Row row row your boat

N 059 28.501 E 018 48.987 - Wednesday 3 September 2008

Just back from a sauna and a number of swims and I'm feeling quite relaxed. That's a good thing because much of the morning was wasted rebooking the whole next few weeks of the journey. Domin Rental, you guys suck. A week ago we were told an apartment in Helsinki was available for 5 days next week, but they kept stringing us along, not replying to things. Yesterday we call, oh, it isn't actually available and we don't have anything else. Crap, crap. And at this late notice basically nothing was available. Well, more accurately nothing was available for next Tuesday and Wednesday, the middle of when we had planned to be there. None of this was helped by the campsites all closing for the year at the end of August, camping has always been the fallback option so far.

So, Estonia is on the agenda then. Booked a ferry on Saturday from Stockholm to Tallinn, have a nice apartment lined up in the Old Town for 5 days and then will go to Helsinki at the end of next week instead for just a few days. It does mean that we won't be able to go to the Alund Islands, but apparently they are very similar to the Stockholm archipelago (which we are in the middle of right now) but just a lot less people. However, considering that Finnhamm seems to be mostly deserted right now, that isn't a big deal. The rebooking also means that we will probably miss the west coast of Finland too, but since my heart mostly mourns for missing Lapland (a totally mad diversion north, so far out of our way), I guess I'll live. It does seem like traveling like this requires a lot of last minute decisions and change of plans.

Where have I left off then? Karlstad probably. That seems so long ago. Their free bike program is really cool. 100 bikes for the asking, just get them back the same day. We took two of them, well probably further than they intended them to go, like 40 km, but they did fine. Single speed and a bit hard to ride but we had missed biking. At Mariebergsskogen, we saw not a lot, most things are gone for the year but we did see a osprey circle and dive into the lake a few times. Didn't catch anything though. And then on our ride to Hammarö, a peninsula into Lake Vänern, we saw a cute family of grebes swimming around in the lake. Very nice lake too. There were lots of 'R' markings on the map, which means some sort of historical thing, but we couldn't find many of them. The rune stone was pretty cool though.

We had a morning around Karlstad the next day, had to do some packing and last minute planning (seems to be necessary every couple of days) and then took the train to Stockholm on Thursday. We seemed to walk around the central station for ages, trying to figure out where to catch the T-bana and where to get tickets and how to get to our campsite. There we had the relative luxury of a cabin instead of sleeping in the tent. A funky cabin too, we skipped the bunk beds and slept high up in the loft. Not the most luxurious place but a nice change from the tent, especially after having had two nights before in a decent hotel. We cooked then over the world's slowest hot plate and saved our fuel for the stove.

Stockholm, for me, unfortunately was sort of overrun by the stupid English test. Our next day, we explored some of the city, visited tourist information, checked for free wi-fi (there is none to be had in Stockholm, apparently, even if cafes say they have free wireless it is a lie, they have wireless connections to providers who expect you to have an account), and mostly figured out where the test was going to be so I could get there for my spoken part that afternoon. We walked around the Old Town, which is nice but very touristy, and then back through town on the pedestrianized parts (also sort of nice but very retail). Took the test and hopefully I passed. What do you do? What sort of housework do you do around the house? Do you think it is important for children to do housework? Etc, etc.

Saturday I had to be up early and on the T and to my test for an entire morning of testing, written, listening and essay. Stupid stupid stupid. But it is done now and I don't have to worry about it or plan any more of our holiday around being somewhere to take it. Moving on then. Had to sort out the rest of our vaccinations which we didn't get finished before we left the UK. Found a clinic there and had a nice consultation (our London one got a bit carried away with the ones she recommended, probably don't even need the malaria tablets, but I guess that's how they make their money) and got a few jabs and we were on our way. We took the self guided walking tour of Sodermalm, which was really nice. Very low keyed but well organized and an interesting walk around. I feel better for having seen that section and gotten a bit of a feel for Stockholm.

On Sunday, we were leaving, we had a 1540 ferry for Finnhamm, so we had some time in the morning to see things. The ferry company was nice and let us leave our bags there for the morning and we went off unencumbered and caught a ferry over to Djurgarden, mostly to see Skansen. I love those open air museums, old houses and villages moved from different parts of the country and different eras to one park. This one was really one of the best I've seen. C was especially excited by all the crafts, each house had somebody doing something, making lace, weaving rope, or whatever. Pretty nice. Not enough time there by far, we had to rush through it thinking we could have spent a few more hours there quite happily. Bus back to the ferry terminal and caught the ferry.

Stockholm and especially the archipelago are made up of thousands of islands. Some pretty big and a few just tiny rocks poking out of the water. It was a few cool ferry ride 2 1/2 hours through them to Finnhamm, just on the edge of the outer archipelago. This island is owned by the Archipelago Foundation and is mostly for camping and cabins and has a big hostel and a store. We were a bit surprised when we got here and found that the store had closed for the season and wouldn't be open again for another week. Oops, that isn't good, we only have a few days food with us. Luckily the next day they agreed to open the store for us to have a quick shop and we also went to the self service farm shop which was selling very nice organic vegetables. So, we have enough food for the duration.

So, basically since then, it has just been enjoying this incredible island. Saw a black woodpecker yesterday which was quite exciting. We have a great camp site up on rocks just over the ocean. Yesterday we wandered around the island, took the rowboat across to Kalgardson (the Batluffarled, row boats at narrow crossings so you can row across, take the waiting boat back and then cross again and leave the boat at the other side, apparently you can backpack and row across a whole lot of the islands here). The island was amazing too, hardly touched by people and the moss was very pretty, huge rocky sections covered with this pretty white moss. We got in a very short swim there too. Unfortunately, it seems to be tick country there, I found six of them on me today, three of them dug in and had to be removed.

But another night of camping and then tomorrow night a cabin on the island then then the ferry back to Stockholm and a few hours later another ferry (overnight) to Estonia.