After a few more hours sleep and a long shower, our ferry deposited us on the shores of Finalnd.

Although I swear to you it felt as if we had never left land. The Stockholm archipelago, consisting of some 24,000 islands, kept close company to us throughout the first part of the journey, then after a small crossing of completely empty sea, it was back through an archipelago on the Finnish side.

All of this meant that our journey was incredibly smooth,  In fact the Baltic Ocean has been incredibly flat wherever we have been near it’s shores.  This ocean is so tucked away that it does not have a tide.  It’s incredible ice blue waters seem to invite you in at every chance, though those that take the chance at this time of year must ensure that there is a sauna nearby to survive without getting hypothermia.

We headed into Turku, the old Finnish capital during the time when the Swedes owned most of the lands we have travelled through.

We’re hoping to get a hostel here and join what looks like a parade of boiler suited students.  This is actually their “drinking dress” and it allows them to do silly stuff such as rolling in the grass and getting covered in beer without destroying any of their normal clothes.  I think this throws the Finnish hurtling into first place for practical yet crazy Scandinavians.

Unfortunately all of the hostels are booked, the campsites are shut at this hour and we have little choice but to roll on towards the heady lights of Helsinki.

It is late at night by the time we arrive at our hostel in Espoo, a late night made later by the fact that we have jumped another time zone, now being two hours ahead of London – oh and it is only just getting dark at half past 11.  Which is really screwing with our body clocks.

THe next morning brings a day of just chilling out, enjoying the brilliantly beautiful beaches of Espoo and the Baltic Coastline, the pine trees add an exotic, almost meditterainean feel the just seems out of place in a country where there are only two months that are called “summer”.  The sandy beaches also look out of place, it is only the giant rocks, seen strewn about the landscape and forming cliff edges and formations almost everywhere (our hostel has a roundabout around one such rock in the car park, it’s just too big to be moved), yes – it is only these that remind you that you are in a country more used to snow than sun.

After a day of doing, well not much really, we head into the city of Helsinki.  We took the van.  Not a good idea.  Sat Nav does not cope with small streets.  We do not cope with cobbles.  Van does not cope with tight corners.  We all fall out, but make amends once we find a cool car park.  Apart from the Sat Nav, that has got a lot of apologising to do.

The first thing that surprises us about Helsinki is the incredible, imposing and – in this sunlight – bloody reflective, Cathedral.

It sits up on a plinth, it’s own small plateau in the rising above the streets of Helsinki and commands every tourist to climb the seemingly endless amount of steps up to it.

The interior is lavishly decorated with gold dripping down from every chandelier and up from every candlestick.  It is in stark contrast to the red building sitting on the other side of the river.  The Orthodox Cathedral looks very formal, though its own imposing power is most definitately there, it does not command such a large square or plinth for itself.

We are meeting up with another person from Couchsurfing.org.  This website is a must for travellers, we have found so many different people already and always had a good time.

Sara meets us outside of the white Cathedral and takes us across on yet another boat to the small island of Suomenlinna, literaly translated to Finnish Fortress.

There are two sides to this place.  One is the newer looking Russian side, with small garrisons, shops and other administrative wooden huts dotted around.  Across a small wooden bridge is found the much grander and larger castle.  Our view of this is distracted though by the hot weather and the view of the Baltic, so blue, lapping against a small sandy beach and our destination is set.

The afternoon passes us almost without saying a word, then Luke and I return the van to the youth hostel (sat nav is still in the dog house) and travel back into Helsinki by bus, for tonight is Eurovision night and Luke, Sara and I have a date with a large tv screen and a large, cold beer.

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

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!

Which is of course Sweden.

And it is a beautiful country.  We crossed over the Oresund bridge from Copenhagen to Malmo.

This feat of engineering is one of Europe’s largest bridges and the complete tunnel / bridge combination makes it the longest crossing in Europe.

We walked around Malmo for a bit once we arrived – taking in some of the historic  buildings, and yes of course some more water features.  After a quick coffee we consulted the “bible” and headed south – for the first time in this trip – to Hollviken, and yet another harbour.

We plug in, rev up the laptop and connect to a less than perfect internet connection.

Then it arrives, after many days of clear skies and sunshine we are battered by wind and rain from almost all directions.

The rain bounces off our roof with some lovely plinking noises that keep us awake for a short while until tiredness overcomes us and we nod off to sleep.

Morning comes and, although the rain has gone, the wind has remained – ensuring that any trips out of the van are made with bowed heads and hoods up.

We pile back into the van after taking a shower and head off to the local Viking Museum.

Good evening all, how are you?

Thanks to the wonders of mobile internet from T-Mobile Germany I am able to stay in touch with you guys direct from our glorified car park hehe.

I should also say that we have snow, wonderful snow, and lots of it. When I get round to replacing the batteries in the camera I will upload the photos of our excellent Snow Table!

While the snow storm outside batters us I shall inform you all of a new travel invention that I have seen on my travels.

We stopped over night at another stellplatz near the German twn of Julich, which is home to one of the largest open cast mines in the world. Whatever you may think about the terrible destruction that this way of mining causes, you cannot stand near the edge of this “hole” and wonder at the scale of it.

Mahusive! and yes that is intetionally spelt that way!

Whilst staying in Julich I noticed that next door to us was a lovely patch of flat land, with some brlliant “pitch turf”, lights and a small toilet and shower block. This is the future of budget travel ladies and gentlemen…. A youth tent platz!

We’ve all heard of youth hostels, so just apply the same principle to tenting, basic – but nice and clean – and of course fairly cheap!

So there we go – ony one day down and already I have found the future of travelling. You can find out more about this place here

Happy Tavelling
Overland Si