Kopparberg to Gällö

Baltic Sea Circle Day 5

We got up and packed up camp by 8:30am, making sure we left no trace at our wild campsite near Kopparberg. The aim for today would be to get to near Stromsund, which was a fair distance. The roads were still fast, with mostly dual carriageway and speed limits of 110 kmph. We figured the fastest route would be to follow the Baltic Sea coastline, which meant heading east, then north up the coast and then west again. 

Our challenge for the day was to team up with another rally team and swap co-drivers for some international joke telling, but since we were three days behind every other team this was not going to be possible. And as we were still in Sweden we couldn’t swap our coffee yet either. We decided to get as far north as we could. Today was the day that I realised that the weakest part of our rally team machine was us, the human behind the wheel. The past 4 days of driving had finally caught up with us and it was a real struggle to drive in the heat and noise. We probably hadn’t got as good a sleep as we needed too, we both felt exhausted. 

We stopped for our packed lunch at a McDonalds car park, where a passer by honked their horn at us to show their love for the car and we swapped driver and Gemma took over for about an hour to give me a rest. 

We also stopped at a Lidl and topped up on milk, cereal and snacks, where a fellow Brit said hi and took some photos of the car. 

We covered under 300 miles, and made the call to find a campsite and get some well needed rest. We stopped at Gällö at a Camp Viking campsite, payed the fee and drove to the far side of the campsite. The campsite was full of camper van and motor home owners, all sitting outside enjoying the baking sun and peaceful lake. We rubbled by, waving and nodding to the other campers, self conscious that we were disturbing their quiet holidays. It was only really when we got out the car we were greeted with German heavy metal music, blended with 70s rock from the other side of the campsite. We set up the tent and a few folks came over to chat and ask about the car. Our next door Dutch neighbour had a 944 too, his being a gold 83 model and he was keen to show me a few pictures and take some of my car. 

Some guys in tents were nearby and started blowing Viking horns and dressing in tunics. It is midsummer, a national holiday weekend in Sweden and these guys were celebrating it Viking style!

We strolled down to the lake, dipped our toes in and cooled down. It was glass-like and ice cold, and the relief was instant. We cooked some tortellini and pasta sauce, had a beer and relaxed, trying to use the shade as the sun was still scorching at 8pm. 

We went to bed early that night, listening to our Swedish neighbours singing along to their music. There was a lot of noise at about 2am when the sun came up, Vikings blowing their horns again!