Category: Campsites

Info and pictures about campsites (or places I stayed/camped)

What I miss most about my flat..

Being able to crawl out of bed, go to the toilet and be back in bed and asleep in a couple of minutes, before I’m properly awake.

No deciding if I really need to go. No getting dressed, no walking across a muddy field, no trying to figure out which toilets are currently in use. No guessing which of the remaining still have toilet paper left. No opening and closing of wet tent doors, no dripping condensation onto my pillow. No waiting for my feet to dry before I can get back in my sleeping bag.

Having a toilet less than 10m away instead of almost 500m away, and not going outside to get there is an awesome thing 🙂

G’night folks (again)

Shopping and feasting (soon)

Sometimes you make sure you have enough food to get you to the next supermarket.

Sometimes you crash and don’t make it to the place you were aiming for.

Sometimes you take an extra day to hobble, wince and recover.

Sometimes you really don’t fancy another round of currants and nuts and sweetcorns.

Sometimes your nearest shop is a campsite kiosk..

Blackboard: ‘In our fridge/freezer we stock: …’
Can’t remember the last time I had my shopping packed into a plastic bag..
Not bad for a campsite shop..
Sia, you make good icecream, work on your packaging!
I’ll cook soon.. but first: icecream 🙂

Email: obstacles

Just got an ‘encouraging email’*:

“You’re cruising along on the way to your awesome goal… and then along comes a sudden storm warning…

What do you do?

Do you complain, sulk and get angry about your *uncontrollable* situation?

Or do you relax, accept the fact you’ll be delayed for a little while, and enjoy the challenge?

We all face unexpected storms. Sometimes metaphorical, and sometimes real ones!

Remember: “The obstacle in the way, IS the way ” – Ryan Holiday”

It was written by someone who was given an actual stormwarning last night. Kind of fits for my crash too..

I’m going to embrace not going anywhere today and alternately sit in the sun and on my swing and catch up with uploading pictures to the blog. And later I’m going to take advantage of the kitchen and make a campsite shop dinner special.

* I signed up for a newsletter a million years ago. Sometimes he has great things to say.

Beachraking

…because beachcombing is so last season ;p

My phone was almost dead (7%) and my powerbanks all empty when I woke up (the second time) this morning.

-> time to find a plug…

The ‘kitchen’ has a microwave and a 2-ring hob, and therefore two plug sockets -> I put my phone and a powerbank on charge and went to sit in the sun. I didn’t want to leave them and go too far away, and an hour isn’t that long…

I watched the grasshoppers and the ants and the dragonflies. I moved between the sun and the shade on the bench, then went to the log pile. I stretched a bit, looked around a bit, went to check on the phone…

“12%”

Joy.

“2 hours until full”

More joy.

I went back to my woodpile.

And then people appeared on the beach.

People with rakes and a wheelbarrow.

(Even in Sweden this isn’t normal beachgoing paraphernalia)

I watched more closely for a few minutes. It was an ‘older’* couple collecting seaweed/seagrass. She’d scoop some out with the rake and pile it up on the sand, while he’d pick it up with a pitchfork and fill the wheelbarrow.

The beach is quite long and there was a lot of seaweed.

I felt ridiculously lazy siting and watching them..

..and it wasn’t like I had anything better to do..

..so I left my woodpile and wandered over to the beach.

“Can I do that?”

She turned to look at me as if I’d just landed from Mars.

“Can I do that?” I asked again and put my hand out, gesturing for the rake.

I assumed she’d give me the rake and split the work on making and gathering piles with her (presumably) husband. Instead, she pointed at the loo block. “There’s another rake on the wall….”

The three of us worked in relative silence, punctuated by the occasional question in my direction; where are you going next, are you cycling the whole way by yourself, what do you do when you’re not cycling, … ?

Then a fourth person joined in. He nodded at me and said something in Swedish that could have meant anything from, ‘I’m joining in too’ to, ‘I’ll show you how it’s done properly’ to, ‘it’s a great day for seaweed fishing’ – I had no idea. When I asked him to say it again in English he shrugged and carried on raking. I think he might be the only Swede I’ve met this trip that hasn’t spoken English.. He was helpful though, we could round up the weed and drag it to shore from both sides without it scattering completely.

A good two hours later she announced that they were going to stop for lunch.

“I’m so grateful for your help! You can stay here tonight for free.* And yesterday.”

“Wow! Thank you! That’s great!”

*thinks*

“Are you going home for lunch? If you’re going to be here for a bit can I change some money for the shower?”

She took 3 coins out of her pocket, “Here. Is that enough?”

“Um. I don’t know.. how long do they last?”

“4 minutes.”

“Then I’d rather have 4, just in case…”

“Here”

“Perfect! Thank you, I’ll just go and get my purse to swap”

“No. That’s ok. Enjoy your shower”

10kr shower coins

There’s something very soothing about paddling in warm water with a rake, fishing out the seaweed and the algae.

Time for a shower and a change of clothes now tho 🙂

My powerbank had reached the dizzy heights of ~25%, my phone had at least got to 83%.

* I’m really not good at guessing ages, but they were (very) well over 50..

Too cold (and too sober) to be cool

[N.B. this was written in my head and started on screenpaper when I got back. I fell asleep between uploading the pictures and finishing the text so I finished writing after the evening and backdated to fit]

Someone was singing here when I rode past. Sounded pretty good so I made a note to put on a dress and come back once the tent was up.

Once the tent was up and I’d unpacked a bit, I was tired and cold and kind of sticky. I wanted a shower and to curl up in a ball somewhere soft and warm. I didn’t want to ‘people’. I could hear the music from the campsite, I didn’t need to go anywhere.

I unpacked my shampoo and my comb and my towel and put on my flipflops and my cycling jersey-windstopper-combi so I could leave the relative warmth of the tent..

..and then I put my shower stuff down and zipped up the tent door and walked along the beach to the party.

Like you do.

It wasn’t actually cold, probably 19 or 20 degrees, and there was a good path directly from the campsite to the bar. It mostly wasn’t actually on the beach, but so close it makes no difference. It was dark, but not so dark that you couldn’t see the white sand of the path against the dark of the grass next to the path. There was no mistaking the direction either – the music was loud enough to be heard from the campsite a good kilometre and got louder the closer I got, although there were a few competing stereos on the piers..

15 minutes later I was there:

View from the side. Right the band, left and middle all the drunk people..

The first people I noticed outside were so drunk that even wiggly lines were difficult. What looked fun earlier was now distinctly not fun-looking. The beachy-look had been exchanged for a ‘going out’ look. My bike kit might have been a tiny bit odd earlier but now it really really didn’t fit in. But I was there and so was the music and turning round and going home seemed wimpier than I wanted to be. So I looked for somewhere to sit that wasn’t inside.

The third pallet-bench was free part from the backpack to one side, so I sat on it. That meant the band was behind me and that felt stupid so I turned round and knelt on the cushion and leaned over the ‘fence’. That gave me a super view of the guitar players and all the drunk people around them.

One of the drunk people leaned over the fence from the inside and asked if I didn’t want to come in properly (which in retrospect and in a different mood might have been fun) but I absolutely didn’t. She turned back to her friends at her table and poured everyone more of whatever they were drinking.

View from behind. There’s a barrier between the umbrellas and the pallet chairs.

Half an hour later the bands (they swapped every 10-15 minutes) had all finished.

Background music was turned on and the general noise of people ‘talking’ drowned it out.

I got up and walked back to my tent, picked up my shower things and went to the shower block to discover that the shower block was open but the showers only worked with 5 SEK coins of which I had precisely none.

I gave up and after a ‘Katzenwäsche’ came back to the tent..

..and was asleep more or less instantly.

Night swimming :)

Isn’t this awesome?

So still, and such pretty sunset colours 🙂

The pier past the seaweed starts close to the tent so I took my icecream to have a look before deciding to go back for my cozzie.

Took some pictures too ;p

Campsite, from the end of the pier
To the left, featuring the campsite’s second pier
To the right
No jumping, but I did turn around. The bushes on the right are on a tiny island

10 minutes later I was in the [ridiculously warm] water 🙂

Luckily a family had the same idea so I wasn’t swimming by myself 🙂 and if very little kids can swim for 20 minutes at 10pm I can too..

Slightly antisocial?

“You can put your tent here” she said, waving her arms in the general direction of a patch of grass.

“Here?” I asked, “in the middle?”

“Yeah. Just here somewhere” she sounded like she thought she was repeating herself. “You can come back to the reception when you’ve set up.”

She walked off, presumably back to reception.

I took my pizza and headed toward the water and a bench.

If I’m given a rock hard patch of slightly slopey, well driven over grass, I’ll choose the best bit and the best angle for my tent.

Does feel a bit antisocial to put it up right where people want to walk though..

(Did keep the guy ropes short)

Wild camping

You know, I could get used to this wild camping malarkey..

Look at this:

“You can use the toilet..”
“..and the kitchen..”
“..have a good night!”

My hostess seems to be really well prepared for unprepared guests 😉

My brother isn’t convinced:

Sitting here with my roast beef and stuffed peppers, my powerbanks charging in the background, I think I have to agree…

..it is gloriously civilised camping 🙂

Getting lucky

No one should be this lucky, but I am SOO glad that I am 🙂

Less than 3km after I set off to ‘anywhere’ I found a farm.

I asked if I could stay and they said I could.

Turns out they have 4 rental properties and are inundated with guests but have a freshly mown orchard I can sleep on.

Wheee!!

And here I am.

And it’s early enough that putting the tent up in sunglasses isn’t a problem..

There’s also a loo and a kitchen…and kitchens mean plugs and plugs mean electricity for powerbanks and laptops 🙂

Oh man, do I have it good 🙂

Checking out late (and chocolate)

In the middle of packing up my stuff I looked at the time and realised I had 5 minutes to check out.

And until the loo card would stop working.

I dropped everything, picked up my purse and the Super Important Things and went to the loo.

Luckily the reception is right next door to the loo block.

I arrived with possibly half a minute to spare if you were being generous.

After I’d paid for the night, the lady did something with the card, “you have 3 showers left, do you want a chocolate?”

Took me a while and a bit of questioning to figure out she was serious.*

Um?

Do I want chocolate?

Is that a question?

Yes..

Yes I do.

So I took one 🙂

1 bar of chocolate? That’ll be 3 showers please..

The end.

Almost. I still have to pack the tent and actually leave.

* as opposed to certain people who ask if I want cookies when I feel I’ve done good things..