There are many ways to enjoy summer along the High Coast. Anna (my old time friend from my early sailing days) and I hired some kayaks for a few hours and paddled out to Mjältön, which is Sweden's highest island with the grand total elevation of 236 meters above sea level. Not bad! Time optimists as we are (and with naive enthusiasm), we thought we could get there, run up to the top and paddle back in 4 hrs. Hrm..it took a little bit longer than expected to make our way out. We're blaming Anna's steering system which was a bit unreliable and as a result we ended up sunbathing on the rocks instead. Time was passing quickly and we had to paddle back without stopping to make the time line for the kayak rental. It was a gorgeous day and all the complaints about the so called bad weather this summer is an exaggeration, at least for Örnsköldsvik.
Sailing
For the first time since 1994 my parents, brother and I and no one else were in the sailing boat together for an entire weekend. It was about bloody time I reckon! We went to Trysunda, which is an island where there is an old charming fishing village. Currently only one family lives there all year around. It is probably my favourite island with many amazing geological formations in the granite rock. The glacier has shaped the rocks and polished them when it retreated 10 000 years ago.
Mum enjoying a beer in the sunset
Kristofer playing dead
Smooth rocks which are ideal to jump into the sea from
Round stones in Storviken (the Big Bay)
Excuses to eat lots
Caspar and Nadine visited me from Ireland. It was great to see them and to be their "host for a week". I started calling it a feeding camp after a while since we ended up eating non-stop. There are so many nice things I wanted them to try: pickled herring, snaps, cray fish, smoked fish (sik), spreadable cheese with reindeer meat (Sorry Santa) or with shrimps, sweet, sour and salty lollies, mum's blue berry pie, salt liquorice snaps, Finish Gin and Tonic, nice bread that requires no toasting, blood pudding with lingonberry jam, Marabou chocolate and more and more and more. My guests were almost obese by the time they left and so was I.
Trying out the cannibal bath at my friend's Erik place
The Captain of the ship: Caspar
We made it to Baggviken, Mjältön. The hooks you can see were made for hanging up fishing nets back in the day when there were some fish to catch...
Caspar tries to picture what it would be like to be a beaver living on Mjältön.
We stopped for pickled herring lunch and snaps at Ulvön, another picturesque ancient fishing village
We ended up at Trysunda
Night time in Trysunda harbour
Dad and I. He is wearing a jumper his mum knitted him when he was 15 and I have mum's Norwegian jumper which she made for herself when she was 16. I think Swedish H&M has quite a bit to learn about clothing quality.
Gene Fornby - Learning lots at the Iron Age Village.
Nadine mastering the bow and arrow
Caspar admiring the gigantic ant stack
Iron Age baking (we didn't melt into the environment)
Having a run in Skuleskogen
People kept on asking us if we were in a rush. Swedes are slow walkers. At the top you get nice views over the achipelago and all the islands we had sailed to a few days earlier.
This is Slåttdalsskrevan, a a 200 m. long, 40 m deep and 7 m wide crevice in the granite rock, which is pretty spectacular.
After Caspar and Nadine left, my best friend Åsa showed up with Mr Brown (her poo coloured Saab 96 from 1976). It is a beauty. I think her passengers Apan and Maja (the teddy bears we used to play with as kids) were pleased to tag along.
I have been spending my last days at her parents' summer house Strängön, which is a perfect place to take it easy. I only have a week left in Sweden before I head to England. I start to feel like I know this now and it is time to move on.
Anna and I met up with our parents for fermented herring dinner. It is very tasty stuff once you have got over how horrible it smells. I really love it now! After scoffing down rotten herring with potatoes, thin bread, gräddfil (a kind of sour cream), we got into the sauna and washed off the fish fumes in the cold sea. Life is beautiful in Norrland!
Oh, fishy fishy smell...
This is one way of eating it: on a slice of thin bread with boiled spuds, gräddfil and red onion. Note the beer is crucial to the mix of flavours.
Time for a last dip together before we meet on the other side of the world in November when Anna will come to New Zealand.
This is not a typical sauna, but a very cute one. More so than functional if you ask a Finn.
Time to head home.
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