Yes, travellers always want food.  Any kind of food.  Doesn’t matter what it is  as long as someone else has prepared it and is doing the washing up then we are fine.

So when we were told about a ferry crossing between Sweden and Finland that included an all you can eat breakfast buffet, followed by an all you can eat evening buffet, it did not take us long to decide that this was the crossing for us!

So off we headed for the little “village” of Kappelskar.

When I say village, I mean literally Kappelskar is just the port.  That’s it.  Nothing else really.

But still, we managed to find a campsite, plug in the electric heater and get warm.  And get out of Sweden.

We have nothing against Sweden in general, the country is beautiful, the people welcoming and friendly and we have had a lot of… experiences… it is just that since we have arrived in Sweden we have had nothing but rain, the van has broken down and we had a nightmare trying to find somewhere to stop in the van.  Atleast somewhere that has electric and the waste facilities we needed.

It had felt like we were in Sweden for ages, despite it just being over a week.

Perhaps it was just our timing or perhaps it was just bad karma, what ever it was we were looking forward to our brunch buffet!

Our 8 hour ferry would take us from Sweden, to Nantalli in Finland, just north of Turku – once the capital of Finland.

We had booked a cabin, which had cost us only 20 swedish krona extra and it was well worth the money, within half an hour of boarding Luke and I had showered, eating our own body weight at the buffet and were now fast asleep in our cosy cabin…

Ferry Costs

We travelled with Finnlines from Kappelskar to Nantalli

They have three sailings per day; 09:15, 17:30 and 23:00

The morning ferry is the cheapest, you do not have to book, but turn up early to make sure you can get a place.

Our ticket cost us 1800 SEK, including a 2 person cabin on the inside

After returning the lovely Saab to Sjkovde, picking up the van which is now working (the problem was air in the fuel system).  Oh and a point here, if anyone is ever looking for the diagnostics connection socket for the LDV convoy, it is under the ashtray, you know, the obvious place of course!

So yer after all of that – we headed North a bit more.

We have been using the Couchsurfing.org website for a few meet ups in towns but now it was time for the first official Couch Surf!

Well, we put our requests in and awaited the response.  Larissa was the first person to get back to us.  She told us that we were to bring 200 krona with us and meet in a car park in the town of Borlange….

We were met by Larissa and some people from her wildlife school in the car park and were told to follow them, which is harder than you think when we are sliding around on the gravel roads, literally drifting around some of the sharper corners.

We arrive, with all our bones in tact but nerves a little frayed, in the a little place that calls itself the “Smoking Barrels Camp”  A wild west style hangout for those that like guns basically.

For today, we have become Shotgun Si and Cool Hands Luke, about to enter fearsome battle with a series of metal targets and a timer, armed only with a revolver, a shotgun and a winchester rifle… This was going to be fun!

Each of us took turns to try and hit the targets in the shortest possible time, whih would have been ok had I ever managed to hit the bloody targets!

Still, after much practice and a fair bit of banter I finally cleared each round.

After a sit out around the campfire it was time to head home, which was two hours away!

Larissa, Luke and I spent most of  the rest of that evening eating toast and attempting to explain Lee Evans’ jokes on youtube, cultural difference can sometimes render even the funniest of jokes completely limp!

So – something we never expected to be doing in Sweden – shooting Wild West style, crazy!