3. Heading Seriously Northwards – early June 2015

We’re now over halfway between the most southerly and the most northerly parts of Sweden which is a very long way and it is now starting to feel more remote, empty and untamed.  Malmo in the south to Kiruna in the north is about 2000 kms (approx. 1250 miles) by road.  That’s about the same as Calais to Lisbon but we did 1000 kms to get from Dunkirk to Malmo on top of that and we plan to drive home too.  Yes, it’s mad.

Coming up through Denmark we had a close encounter of the stone hitting windscreen kind.  It was very low, nothing apparently happened and we carried on driving, but then three or four days later I noticed a large chip and a crack along the bottom of the screen.  We marked the end of it with some insulation tape and annoyingly it grew an inch a day.  So while our insurance company assure us that it won’t shatter and it’s our choice whether to get it fixed now or when we get home, we don’t know if this is illegal in Sweden or Norway or come to that Denmark, Germany or The Netherlands either.  Plus with the temperature extremes we expect to encounter in an area where windscreen repair places are probably few and far between it might be awkward.  Actually, everything is few and far between here so we decide to get a replacement.  All very efficient, beautifully spoken English by the local glass representative but having decided we were going to miss out on the Baltic, guess where we have to go to get the screen replaced.  Yes, we have to drop down to the Baltic coast to get it done, a few hundred kilometres we weren’t expecting.   I say everything is few and far between but as an example our sat nav which H has decided to call Flossie will provide instructions such as drive 170 miles and take second exit at roundabout (ie straight on) and continue for 45 miles, then take second exit at roundabout.

It’s funny how quickly we get used to the new stuff we see and I imagine this is the same for everyone.  Only a day or so back we saw Reindeer for the first time.  They were just crossing the road and we jammed on the brakes to watch them.  They have a lovely greyish tan hide with black antlers and great ungainly looking feet which I imagine must help when they walk in snow.  The best description I can think of is that they look like someone walking in slippers that are far too big for them.   Big doe-like eyes and a sizable nose, although no red ones yet.  Now we have them on our campsite grazing ten yards or so away and they barely warrant a glance.  They are farmed animals but rather more like hill sheep than standard farm animals, so they roam.  These are herd animals unlike the Moose which is solitary and is much bigger and so far we’ve only seen two of.   Crossing the road slowly with a haughty, supercilious look down their nose they’re a bit like Charles de Gaulle in his prime.

According to the Rough Guide, a scenic route called The Wilderness Road is highly recommended and we decide that this will usefully use the time before our screen is fixed.  This is a 370 km (250 mile) route which approaches the Norwegian border and reaches 875 metres (about 3000 feet) as it crosses the Stekenjokk Plateau.  It’s normally closed by snow until 6 June but we want to drive it on the 3^rd/4^th/5^th and fortunately this year they ploughed it a week early so it is open.  They must’ve known we were on our way.  The Info. Centre at one of the towns nearby was excellent, the woman working there spoke fluent English as always and the set up was very good.  A garden outside with many alpine and local plants showed very clearly that we were too early to see much in bloom and a really well laid out interior covered local life from the past plus some information about the local wildlife.  I noted some of the descriptions of old time food from times when it really was bad.  So here’s a menu for you.

Cheese Porridge – If the milk is ‘blue-sour’ the curds will be as chewy as rubber.  Chew it into crumbs and spit it into the pot.  The porridge is used as butter on bread.   

Knadaost – Protect the cheese from flies otherwise it will be full of maggots.  If it is full of maggots, eat it anyway or people will think you’re ‘picky’.

Blood Pancakes – The blood from the autumn slaughter (of reindeer) smells bad towards the summer but you can get it down your throat as blood pancakes.    

We’ve not eaten out much.  However, one of the things still apparently eaten as a ‘delicacy’ is tinned fish which is left to go off, which you know because the tin begins to bulge and then this rotten fish is eaten a little at a time.   We’ve seen it on sale.

It is a spectacular drive as we climb slowly seeing a little more snow by the roadsides and then some more, the trees which by now are mostly stunted and twisted birch also begin to thin out.  A partly white Arctic Hare hopped across the road in front of us.  All the grasses and low vegetation have that sodden flattened look that they get after a recent release from months of snow cover.  The lakes have ice floes on them and the many rivers also have ice and snow in them.   The dangers of walking out on a melting landscape are obvious.  Many of the streams are bridged by snow, so go through that and it would be a lot more serious than a damp sock.  As it happens this entire area is closed to people during the nesting season because of the prevalence of egg collecting.  Eventually we clear the treeline and the tarmac and drive on gravel, still rising.   It is wonderful and towards the highest point, just before we pass the signs saying Lappland, the drifts at the side of the road are higher than the van, perhaps 4 metres or so.  The regular rain we’ve had everywhere else is missing here and the precipitation begins to fall as snow for a while.   So naturally we stop for tea and cake and a young woman cycles past us to her car.  Her bike has hugely wide tyres and is set up for going over snow but it must be uncomfortable in this weather.

We’ve decided that the next proper site is too far and are going to wild-camp instead in the country at the edge of Stekenjokk.   It’s allowed in Sweden subject to a few provisos which essentially translate as “don’t be a bloody nuisance”.   Wild-camping is basically just stopping somewhere off the road but not on a proper campsite and as we’re fully self contained we’re OK.  This van has a shower room with lavatory and handbasin, fiercely efficient diesel central heating, very adequate cooking and is properly insulated.  Our electricity is supplied by battery topped up by a solar panel which when exposed to 20 plus hours of daylight has no trouble in keeping fully charged.  We’ve just dropped down from the high plateau at 3000 feet, past the partly frozen rivers and have found a very pleasant spot 20 yards or so just off the hardly used road.  There are snow capped hills all around us, piles of snow next to the van and a river tumbling along 20 feet or so below us.  It’s time for a pre-dinner drinky, so because we’re in Scandinavia, mine’s a gin and tonic with a squeeze of lemming.

It’s a perfect quiet spot.  Then a couple of cars pull up and out get several men armed with binoculars who scan the hillside behind us for ten minutes or so and drive off.  A little later some more arrive looking in the same place.   In the morning at about 7.15 some more arrive with telescopes on tripods so I wander over and find out there are Rough-legged Buzzards up thar.  These are at the southern end of their breeding range and obviously worth seeing.  These last birders have Swarowski scopes and have therefore spent a lot of money on glass.  I think a pair of decent Swarowski bins can leave you with not much change from £2000, so they’re not at all like the crystals of the same name.  We didn’t see the Buzzards but we did see a beautiful pair of Bluethroats, looking a bit like Robins with a blue instead of red breast.   A big Red Fox wandered through as well.  I think it’s the same species we get but bigger, about the height of a German Shepherd but looking a little longer.

This is a really lovely spot.  The hills to our west are steep and rocky and obviously considered a good spot by Rough-legged Buzzards.  To our east the hills are more rounded and covered in snow which picks up the late sunshine, quite literally for hours.  They still glow pink in the sunlight at 11.00pm as we go to bed.   I know we’re a long way north and days are long but it is difficult to reconcile the sun shining with it being so late in the evening.  It just doesn’t feel anywhere near bedtime.   We’ve seen plenty of tropical sunsets where the sun drops at right angles to the horizon and night appears as if in the blink of an eye at 6.00pm.  Here the sun approaches the horizon at a angle more reminiscent of a stone being skimmed across a pond and a few hundred miles further north of here it won’t even dip below the horizon.  That means of course that instead of crossing into Norway with our extra stash of booze under cover of darkness, it’ll have to be under cover of lightness.