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  Scandinavian road trip
Sat 26th July 2014   
After some hectic week-ends spent converting the car to a mini camper-van, we were finally ready for our road trip around Norway and Sweden.

The original idea was to start by Sweden, but we had to change the plans and spend the first week in Kristiansund.

This was a nice way to test the car's ability to run fine on a long stretch of road!


Oslo to Kristiansund
Oslo to Kristiansund

Kristiansund

This Monday is the 14th of July, France's national celebration day!

We start the inverter and fridge, fill the car with all our stuff, and make sure everything is safely anchored: We start the trip with 77536 kilometers shown on the dashboard.

Will it rain?
Will it rain?
After the beautiful week-end we had, the sky now look like quite dramatically cloudy, hopefully it will not rain.

The first part of the trip is pretty event-less, mostly trying to negotiate through road works and reduced speed sections.

The positive thing: We are not the slowest vehicle on the road!

After about 100 km driving at a snail's pace we decide to have a stop at Bolleland, a Shell Station which is famous for its Espa-Boller1.
World's best bollers
World's best bollers

We continue toward the north, with the sky getting more and more menacing.

Then the rain starts, and we discover that despite all our previous fixes the wind-shield seal is still not water tight.

Water drips from many places and threatens to enter the 12v outlet powering the GPS.

We start a team effort, involving pushing and replacing batches of paper towels around the wind-shield.

Definitely not fun.

Emmergency stop
Emmergency stop
At some point, a combination of rain pouring, speed camera warnings, fighting water leaks and general stress made me cross the center line of the road... scaring the hell out of us as well as the camper van that was coming toward us.

That was a reason good enough to take a break.

We considered trying to put duct tape all around the wind-shield, but that would probably not have helped much.

It's kind of a shame that the weather was that bad, because there was some pretty nice photo opportunities, including random point and shoot from the roof :)

Water
Water
The road toward Trollveggen2 is long, sinuous, and packed with caravans and campers.

For some strange reason, every time we stop somewhere, people are looking at us :)

The worse of the rain has passed, and we are now able to drive in much better conditions.

Next stop: Molde.



Set sail!
Set sail!
First we have to take the ferry to cross the fjord.

Few tunnels and bridges later we finally reach Kristiansund.

I will not detail what we did there, but basically we visited family and friends and had a good time :)

While we were there, we tried to get the wind-shield fixed at a local bodywork and glass repair specialist, but they did not have the necessary parts and were not able to do anything.

Fix it! Fix it!
Fix it! Fix it!
It was fortunate that we came with a large cargo capacity because we had to take with us a bunch of things that were not planned, such as a giant3 stash of Legos :)

I'm not quite sure about what we will do with them.

Build a miniature replica of the car?

Create an automated vaccum cleaner?

A toy for the cat?

Bring them at work?

Ready to go
Ready to go

Time to leave for our first real camping event!





Kristiansund to Nidelven camping
Kristiansund to Nidelven camping

Nidelven

If there's something to say about the road between Kristiansund and Trondheim, is that it does not lack of tunnels.

Tunnel #3742
Tunnel #3742
I was in the back of the car trying to read, and every few minutes I would be in the dark :p

That was the first time we actually drove with somebody in the back, which at first is a bit unnerving considering there are no seat belts, but all in all it works pretty ok4.

(This vehicle is street legal with up to seven persons on board)





Sunny crossing
Sunny crossing
We had a second ferry crossing, which is always appreciated to have when the weather is beautiful!

We were originally planning to sleep in a camping in Trondheim, but when we arrived there it was closed, so we had to find another one.

Since the GPS apparently knows all about campings, restaurants and other points of interest5, that was not much of a problem.


A nice river, but definitely cold
A nice river, but definitely cold
Some more small stops along the road, and we soon reach our destination, the Nidelven Camping.

The camping is at the end of a very tortuous and narrow road.

The place is tidy and tiny, it has all the necessary appliances (showers, internet, ...) and it's possible to swim in the river that passes along... if you can handle sub-zero temperatures!

I tried, and all I managed was to get into the water up to my thighs, before leaving the water defeated :p

This first camping stop also allowed us to test if it was physically possible to have 2 adults and a child sleep in the camper.

It's possible, but definitely not optimal!

Tomorrow, we cross the border to Sweden :)

WIFI hunting
WIFI hunting





From Nidelven camping to Östersund
From Nidelven camping to Östersund

Östersund

After a less that optimal night, we take our breakfast in the sun, get showered, and then we leave for our next destination; Stjørdal, where we will leave our little third passenger for the rest of her holidays.
Outdoor toys
Outdoor toys

I can now sit in the front again, which is definitely nicer considering it tends to get warm fast in the back.

We continue on the road in direction of Åre, "one of Scandinavia’s best mountain resorts".

The closer we get from the Norwegian-Swedish border, the higher we climb, the drier the landscape become.

The road itself is pretty relaxing, we barely see any vehicle, and we happen to cross the border almost without noticing it!

Åre
Åre
There's not much to say about Åre as we only stopped for about ten minutes, but it definitely looks like a typical alpine ski station, complete with mountain range on one side and lake on the other.

It looks like a very nice place, which probably explain the large number of Norwegian licence plates on the cars all over the area :)

Continuing toward Östersund we pass over Storsjön (The Great Lake), the fifth largest lake in Sweden6, and home of a monster sea creature called Storsjöodjuret (The Great-Lake Monster).

I did not manage to take a photo of the monster, but I do have some highly detailed macro-photos of insects colliding at high velocity with a transparent surface.

Few dozen kilometers later we finally arrive at Östersund, and we stop by the city center to indulge ourself in a delicious Swedish Asiatic restaurant!

Mine is shorter than yours!
Mine is shorter than yours!
We then check-in at the Östersunds Stugby & Camping, which despite its four-star rating is definitely the most boring place we have been during all the trip.

The location of the camping is not particularly awesome, but it's one of the largest in Sweden, and it has everything you can think of, including cable-tv and aquatic park.

The most interesting thing was the sheer number of custom made campers: Converted buses and trucks (complete with color matching trailers for the motorbikes or quads) as well as American vans with chromes and custom paint jobs were all over the place.

All in all, definitely the less interesting part of the trip.

Next stop, the Baltic Sea!





From Östersund to Sundsvall
From Östersund to Sundsvall

Sundsvall

The road from Östersund to Sundsvall gives us a first glance at what nice roads looks like!

Fläsian
Fläsian
So far we have been mostly driving on single lane roads, with hardly any place to pass over slow cars, and the highest authorized speed was 90 km per hour.

But now we had these nice roads, with up to 110 km in some areas, and large areas to pass over cars.

The roads goes fast, and we soon arrive at Fläsians Camping & Stugby.

From where we park the car, we have a direct view on the Sea, it even smells like holidays!

Fläsian
Fläsian
The camping is small, and is ideally placed on the Baltic sea and offers a blend of sandy beaches, a small peninsula covered by trees and bushes ideal if you want to have some quality time far from everybody else.

The bottom line is: Do not trust the number of stars the place is given; the most boring place will get full stars if it's clean and provide all the right facilities.




Swimming in the Baltic sea
Swimming in the Baltic sea

Another interesting thing was that there was almost no mosquitoes or other types of blood-sucking annoyances.

In the evening I met two couples (from France and Belgium) going to the North Cap on motorbikes, they seemed to enjoy their trip so far and asked me plenty of questions about life in Norway... I may have been too negative in regard to my judgment of French people abroad ;)

If you plan to go there yourself, be aware that the access to the camping is kind of rough: You have to go through a small road which is both quite steep downhill and with a tight curve.

That may be a problem for very long campers or caravans.

What's sure is that I enjoyed my time there, the water was nice and warm, and the barbecue was tasteful!

Hopefully the next camping tomorrow will be as nice as that one.





From Sundsvall to Ängskär
From Sundsvall to Ängskär

Ängskär

Next morning, we say good bye to Fläsian and start our journey toward the southern part of the country, following the coastal road.

Overdrive propulsion engaged!
Overdrive propulsion engaged!
The road is fast and furious, and for the first time we got to experience the thrill of using off-road tires on asphalt at almost 110 km/h.

The sun is shining hard, and we have to do few stops along the way to buy fresh drinks, and at one of the service station we meet a dutch couple in their camper and then drive off again.

They were driving down from the north cap and will end up to be our neighbors in the next camping.

We originally planned to stop at Gävle, but decided to drive a bit farther to another coastal camping, Ängskärs HavsCamping in the protected natural reserve of Bondskäret.

1965 VW Kombi
1965 VW Kombi
This was another good choice.

The camping was fully renovated during the previous year, with all new sanitaries, mini-shop, and snack area.

As in Fläsian it provided a blend of forest and sandy beaches.

Parked in front of us was a beautiful 1965 Volkswagen Kombi.

I had a conversation with the owner on how he managed to connect an awning, and was allowed to take photos of his ingenious system, we are definitely going to do something similar at some point!

Natural reserve
Natural reserve
There was some other unusual vehicles in the camping.

Close to our car was a bright yellow Corvette, and a bit farther was an old looking caravan attached to a brand new shiny black Hummer H3 pickup!

More swimming, more barbecuing, some talking with our Dutch neighbors and it was time to go to bed.

Tomorrow, destination Stockholm!





From Ängskär to Stockholm
From Ängskär to Stockholm

Stockholm

Using the GPS, we found out that the best way to reach Stockholm is to drive to Tierp and then follow the E4 highway through Uppsala.

You shall not pass!
You shall not pass!
Since the coastal road was nice so far, we decide instead to follow the coast through Östhammar and Hallstavik and then only drive back to the E18.

And there we go, on roads not large enough for two cars to pass at the same time.

We cross even narrower bridges, path through farms, and finally reach a scenic road with two lanes.

Everything look so tidy: No trash, mail boxes are straight, the grass is cleanly cut, all the houses look like they were freshly painted.

No idea what it is, but it looks good
No idea what it is, but it looks good
We go through village after village, each one hiding either some towers, some protected buildings... or some nuclear waste storage facilities!

Yuck.

After a while we reach the E18, and it definitely feels like we are going back to civilization: We actually saw our first Ikea shop in Sweden :)

At this point I have to say that the road is quite boring, like most large cities the area surrounding Stockholm is nothing to talk about; mostly industrial areas and highways and bridges and exit lanes.

Beautifull camping...
Beautifull camping...
So far we had been camping only out of the main places we visited, but since we wanted to actually see Stockholm we decided to park as close as possible from it.

Our wish was granted thanks to Långholmens Husbilscamping, which really is just a parking for camping cars with minimalistic showers and toilets installed.

Still, the place is worth knowing, because location wise it's perfect: Just cross the bridge and you get access to the Hornstull Metro station.

Canal
Canal
As a plus also, is the fact that the camping is located directly across one of the canals, with boats and canoe schools .

One important note though: You cannot just come unannounced. If you plan to stay there you absolutely need to contact them first by either phone or email.

Unfortunately we did not start our visit of Stockholm by the touristic venues, we had to find a 15 meter long electric cable to connect to the camping power.

Gamla stan
Gamla stan
Apparently we had not properly closed the door of the fridge during the last trip, so the fridge had to keep using the compressor for many hours, almost emptying our batteries.

We had to get plugged if we wanted to have a chance to go back to autonomous solar power.

Fortunately there was a Clas Ohlson not too far away and we were able to solve our issue.

Time to visit the city: First, Gamla Stan (The Old Town)
Science Fiction Bokhandeln
Science Fiction Bokhandeln
Gamla Stan covers a pretty large area, and contains both large buildings (castle, cathedral, house of lords, ...) and narrow streets ranging from medieval to 17th century periods.

There are shops and restaurants almost everywhere, and we found our paradise place: Science Fiction Bokhandeln!

If you are a fan of science fiction movies and books, LARPG7 and Cosplay, board games or miniatures, it's all there: It's like Outland8 on steroids.

Palestinian rally
Palestinian rally
We then had a nice diner in an Italian restaurant, continued walking toward Slussen (the harbor area where all the boats and ferries dock).

Time to see the real Stockholm center.

We take the metro to T-centralen and arrive to an area full packed with people listening to a speech organized by a Pro-Palestinian group.

So more walking, photo shooting and it's time to go back to the camping.
Oppulence
Oppulence

When we arrive, the owners of the mini-van next to us are taking the aperitif and point at the car saying it looks cool. In German.

It's a couple from Dresden who's doing a tour of Scandinavia, they only speak German, so they had to use a translation app on their mobile phone to communicate.

Must be very difficult, but apparently they managed.

Then another German tourist comes and ask (in English) if he can take photos of the car with his iPad, and he ask me if I can take a photo of him in front of it.

We start discussing custom vans, he shows me photos he took in Holland of a Peterbilt truck camper with turbo jets installed at the back9, I show him the VW camper photos :)

On the way back from the showers I notice a rental camper with French plates from my home area!

It was a family from Maine et Loire moving up to Cap North (looks like everybody's going there this year), that's a 9000 km trip in total.

Time to go to bed, tomorrow we move back west.





From Stockholm to Örebro
From Stockholm to Örebro

Örebro

Our plans for the day were simple.

Take the E20 road in direction of Strängnäs and visit the Försvarsfordonsmuseum (Military Vehicles Museum), then continue to Strömsholm to visit the local castle, and finally stop in a nice camping at Kristinehamn on the shores of the gigantic Vänern lake.

Montpellier 4x4
Montpellier 4x4
We start driving, and we soon get passed by a French off-road car from Montpellier: I'm not quite sure it's the ideal car to travel in Scandinavia during summer, but at least if a freak snow storm start, they will be able to deal with it :)

The road is quite boring, it's basically just an highway without anything interesting to see, but soon we arrive at Strängnäs and stop at the museum.

We notice a Volvo TGB3010 and decide to park next to it.

Hi dad!
Hi dad!
The Swedish soldiers around the place look at us smiling, I guess it's a good sign; as long as they don't think we are stealing some of the exposition models when we leave :D

The exposition is quite impressive, ranging from very primitive troops transports cars to modern armored vehicles used on UN missions around the world.

They mostly have Swedish vehicles, but they also have a German Tiger11, Russian T-38, Willies Jeep, Radio Communication bus, Artillery pieces, Half Track, Cold War period Trabant car, ... a lot of stuff.

Military Vehicles Museum
Military Vehicles Museum
They also had derivative of our own car (which is the Norwegian variant of the C202).

The exposition has a Volvo 144 (A civilian car which has a B20 engine), a C303 with a Rocket Launcher, and an amphibious variant of the TGB30 with roof mounted exhaust and propeller blades at the rear.

When leaving the museum, I ask to one of the employees if he would know where to find parts for our car, and he pointed us to a place which happen to be red herring.

Strömsholm Castle
Strömsholm Castle
It was not far, so not much time wasted there.

Strömsholm is only at 60 km, we cross the Galten lake, and there we are.

I was expecting a fortress, but it's more like a palace, and it appears to be owned by the Swedish Royal Familly.

We decide to do a last stop in a very posh restaurant (very tasty food), and we are back on the road in direction of Kristinehamn.

Molières komedi Tartuffe
Molières komedi Tartuffe
Since the road is good we literally devour kilometers and soon pass Örebro.

Everything is going pretty well until almost 1 kilometer from Karlskoga we ear a loud bang.

I manage to take a side road and stop the car.

It does not want to start anymore.

There's no particular leaks on the ground, the water level is fine, the oil level is fine as well, the starter engine is working as well.

Like if it was not tall enough...
Like if it was not tall enough...
We suspect a problem with the spark plugs, and indeed there are no sparks coming out when we try.

Ultimately we had to call the road assistance which took about one hour to arrive from Örebro.

The driver followed is usual checklist and tried to get the car running, but after almost two hours, calling his colleagues for advices, he finally gave up and decided to bring the car to their office at Örebro.

Scandic Hotel Örebro Väst
Scandic Hotel Örebro Väst
By the time we arrive, the office and the workshop are closed, so the driver decide to drive us to the local Scandic hotel, and told us he will leave the car at the garage so they can start on it as soon as they can the next day.

We enter in probably one of the least impressive hotels I can think of.

They are renovating it, which means that some things are not working (no air conditioning in the room), there's no tiles on the floor in the restaurant, the door of the lift does not close property, there is noise as well.

On the positive side, the free Internet line is working fine, and the restaurant food is good12.

The stress, the heat and the noise all combined resulted in some pretty bad sleep.

Hopefully they will be able to fix the car fast, else we will have to leave it here and take the bus or the train to Oslo: I'm supposed to be back to work on Monday.





From Örebro to Oslo
From Örebro to Oslo

Epilogue

This one will be short.

We took our breakfast, and then at 10 am we called the workshop to ask what was the status regarding the car.

Distributor woes
Distributor woes
It was repaired and ready to go!

The culprit was the distributor cap (the orange cover on the photo).

For some unknown reason, it happens that it was not the correct model, so it did not fit tightly.

With the vibrations, over time the cap moved and managed to break the connection between the breaker arm and the capacitor.

Good to go!
Good to go!
At that point, all we wanted to do is to go home.

News of the Norwegian borders being potentially closed because of potential terrorist attacks reach our ears, but we manage to pass the border without anything else than a raised eyebrow from the police officer.

The kilometers pass, and we finally reach Oslo, tired but happy.

We now have 79916 kilometers shown on the dashboard.

Total distance of the trip: 2380 kilometers.



1. A Norwegian pastry, kind of rounded brioche with raisins, chocolate or caramel stuffed in it
3. Some normal bricks, some Duplos, the complete moon base with the shuttle train, gears and hydraulics, engines, control boxes, ...
4. With the bed set-up in 'desk mode' I was even able to use the laptop with the 4G mini-router, all plugged on the 220v so I did not even empty the batteries :)
5. This definitely makes travelling a lot easier for us than for the previous generations!
6. It has an area of 464 km² and a greatest depth of 74 m, thanks Wikipedia!
7. Live Action Role Playing Game
8. Norwegian equivalent
9. I found a photo of the truck online
10. The six wheeler volvo car that looks a AT-AT out of Star Wars
11. It's a reproduction, and was used in the Død Snø movie
12. The service was absolutely appalling, we thought for a while that it was for a hidden camera show
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