gathering, but there was a festival the next month if that's what
we meant... Since there are only 20 people living on this island, we started to think maybe we'd imagined the whole thing and there was no gathering after all! We wandered down the road when were were met by a young man who came hurrying out of one of the buildings, hugged us and said "Welcome Home". We breathed a sigh of relief, did a round of introductions - his name was Sjur - and got directions to Sandvika, the gathering place, which would be our home for the next ten days. We were the first to arrive, we were told, so would have the place to ourselves and could camp anywhere on the beach.
When we got to the other side of the island we were greeted by a small stretch of pale sand, thousands of wildflowers and a small forest of silver birches. The weather was less than lovely with rain threatening. That first night, after pitching our tents, we lit a fire in a small cave up the hill to keep out of the rain. The next day was cold again, but we were greeted by our first view of the horizon, mountains and all, and
the gap that led straight up to the north pole.
On the third day the weather cleared and stayed clear. The sun shone, the birds sang, we swam daily in the Arctic sea (quickly) and walked around the island. I built three big hammocks from and old fishing net I found on the beach. Once they were embellished with reindeer skins and blankets they became very popular with everyone. On one of our walks, Disa and I were treated to the sight of a small whale. We had Sandvika all to ourselves for three days, then we were joined by Avidal and Roi from Israel, then a large group of inebriated Finnish guys arrived, then some more Finns, this time hippy ones with tipi and sauna building skills... we were visited on and off by lovely locals - Sjur and Emil - incredibly talented musicians, Ingvill - a beautiful Norwegian treasure, Johannes - a real character, unable to go to Sweden because they'd commit him immediately, Thor-Gunnar - one of the original Rainbow people from '89 with wonderful stories, and eventually Maia Me - Thor-Gunnar's daughter and a beautiful dancer. We met two young and beautiful Finnish faery girls
called Ona and Moni who were usually in the company of one or other of the local lads and often engaged in handcrafts or some other industry. Slowly, more and more people arrived on the island, a few people left. The camp changed almost daily and we had to let go to adjust. We had endless days of sunshine - the sun never set, just passed behind a mountain peak briefly between 11pm and 2am. Daylight 24 hours a day, bonfires, drums, rainbows and not much sleep made for a magical ten days set in the most beautiful place in the world.
Karlsøya was a very deep soul place for me. It was so hard to leave, like a punch in the chest. I recognised some souls living there, maybe we were all vikings together. I came away with new skills - I now know how to build a traditional Finnish sauna and put up a self-supporting star dome.
But leave, we did, and headed south again. We made it to Urkult, a culture festival in Sweden, where we enjoyed the music but didn't enjoy the drinking culture around us after the more mellow tone of the island.
We travelled south much faster than we'd travelled north, eventually driving all night on our final push toward Gnesta, near Stockholm, where Martin's family have a cottage. There we spent a day picking blueberries and currants, swimming in a very warm lake and resting. The next day we drove to Disa's dad's place where I had my first shower since Switzerland and, wonder of wonders, washed my clothes.
On my last day we visited Stockholm, thinking that I should see the city before leaving for Gothenburg and my flight to Iceland. We lasted all of four hours in town before heading out to a nearby lake for a final swim and a fire.
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nikki
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wow viking girl sounds fabulous