Mosquitoes And Tractors
Varberg – 21st May
I did a bit of research before coming to Sweden and noted some important facts for a safe and enjoyable holiday, one of them was that when going into the bush there are two essential items, mosquito repellent and mosquito head nets. Unfortunately I thought this only applied to hiking in the hills and not a walk in a pet cemetery, so while looking for a geocache we unexpectedly walked straight into a swarm of mosquitoes. A pet cemetery in Sondrum is a nature reserve where you can bury your pet of any kind and mark a small grave area. The geocache name was “I don’t want to be buried in a pet cemetery”, the cache container was a hand and inside the hand was a finger. My only saving grace was that normally mosquitoes go solely for me, this time they weren’t discriminatory and latched onto Roger.
I should be thankful it was only mosquitoes we encountered as Swedish woods also have bears, elk, ticks, wolves and lynx. That could be the end of any geocaching adventures which is a shame because 63% of Sweden is covered in forests and 9% in lakes. There are over 95,000 lakes in Sweden, which makes driving through the countryside, quite a pleasant experience, especially when you can only travel at 60-70kph. At least we will be prepared for the 5,000 rogue elks that cause accidents each year.
Or the Swedish A-Traktors. What’s a Swedish A-Traktor you ask? In the early ’90s when there was a shortage of tractors, farmers could modify an old car (within guidelines) and class them as tractors. The law has stayed in place and now teenagers can drive modified old cars without a driver’s licence, but only on rural roads at 30kph, they must also display a ‘slow moving vehicle’ warning triangle on the rear of the car. We encountered three of these A-traktors, lowered, slow and full of cool teenagers.
We visited a church in Halmstad which had 2 big organs. Like Denmark, Catholicism is no longer the pre-eminent religion of Sweden; the dominant religion is Lutheranism, the State Church.
Our lunch stop today was the seaside city of Varberg. It has three nudist beaches, 2 female, one male, we went to the beach with fishing boat wharves and in the 24% heat there were a quite a few semi clad bodies that possibly need to take up cycling.
We had toasted sandwiches in town and a local told us Denmark is the most expensive place in Europe and Sweden the cheapest. The coffee connoisseur got an over 65’s rebated (15% off) filtered coffee with a flat white topping, so now we can tick that off the ‘must try’ list.
Our lovely accommodation in Gothenburg or Goteborg is surrounded by beautiful gardens in a peaceful neighbourhood.