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 common and church attendance was by choice the church villages mostly disappeared. Gamelstad remained and now the cottages are sought after. How times have changed, thank God.

Also near Lulea are the Storfossen falls. We’d seen lots of waterfalls in Norway but Helena and Camilla said we should see It, so here we are. Wow what a spectacle, not so much a waterfall as a massive rapids. The noise and evident power of the rapids almost took our breaths away. The water comes from a glacier many miles away, but by the side of the falls there are small pools amongst the rocks where the water warms up & it’s very popular with families to come for picnics & enjoy a warm swim. They were right, well worth visiting.

We had parked well above the rapids at a free camping spot in the woods and trekked for an hour through the forest to get to the main site. We had intended to stay a night or two. However, we had been trying to book a wildlife experience and we got the chance to get on the tour we wanted but it meant we had to leave that afternoon. A 500 mile drive by 5 pm the next day, Sunday. The roads are good in the Swedish heartlands and there’s very little traffic. We saw a squashed crow on the road & Vanda (who was driving) commented that you don’t see many squashed animals on the road - within 1 minute a reindeer dashed out of the forest in front of us! Luckily she braked (nothing behind us) and swerved & we all survived. Within another 5 minutes a red squirrel dashed out in front of us.. Vanda’s going to keep her mouth shut next time! After these incidents we made good progress but saw lots more reindeer that we stopped to photograph (they were sensible & stayed on the verges). On Sunday morning we saw more reindeer than cars!

So we got to Lofsdalen by 4pm and met our guide Kiki, and a young Danish couple, Jeff & Anna, who were joining our adventure. We set off in Connie following Kiki deep into the woods on unmade roads for about 15 km and then walked about 1km to a small cabin where Kiki left us. The cabin was very basic, with 6 bunks, a table & benches, & small kitchen in the main room, and a door into a viewing room which had windows all round and holes underneath covered with cloth for your camera. There was no electric or water but there was a dry toilet (basically a bag!). It was a really hot day (30 degrees) & we couldn’t open the windows as the mossies would come in; & the animals would smell us & we wouldn’t see them. It was really like a sauna..

Within 30 minutes a little bundle of fur came bounding out of the forest - a brown bear cub, followed by its mum. They stayed about 20 minutes munching on some of the treats that had been put out for them. Then a male, then another male, then another mum and cub. Each spent about 30 minutes eating the food left out for them then moved off. There was a tense moment when a mum tried to see off a young male, the cub was quite scared and so were we. One of the males wandered up quite close to the cabin too, to give us an even better view. What a great night, once the food was gone the bears stopped coming, around 11pm, and we headed to our bunks by candlelight to get some sleep. Luckily none of us snored! The next morning at about 5am Craig woke up & saw a red fox wandering in for the last scraps. He was a beautiful specimen with an amazingly thick tail and came up past the cabin. That really topped off a great time and made the hurried drive worth while. What an amazing wildlife experience to see such beautiful animals in their natural environment, so close up.. Its also amazing that the cabin door isn’t locked and neither do the locals lock their cars - in fact Kiki told us that she leaves the keys in the ignition of her work car, for her boss to pick it up! Sweden is a very safe place (or it is in this part of Sweden anyway..)

After all the excitement of the last few days we spent a couple of days relaxing by a lake on a campsite where we could do washing etc. We’ve been freecamping a lot in the Swedish heartlands, there’s lakes and stunning views at every turn and good car parks where you’re allowed to stay overnight, and sometimes they even have a long drop toilet (instead of us having to use our on-board toilet)!.

There’s lots of things to do in this area and just for variety we tried pedal trains. There is a redundant section of railway that has the old railway men’s pedal powered trolleys that they used for maintenance. It was hard to track down the guy who rents out the machines but we eventually found him and enjoyed a couple of hours trundling along an almost overgrown track through the countryside on a tandem pedal bike. Only real effort was needed when we met pedallers coming the other way, the only way to pass is to lift the machine off the tracks past the other machine and lift it back on.