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Stockholm - Sweden
Land ahoy captain..
Shane & Evonne
Jokkmokk - Sweden Sweden, the country of warm hospitality, wilderness & expense (you even have to pay for public toilets).
After a long day of travel from Amsterdam to the south of Brussels (Belgium) to catch our flight, we arrived in Stockholm very late.
The first day was spent feeling a bit anxious & wandering around the central part of Stockholm. Our first swedish meal was a dagen's lunch, for which we partook on many occasions while in Sweden. A dagen's lunch is a Swedish thing where you choose one main dish out three of four choices (mostly pasta, pizza or some kind of meat dish) and have a smorgasboard salad (sauerkraut & gerkins always guaranteed). Very cheap (A$11-$15)!
In the evening we caught the bus to Moa's place (Shane's friend) on one of the islands (the city of Stockholm is made up of many islands). All three of us spent the night dining at a lovely riverside outdoor resturant and catching up. The only downer to the night was the fact it was bloody freezing!!! We were lucky that the resturant had blankets (fairly common - as we were to find).
Our second Stockholm day was declared a
rest day. Not much was achieved, expect some well needed rest. We were treated to Moa's homemade fish soup for dinner, which was delicious. It's always nice to have a home cooked meal!
After our rest day we ventured out. We walked around the city and hired some bikes to ride around Djurgarden (a massive parkland smack, bang in the middle of Stockholm). The weather was amazing. A bright, sunny Spring day and everyone was out enjoying the sun and sunbaking after the winter. By the end of this day, we were ready to head to the country.
After bidding farewell to Moa (thanks for having us - we hope we weren't too much trouble - Moa headed off to Beijing on the day we left), we were on the move again. After a funny old train trip to Orebro (we discovered that you can't be guaranteed two reserved seats together even if you book them at the same time! Including busses! Very frustrating!), we were blessed by Moa's lovely mum and her partner who picked us up from the train station and drove us an hour north to Moa's Summer cottage. We were very fortunate to spend
Stockholm - Sweden
Ah, the blossoms of spring. some time in the middle of Sweden and for the next few days we hardly saw a soul. We also toasted marshmellows, read our novels & listened to the woody-wood pecker in the trees. It was very peaceful (and cosy - below zero at night but a roaring fire to keep us warm) and relaxing after the cities and I (Eve) was hoping so much that we would see a moose, but it wasn't to be.
After leaving the cottage, we were taken back to Orebro. The hightlight of this town was the 13th C medieval castle in the town centre. We spent only one night in the hostel before heading to our next destination; Docksta.
Our first thought of Docksta; we had been dropped off by the bus in the middle of nowhere and it was cold!. Of course, you can never judge a book (or it's people) by it's cover as Docksta is a little sea side town with a thumping great big highway running through the middle of it and a big heart. Not knowing which direction the hostel was (nor did the bus driver!), we lugged our packs down the highway to a service
station/truck stop, where we called our hosts to get directions.
As we were walking towards the hostel through the middle of the "one street town" we came across an outdoor ice hockey rink. Even though the ice had melted some weeks before, we were still very excited!! While taking pictures, our lovely hosts pulled up in the car and offerred to drive us to the hostel. Once again very lucky. Within 10 minutes of arriving, we were treated to free dinner & desserts (left overs from the Walpurgis night BBQ), which was fantastic! Walpurgis night is a bonfire night that celebrates the start of Spring (dead wood, etc is burnt in the process - and some fireworks let off, similar to when we were kids). We had a great night at the bonfire, chatting about all things Swedish and Australian.
The next day we went hiking through the Skuleskogen National Park. Once again no moose, but we came across a massive stone rubble (boulder) field, which is the effect of ocean waves crashing on the coastline over thousands of years since the last ice age (and hence the name of the region; "High Coast" which is world heritage
listed). This was unbelieveable!! We hike through a massive vertical rock (see pictures), to have lunch looking out across the sea towards Finland.
After saying our good-byes it was off to the Artic Circle and to Jokkmokk. This was indeed the highland of Sweden! Our first morning we woke up in Jokkmokk, my eyes nearly fell out of my head!! SNOW!! It was white everywhere and was still snowing!! (SW note: the gasp that Eve took as she saw the fresh snow through the window, sucked me out of my bed!) It was just like Christmas in the movies.
After the excitement we ventured out to the Sami museum. Sami are the traditional people of the region and are mostly reindeer herders. After that we had another dagen's lunch (reindeer was the order of the day), walked around the frozen lake and through the snow (still no moose). Yes, our snow angles were funny. We also put a new spin to stone water skipping (see video!). After a long day, we spent the evening in the swedish sauna doing the traditional thing by running under icy cold water every 20 mintues. Refreshing!
The next day was spent
looking for goodies to take home and stocking up on food for our next leg. As it would happen, the locals at the Jokkmokk supermarket were very impressed that we were Aussies, as THE FLYING DOCTORS is currently gracing their TV screens! And they talk about Queenslanders being behind! Very funny! That evening we caught the bus to Haparanda which is on the border to Finland and at last some moose! I was very dissappointed that we couldn't stop, as we were on the bus. However, we did watch a beautiful sunset, even though it never really got dark...
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Wombat
non-member comment
Shopping
I dont think you should shop in supermarkets with stuffed Raindeer? Just seems a bit odd!