Week 10 - Bl**dy Dog!!

Monday 11th August 2014

We arrived at Caravan Club Sollerö Camping yesterday it is quite a large site but well laid out with, so they say, the seasonal campers mixed in with the short stayers so as to prevent a “them and us” type situation. This is a Swedish Caravan Club site which it seems is run by volunteer members as we have never had to wait for a “camp host” to show us to our pitch and give any help we needed before, by coincidence the “camp host” is on the next pitch to us. He left his pitch this morning at 7:50 to go to work and returned for breakfast at 9:05. We know that because 7:50 is when his bloody dog started Yapping and 9:05 was when it stopped. I was all for moving on as, those who know me well will know how much I love yapping dogs. Fortunately when he had finished his breakfast he took the dog with him to work.

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As far as I was concerned we were leaving today, fortunately calmer reason prevailed and we went for a ride firstly to find the Grannas Anders Olssons factory at Nusnäs, the home of the best known emblem of Sweden - The genuine Dala Horse. The horses are still made by hand, albeit with a little help from a band saw in the early stages and are therefore quite, no not quite, therefore very expensive for the genuine first quality, there is another place in the same village that also sells “dal a horses” but you don’t even need to put them together to see the difference in quality, fortunately when you are in a caravan you cannot buy souvenirs although I did buy a pin badge and that, by pin badge standards, cost a small fortune but then it too is hand made, hand painted and signed by the craftsman or woman who made it.

From Nusnäs we went looking for the Leksands factory. Leksands Knäckebröd make Sweden’s famous round crisp-bread we didn’t quite know why we were going but it was marked in one of the tourist information guide leaflets, when we arrived it turned out to be a factory type outlet selling now’t but knäckebröd (crisp-bread). It was so cheap (when compared to the supermarkets) that we came away with far more than we should have and a recipe for knäckebröd pizza.

We tried out those Knäckebröd pizza’s for our dinner - delicious, we’ll have them again.

Tuesday 12th August 2014.

7:50am and the bl**dy dog is barking again

9:15am Caravan Club Sollerö Camping is disappearing in the extended rear view mirrors, pity as it was a good site and we had wanted to stay longer and explore the area further but for that yapping alarm call at 7:50am each morning that you couldn’t turn off.

1:45pm we are outsde Duse Udde Camping, but see on the door that the reception is closed from noon till 4:00pm. What sort of camp site shuts for most of the afternoon? I was about to suggest we move on to another site when a receptionist arrived, she came, it seems, to placate an angry camper who had arrived with two fractious children and wasn’t prepared to wait around for two and a quarter hours before starting her holiday. While there the receptionist with evident ill grace booked us in before locking the door and returning to her long lunch break.

Wednesday 13th August 2014.

Housework day.

Thursday 14th August 2014.

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Did the tourist thing today, on the Dalsland Canal we went to the Håverud Aqueduct. A solution to the problem of crossing a gorge and a 9m (30ft) waterfall was four locks, the long steel Håverud Aqueduct and then a fifth lock. Just a few yards from the aqueduct was a museum of local life, run by - a Geordie lady, allbeit one who's accent was more home counties than her native Newcastle, that was most interesting (probably it had been designed to entertain children).

Friday 15th August 2014.

We were going to move today but every campsite as we go south is dearer than the last, so we are going to stay here until Sunday when the high season is officially over and we can start using the ACSI card again.

More touristy things today. Close, well close(ish) to where we are camped is a Viking Centre, we had visited the one in York last year, known as Yorvik Centre and was surprised on arrival to note that this Swedish centre was also called Yorvik Centre, all was explained when we read that the main display had been bought from the York centre when it last upgraded. From the static display we went outside where volunteers dressed in viking clothes showed us how to throw axes and explained the finer detail of the replica viking longboat that they had built and rowed/sailed to Canada.

Our next tourist event was “von Echstedtska Garden” a 1760’s Carolian manor known for its murals. Even the privy has burlesque and, to say the least, educational paintings. Unfortunately the house had been abandoned at one stage in its history and all the furniture removed, some had been recovered but someone had filled empty spaces with irrelevant tat. Why did someone feel the need to put a set of golf clubs in what had been set out as the masters bedroom, and why was a Victorian evening wear laid out in a room purporting to depict the 1760 era? For me it ruined what was otherwise a good experience.

Saturday 16th August 2014.

Got nothing planned today so did the last of the housework (or rather Sue did) and got as ready as we could for tomorrows move.

Sunday 17th August 2014.

Awoke this morning to pouring rain and the wind blowing an absolute hooooooolly. Spent a long time wondering wether discretion was the better part of valour when you are towing your home around, nah! Course not. We went and spent virtually the entire journey in pouring rain, arrived at Apelvikens Camping in pouring rain and set up camp in pouring rain, oh well another day tomorrow.

I spoke earlier about using the ACSI card and where we are would normally cost SEK 355 (£30.89) per night for this pitch, with ACSI this is reduced to just SEK 115 (£10.00) per night if you stay four nights - result!!

Last updated Sunday 14th September 2014                                                                                              © S W Ghost 2014