Saturday, 11 July
Our final day in Sweden was great.
We stopped at one of the towns where it seemed Antik and
Loppis (antique and flea market) signs were more prevalent than street signs.
At the end of the day we bought a little wooden fishing rod, a trivet,
horseshoe nails, a headlamp that soon will be steam punked, a couple of free
ties and acquired some boar’s bristles for shoe making. One of the places also
had a ‘museum’ of old stuff which was fantastic. A threshing flail, wooden
shovels, snow sleds, amazingly short Lapland spears for bear hunting, nifty,
wooden carrying devices to be placed on your shoulder, a bicycle for the ice
(that Gene named an ‘ice-ycle’*badoom – tish!*) and lots of things from the day
of yore. We also read that Hitler was dead.
One of the things we have noticed in Sweden is a healthy
appreciation for older cars. On the weekends we’ve been here, the highways have
been filled with convoys of classic cars, mainly American from the 50s to the
70s. It’s a welcome distraction. They go well with the Swedish Rockabilly CD I
bought.
We’ve travelled further north than any Barnes (or Sutton on
Dee’s side) we know of, about 100km from the Arctic Circle. We stopped at the
town of Tore, the most northern town on our travels, to pick up milk, morning
tea and cider and take the opportunity of a photo of us with a the town’s name
in the background. Finding the town’s name on something was the hardest part of
the visit (not including making verbal comments about the lack of DNA variety
in the area).
Just before we crossed the border to Finland, we saw a
bi-plane on the side of the road and decided to visit. It was a military
disposal shop but the owner and his friend has a passion of making things out
of wood. The Bi-plane, ET and flying saucer, a WW1 tank, Captain Jack Sparrow,
a US jeep and Snoopy flying his Sopwith kennel were all made of wood. We also bought
a pair of rubber goggles (we’re thinking Minion or Steam punk for Gene), a
ladle so I can properly serve the thin gruel I cook for the girls and a metal
whistle. 2 quick blasts indicate that I’m now annoying Dee.
J
J
We crossed over to Finland without any fanfare and stopped
at the first petrol station to check out the fuel prices and enjoy a morning
tea. The changes from one country to another were quite profound (or I was just
looking for them). First up, the people looked different. Gone were the commonly
seen blond and tanned Swedes. Now we saw a far more dark-haired and paler
population with more ‘elfin’ facial features. Seeing them instantly reminded me
of 2 brother whose father is Finnish and a friend who may have Finnish
ancestry. I’ll check that up later….
They also have fennel doughnuts.
Basically, Finland is a marsh (although a very beautiful
one). Where there aren’t forests, you have lakes, rivers and fields so heavily
engineered with drainage canals they are rarely more than 50m wide without
being separated by a deep ditch. The roads are also a fair bit higher than the
normal land, so I’m not keen on pulling off onto anything that isn’t bitumen.
It’s also the home to a billion billion mosquitoes.
Entering Finland in the afternoon did 2 things I wasn’t
expecting: 1. The GPS took the initiative and thought to change the screen
settings to ‘night’ which made it very hard to read (I think it’s also ironic
as the sun doesn’t set until after 11 and it’s still light at midnight) and, 2.
We changed time zones again bringing us an hour closer to Australia (only 7
hours now).
Unfortunately, the camping site we were planning on stopping
at was full for campervans and caravans, so we parked in the large lot right
next to the site and the Gulf of Bothnia. We enjoyed a dinner at the health
resort across the road, making fun comments about the Tin Tin movie on the TV
(TV!TV!TV! ), the users of the pool and sauna viewed through the window and the
teenage boys who were dressed like some Justin Bieber fan club.
Sunday, 12 July
As today is Sunday, most interesting places are closed but
we found some farm that did coffee. We saw the normal farm animals of horses,
chickens, sheep, rabbits, a goat and a pig. We also succumbed and bought some
hand spun wool to make nalbind goodness out of in some point in the future.
Looking at my handy-dandy excel program that I use to
account for our fuel and budget, I realised we are now 54% through our entire
trip and halfway through our journey with Springy. I’m now making cunning plans
for the eventual sale of Springy, probably on Gumtree. I’m also thinking of
creating a Youtube clip on the various workings of Springy to make people as
aware as they can be prior to us coming to London as we have only a few days to
sell her before leaving for New York. All I need is a video camera……..
We’re now resting at Majoniemi, a lake-side camping site in
the middle of nowhere. Far too many horror movies have been set in places like
this………
The afternoon was spent trying to fix one of the side blinds.
We successfully reattached the mechanism as it was falling off but we couldn’t
make the mosquito netting roll back up again. Only a half punch of my man card
today. I tried to make up for it by taping up the gaps around the fridge and
seeing if I can also fix the back door’s lock (success on the former but not on
the latter).
Tomorrow we are heading south, halfway to Helsinki.
Hopefully, the antique shops will be open along the way to appease Dee.
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