Hejda (Goodbye) Sweden

23rd May 2019 – 24th May 2019

We continued our journey North on our favourite road, the E4. We stayed the night near Hortlax on the edge of a fjord, with a lighthouse, that you could walk up into, but did we, of course not. Here we met our first Norwegian, who like us was spending the night looking out at a beautiful view. He spoke very good English and told us that there are now many, many more Motorhomes in Norway and Sweden with 1 in 2 Norwegians owing one. David and I looked at each other and thought we need to open a Motorhome dealership in Norway ! He also said that over the years the amount of snow that falls is half what he remembers as a child. Still a huge amount in our book, but it is a sad story to hear. We stayed the following night in the town of Lulea in the harbour, with a free washing machine and you know what that means ! I washed everything and would have even washed Chloe if I could have. Lulea is the last town on the road we grew to know well, the E4 and now we start to head west, into the Arctic Circle and Norway. Instead of coastline our scenery changed to that of the open landscape of inland Sweden. The E10 was our new road and wow, this is remote. It didn’t stop us though talking about hotdogs and hoping to see an Esso garage to stop in at lunchtime to purchase one. David kept saying, just over the hill I can feel an Esso garage emerging ! This did keep us amused for at least half an hour, when the realisation did finally set in and we stopped for a cheese sandwich for lunch. We stopped overnight to break the journey and the next day was the day when we crossed into Norway. Day 42 of this adventure we crossed into the Arctic Circle and saw wild reindeer for the first time. We took the obligatory photo, with David in his shorts in a lay-by by a sign stating that we were now in the Arctic Circle. As we continued our journey the scenery took on the most magical feel. Frozen lakes, fjords and snow capped mountains, this is a road that I imagine not many people take. We passed huge lorries carrying timber felled from the local forests. These lorries had massive grills on the front of them, which we assumed was to protect the vehicle should they hit a moose. Now we have seen, as I have said before loads of warning signs for moose but we still haven’t seen one ! As we are driving through this wonderland of scenery, I welled up with tears at the complete and utter beauty of this place. I am so glad we made the long journey up through Sweden and across this road because it was so worth it. We also saw some people ice fishing, I hope they knew what they were doing. Passports at the ready, we crossed the border, not a sole in sight. A beautiful black helicopter but that was it. I am sure they never got a queue at customs here. We high fived into Norway.