ROAD TRIP (Day 6) - animal spotting

Our second attempt at camping in the wild was decidedly much more successful than the first. We were maintaining our north heading on the E4 minding our own business, when we saw a sign proclaiming: “The E4 is boring! Take the coastal road instead!” with a giant arrow towards the right. We thought it was very helpful of them to point this out to travellers and holiday makers. And like any other gullible, scenic route seeking drivers, we were persuaded. A few kilometres in along this “coastal road” we chanced upon a bathing spot at a lake. This was just before the village of Hällan, north of Hudiksvall. There was a parking area, picnic tables and benches and a changing area. We spontaneously decided to set up camp there for the night. This spot was actually perfect. We were barely 5 metres from the water, the lake was peaceful. There was no wind; compared to the night before, hardly any mosquitoes; no people except for a couple of Polish fishermen who left after a few hours: it was perfect. We made ourselves some dinner of pasta with some wild mushrooms, which we bought from a street market on one of our stops earlier in the day, and settled in for the night. I say ‘night’ but the reality is that we are far enough north now that dusk blends straight into dawn with no night in between.

At some point in the morning, I was awoken by a loud “moo…” The cows in a pasture across the street from where we were, were now out and about. I tried to go back to sleep. Then I heard a subtle “harrummpphh…” very close to the tent. My mind, suddenly wide awake, exclaimed: “Horse!” I immediately disagreed with myself though. ‘What would a horse be doing here?’ I thought. Besides, what horse harrumphs subtly anyways? I set about the business of going back to sleep.  Sometime later, “harrummpphh…” This time I decided I was too lazy to get out of my warm sleeping back to check out the horse. I told myself that if I do not go out and see it, I would not actually know that there was a horse grazing outside our tent. Eventually, I could not stand it anymore. I was not going back to sleep just listening out for sounds of this horse. I crawled out of my sleeping bag, put some warm clothes on, grabbed my camera and got out of the tent. There was no horse. There closest animal to us were the cows in the pasture across the street. Do cows harrumph? I decided they must do. That would explain why it sounded subtle to me. Yes, that is definitely the explanation. The alternative would be that I had created a horse and its sounds in my head, and convinced myself of its existence. I was nevertheless glad that I got up. I love early morning photography. The light over the lake was beautiful. I took a few photos, and a few of the cows and went back to sleep.

When we eventually set off again later that day, we continued along this coastal road. Occasionally we met another car, obviously also a tourist lured onto the road by the promise of a coast. It was not to be seen. At least, they were very liberal with the definition of “coastal road”. Yes, it would have been possible to turn off into dead end side roads which head to the coast. Yes, it would have also been possible to park our car along the road somewhere and hike to the coast. And yes, we did occasionally see the sea at a turning or through gaps in the trees. For the most part though, what we saw were trees, trees, and more trees. Grumble though we did about false advertising, we had no regrets. The road was a lot quieter, the scenery was nice and there was a good photo-op or two, which usually silences any complaints from me. Also, as we were driving along this “coastal road”, out on to the road hopped a little fox with his (I’ve decided it was a “he”) big white tipped tail, lopped for a bit on the road about 100 metres in front of us before hopping off into the undergrowth on the other side. We saw a fox!

The next night, we stopped at a camping site. That was necessary for reasons relating to personal hygiene, functionality of battery operated equipment and water supply. Simply put, we needed to shower, charge our phones, camera batteries and computer. Three nights and hundreds of kilometres north of Stockholm, there were barely any Germans to be seen on this campsite. It was a undoubtedly a Swedish holiday destination. There was another car from Hamburg there. They and a solitary hiker who´s compact sleeping bag, sleeping mat, and tent fit into / onto his rucksack were the only other ones en route with a tent. Everyone else were with campervans, caravans, mobile-homes and such like. We never saw the Hambung campers, but us and the loner hiker brought the average age down by half. Much to my delight, tied to a pole of one of the campervans was a cat! It has obviously been allowed to come along on the holiday. It made me miss my Midnight. 

The trip so far:

Day 1 – Sandsjöfors

Day 2 – Stockholm

Day 3 – Stockholm

Day 4 – Övre Hedesundsfjärden

Day 5 – Close to Hällan
Day 6 - Close to Docksta