Not having our campervan for the weekend did cause a few issues.

Concern number 1 is of course a place to sleep.  We have become to used to just rocking up and parking almost anywhere (in Sweden you may park overnight for free, anywhere with the P sign) and are not ready for the Swedish hostel system where you have to book, using an automated phone line – in Swedish, of which I speak only three words.
Those three words are quite important to the Swedish though, number 1 is Fika… a word meaning literally “food/coffee/snack / any excuse for a break!  You see signs for Fika on almost every small shop in Sweden, and it is something that should be introduced in the UK for sure!

Second is Hej Hej, meaning – Hello, an essential greeting! And Thirdly there is Largomm (spelling might be wrong here).  Largomm literally sums up Sweden, for it means “just enough to fill you up, but not more”  which is quite a nice thought, no oversized portions but nothing rip off.  I like it and I like the way it sums up the Swedish culture and identity.

So we are on our way to Stockholm, with no hostels open and also no hotels open, the eery light of the eve has caught us out and it is nearly two am, the sun is almost rising again through our windscreen.  We eventually find a hotel Ibis in the nearby (by Swedish standards) town of Nykopping.

Six hours later we are up and out, on the final run to Stockholm in our lovely Saab 95 turbo, for which I am sure the lovely Emily must be thanked.

Our bed for tonight is the first thing we sort out, heading for a rather bizarre youth hostel located on an old warship, the AF Chapman.  The old sailing ship has done many miles and is now a prominent attraction on an island opposite the old town of Stockholm. Parking for the car is not too bad either at 30krona (about £2.50)

So – our bed for tonight is sorted, although the swipe card used for entry onto the ship is slightly dodgy, leaving us hoping that we will be able to get back on!!

Stockholm, as with Copenhagen, is a city built on a load of islands.  Luke and I fear for the lives of our shoes after our Copenhagen expedition led to getting stuck on many of the smaller islands and having to walk miles to get back off again! So we decided to keep our walking tour to a more confined area.

We head off into the old town, Gamla Stan.  It is a maze of tight, twisting streets with shops hiding around every corner and restaurants attracting the flocking tourists with charm rather than brashness.  The Royal Palace, consisting of 680 rooms and thus making it the largest in the world, occupies one corner of this small island and the wide streets surrounding it are in severe contrast with the aforementioned maze just a few hundred metres away.

There is mostly certainly a tourist feel to this part of Stockholm, as is to be expected. We hear many English and American accents in the hordes of people clamouring for that certain photo of this old place.  Luke and I head off into the side streets to see what else we can find, which is not too much really, but the calm and coolness of these streets is not to be missed.

By this time my mobile has died (my phone has a habit of doing this at inconvenient times) so we head off to find a place to get a charger (with European socket) and head back to the hostel for a few hours of much needed kip!
We had arranged to meet some people from the brilliant Couchsurfing.org website in the evening, unfortunately due to mobile numbers, emails and all sorts of other miscommunications we are unable to get hold of our drinking buddies for this evening and so, with ther remaining power left in the laptop I connect to the Internet and post an “urgent drinks request” on the Stockholm page, then the stomach growls and it is time for some food!

The old town has transformed in just a few hours from streets packed full of travellers into a much quieter, cosier and more relaxed place.  The bars are full of people kicking back and the restaurants are crammed with smart looking people enjoying some good looking food.

Being on a budget of course meant that we were looking for the most “cost-effective” place to eat, rather than the one that looked like you needed a mortgage to enter.

We were not disappointed though, nor were we snubbed at – for we only really had a few “travelling clothes” with us, which can cause an issue in some snobbier places.  Our restaurant looks reasonably priced and once inside the host whisks us off to a table, then onto another table (he mis-judged something or something, but was very polite about it all).
Our waitress was yet another incredibly good looking Swede, although not blonde – which is better in my books.
With our meals ordered Luke and I settled into our beers (and wine).  Then the meals arrived.

Now I have mentioned before about Largomm, and this is exactly what I got, a healthy, but not too large portion of meatballs in lingonberry sauce with some mashed potato, a truly brilliant meal.

Just as Luke and I were ready for an early night a text came through from our “urgent drinks request” on couch surfing and just a few hours later we were knocking back a few beers on a fairly orderly bar crawl around the south Stockholm island of Sodermalm.

At around 4am, and with the sun now firmly asserting itself in the sky we headed back for a night on the AF Chapman, another Scandinavian Capital has been partied in, and yes, I would recommend anyone to come here.  The city is clean, laid back when not in the packed tourist areas and that friendly feel to it that is missing in so many cities. 

Stockholm has soul.

It’s Friday, we are all fully recovered after a relaxing stopover at Del’s place and from this campsite, situated right on the edge of a lake.

We are ready to tackle the onslought that will be Stockholm, a complete weekend of meeting people (via couch surfing), walking around, having a look at what is going on and so on.

For once we are actually up reasonably early (about 9 am – ok well it is early for us!) The bright red van is packed, ready to go, we’ve got 50 litres of fresh water and nothing stopping us from the 300kilometre journey that will take us to the vibrant capital of this strange country.

I say strange country and actually I do mean it.

Sweden is probably one of the few countries where they almost “expect” you to visit at only certain times.  Every person we have met says that we should come back in the summer, apparently the biggest party is the midsummer celebrations, where the partying continues into the next morning, noon and even night.

Yet, travelling at this time of year we have seen not many campervans about really and the few youth hostels we have looked into are only open if you have booked them, not the “rock up and book in” type of hostels that exist almost everywhere else I have been.

These issues were about to play havoc with us.

So stockholm yer – er no, well maybe not right away.

We usually have to muck around a bit to get the van started, using a bit of full throttle and patience, but she will eventually start.  But not this time.  There was nothing.  The battery was turning the engine over but the engine just didn’t want to kick in.
Phone call number 1… breakdown company to arrange a truck and techie to come out to us.

Luckily for us the campsite guy seems to know what he is doing with engines, the old (antique) volvo digger in the background takes about 30minutes to start he tells us as, dressed already in workman’s overalls, he heads straight under the bonnet of our stricken van.

After some prodding, poking and more attempts to start the van we have completely exhausted our battery, but our man in blue overalls thinks that it is most probably air in the fuel system – I had changed the fuel filter just a day ago and, although she started first time then, it seemed to be the causing a problem now.

Phone call number 2… What is an LDV Convoy?
Of course once I had rung my breakdown company and told them I was broken down abroad they had transferred my “file” to their european call centre, who had no idea what an LDV Convoy is, strangely enough not many people outside of the UK have – it had already caused a stir amongst the repair garage in Germany, from where we had bought the fuel filter.

So after trying their systems one final time we (the lovely sounding Emily and I) decided it would be easiest to call it a Ford Transit, as that is the engine we have.

The campsite guy returns now with a battery charger and promptly plugs in the van before heading off to help an older couple with their awning – is there no end to this man’s talents?

Phone Call number 3… Ok Mr Gardner, we have a truck on it’s way to you, but where are you?

Yes – I have no idea how that can work either, but between a few postal codes, Nei’s (no) and Ja’s (Yes), from the campsite guy-turned-navigation-system and the lovely Emily looking on Google maps we manage to find our precise location, down to the last tree.

Around half an hour later the truck arrives, almost as red as our van – but not quite, our campsite guy has now turned into translator and is explaining as well as helping the techie from the recovery firm.

Both conclude that it is probably air in the pipes and that – with a bit of persuasion, a jumpstart from the truck and a heap of luck that the van should eventually turn over.

An hour of fiddling, a half hour of looking and fifteen minutes of head scratching later and we are still not moving, nor starting and with the weather having turned from a fairly fine morning into and afternoon of rain that would embarass even the most powerful of showers it was decided that the van will have to go to the workshop.

Now this would be fine if we were in England, most workshops are open until 5pm on a Friday, and probably open saturday morning at least, alas we are not in England, we are in Sweden – meaning that the workshop has already shut and that it will not be open until Monday morning… Crap.

The journey to the workshop takes us into the town of Skovde… pronounced “Hurvdur” apparently.

Chatting to our recovery driver on the way it turns our that he is a busy man.  His normal job is in a factory that makes shop furniture, most notably for the UK retail chain “Next”. He is also a fireman whenever his pager goes off and the recovery driver every third weekend and he has an interest in classic American cars, owning a Pontiac himself, although my memory fails me as to which.

Phone Call number 4… Mr Gardner, we were just wondering how things were going with your car…

Well yes, that was that, we had no van until Monday, we had gathered a few belongings, plus our sleeping bags and headed out of the workshop (which was being locked up) and into the Preem fuel station around the corner where we took up temporary residence.

We find a seat in the Preem shop and grab a quick coffee, the friendly attendant informs us that some of the small packets of sweets on the font of the des are “free samples”, but she had that look in her eye that just seemed to say it all, pity.  Still Ihave never been one to pass up a free bag of sweet goodness and dig into a meatball baguette, that unfortunately wasn’t free.

Phone call number 5… Mr Gardner, we have checked your policy and you have a hire car available, will you be needing it?

Well hell yer – the same thing applies to free cars as it does to sweets, offer it to me and I will take it.  After double checking the location of the Preem garage the lovely Emily tells us that our car will be here shortly, I jokingly ask for a Ferrari, knowing full well that the Toyota Yaris that I am entitled to will not be the most thrilling ride in the world.

Phone Call number 6… Mr Gardner, Emily here, your Saab will be here shortly…

My What?!  How on earth did… that’s not a Toyo… don’t ask questions, just accept. OK I say and await our luxury car (and yes, in comparrison to an LDV convoy anything is luxury, but this was like proper nice.

A few minutes later the guys and gal from Avis turn up with a gleaming Saab 95 Turbo, running on Ethanol… certainly have to remember that when we fill up.

Somehow Luke and I have turned into a family of four with a heap of luggage, and I, dear readers, am now mysteriously Dr Gardner.

I told you “Emily” was lovely…

So off we shoot towards the vibrant capital of this strange country – well we will do once I stop reaching down the wrong side for the gear stick, Luke is worried that at some point I will just open the door and eject myself whilst reaching for 4th gear.

That’s all folks, till the morning!

We have decided that the city of Copenhagen is not to be missed, but might also be one in which the van might be a pain to manoeuvre. So we decide upon travelling a bit closer to Copenhagen and so, on yet another warm and sunny day, we pack up and move around 40km north east to a quiet stellplatz near the town of Munke Bjergby.

After negotiating some of the crazy danish lanes we arrive at a small bungalow, behind which a grassy field plays host to one other campervan, a british one at that.

After a bit of van cleaning (including our bug-splattered windscreen) we head off to the local shop/ petrol station/ motor factor/ drinks market and buy some necessities for our evening meal and a litre of oil for the wagon, she appears to be finding this travel malarky a bit of hard work.

Our british next-van-neighbour has a different campsite guide to us, and points out that there is a stellplatz in the nearby larger town of Ringsted, which has a direct rail connection to Copenhagen, beating Munke Bjergby’s walk, bus, walk, bus, train configuration by a country mile.

A look on Google maps tells us that we are now at the same latitude as Glasgow in the UK, which is just incredible.  Here we are, sunbathing, at the start of May and as far north as Glasgow, you would think we were somewhere just slightly south of Mexico with the weather as it is.

Ah, that last sentence has jinxed me, there are now some devilish looking clouds heading our way!

Argh!

Ok so first of all sorry for the lack of updates.

I will be changing to updating this blog once a week

Life at the moment is crazy busy and I found myself spending more time updating the blog than looking for jobs!

So whats changed?

Well I have hit a slightly large brick wall in the challenge to become an overland drvier – insurance!

Most companies I have spoken to have stated that their policy for drivers is over 25′s only. Being only 22 this has created a wee issue!

So where to now?

Well don’t worry readers. I will not give up at the 1st (or more likely 6th) hurdle.

At the moment I am looking for any job that will involve travel – hopefully to some bizzare country or lands, but anything will do.

If you have any suggestions please leave them in the comments box below. I will promise to check them all out.

However, first of all I must get cracking on packing for my skiing holiday!

Happy Travellin’
Overland Si