ROAD TRIP (Day 2) - the first stage

There were moments when we had real doubts that we would be able to fit everything into the car. We were already talking about what we could leave behind, if we had too. We thought food was probably best, because it was the easiest to buy along the way. Despite our fears however, we managed to squeeze every last bag into the car. And off we went!

We headed north along the coast towards Helsingborg... or at least so I thought. At some point, I realised that some of the road signs were looking a bit familiar. They were familiar because we often pass them en route to our golf course, which is in Lund and therefore to the east of Malmö and inland. I asked. "Yeah", says my travel companion who was driving, "we are heading to Lund." Hmm... Referring to my handy road atlas, I selected a route to cut across the countryside to the motorway which we were supposed to be one. It wasn´t really a big deal. We did not lose much time, and other than occasionally being stuck behind and not being able to overtake some painfully slow vehicle, it was a nice drive. 

I have no idea how long the drive took us, but we eventually reached Sandjöfors some time later. Sweden is really a land of lakes. We both like the water very much, and always enjoy landscapes with a a water feature, so lakes, rivers, canals, waterfalls, creeks, streams, ponds... and of course, the sea. We often exclaim in excitement (me) and point out to each other (he points out to me) lakes and rivers and etc. we see on our drives. On this trip, we reckon we must have seen 120 lakes, rivers, canals, and ponds. It sounds like an exaggeration. Perhaps it is. We might not have actually seen that many, but I have no doubt whatsoever that we passed more. My handy road atlas was riddled with little blue spots all over the place.

Lovely though they may be to look at, the thousands of lakes do not make navigation easy though. The thousands of lakes meant that there are thousands of little towns named after lakes. So almost every landmark or checkpoint on our route had the word lake in it. "Lake" is sjö in Swedish. Sjö might look difficult to pronounce at first glance, in reality it is worse! Between one who just learnt Swedish and has not figured out the pronunciation of sjö and the other who speaks no Swedish but had a good enough ear for languages to figure out that what I said the first time sounded slightly different from what I said when asked to repeat it, we had a good laugh ...and a heated discussion or two.  

Some time later, I have no idea how much time, we arrived at Sandsjöfors where we stayed with Anya and Daniel at Daniel´s family´s sommerstuga (summer house). It was really nice out there, idyllic and peaceful, but will not write about that now, as my travel companion is back from his shower and we are about to set off into Stockholm. 

A quick summary of the trip so far:

Day 1 - set off from Malmö, arrive at Sandjöfors. Overnight at Uppsjön where the sommerstuga is. 

Day 2 - set off after breakfast with Anya and Daniel (and a shower at their place) towards Stockholm. First, we stopped at a shop in Marrianelund which makes their own candy - very yummy!! 

We also stopped for a walk / hike around the Norra Kvills nationalpark, which is an old untouched forest, which lots of huge boulders covered in moss. Very cool! Two hours later, we continued on the journey to Stockholm, where we are now. We stayed at our campsite by the Mälaren (Stockholm´s largest lake, and third largest in Sweden) and had a barbecue last night and will be heading into Stockholm for the first time today.