Spent a morning at an orchard, tour of the orchard and the juice and cider factory. Bought some low-alcohol cider (you have to go to a liquor shop to buy the hard stuff - over 3.5%!) and juice. Trouble with the Swedish language is we can’t understand it which meant we actually bought cider and a litre of apple sauce! Have now got a translation app, to try & avoid other mistakes.. Also visited an Iron Age burial site, a huge pile of stone over a tomb room wi...

We’re in the South of Sweden now, the hills, lakes and forests of the heartlands have been replaced by open farmland with huge fields of wheat, corn, sunflower, and even pumpkin. The roads are wider, faster and busier, although still quiet by Uk standards. The towns are larger as are the campsites while there are fewer free camping sites. We’ve just realised we’ve covered about 7000 miles in two months, that’s over 100 miles each day. Connie is still mak...

Having escaped the “Butlins” of Orebo we headed back to nature to Tividens national park for a good 8km hike around a beautiful lake. There are toilets (long drop), camping spots and BBQs & fire pits, really geared up for hikers. We free camped in the forest near (another) lake and spent 2 hours sat in silence with our binoculars hoping to spot a moose - to no avail.. Next stop was Läckö Slot (castle), our favourite so far. Läckö Slot is a 800 year o...

The Swedish heartlands is where most of the wildlife is. There are bears, beavers, badgers, foxes, moose, deer, lynx, wolves and even Wolverine. The chances of seeing the last three are almost zero. There are believed to be about 250 wolves, 200 wolverines and very few lynx. But it’s good to think they are here in the deep forest. And lots of bird life. We hired a canoe for a day at Skinnskatteberg and enjoyed paddling around a huge lake and stopping off at s...

On leaving Pitea we headed north to Lulea to see the old church town of Gamalstad. There was a time when church attendance was compulsory in Sweden but not every village had a church. So people from outlying areas had to build cottages at the church so they could stay over. Gammelstad still has 400 cottages crammed around its church. Tiny one or two rooms with no running water or sanitation, common long drop toilets here and there. Once roads and cars became comm...