Gällö to Jokkmokk

Baltic Sea Circle Day 6

We woke up at 5:30 to a silent campsite. The sun hadn’t set the previous night and many of the campers had stayed up to watch it, and clearly needed to catch up. We ate a quick breakfast, skipped the coffee and packed up the tent. By now we were pretty quick at this daily task, removing the sleeping gear and stowing it behind the front seats, rigging the elastics that keep the canvas folded and removing the awning poles before folding the tent flat; it really is a brilliant piece of kit. 

We set off, once again waking the campsite as we started the engine of the car and crept along the campsite roads at 10 kmph. Today’s objective was to get to Jokkmokk, a town 700 km away, which would mean the longest leg of the journey so far. After yesterday’s struggle however, we were refreshed and well rested, so it felt like an achievable goal. The roads were now pretty much all single carriageway, still pretty straight and through forests of birch or pine trees. We made good progress on these and Gemma took another turn at driving, going for an hour or so. We arrive at Vilheimina around 11 and decided we’d try to find a local supermarket to begin the challenge for the day: to carry an open tin of Sursrömming in our car for 200 km, or 125 miles. If you don’t know, Sursrömming is a delicacy in Sweden, consisting of fermented fish. We found a Coop and after a few minutes of looking near the tuna, we found it in the fridges. We bought some cold drinks and ice creams too to help us cool down as the morning was heating up fast and it was expected to be 27 degrees later. After consuming our snacks and discovering the delight of the flaming hot cheesy nik nak type crisps, we got out our penknife and prepared ourselves for the smell. Having been out of the fridges for less than 10 minutes the tin of fish was already bulging and we could tell it was going to explode it’s contents as soon as the can opening pierced the top, and we were right. Smelly fish juice hissed and bubbles from the small opening as I turned the can and cut the lid around. The juice just kept on coming, how can all that liquid be stored in there? I drained a bit of the foul fluid out spilling on my hands, before giving it a sniff. It wasn’t as bad as I had expected it to be! Fishy like a harbour. We got a photo of the open tin in the car next to the speedo to capture the mileage and settled the can between us in the armrest. We began the challenge hopeful that it wouldn’t get worst as the car heated up, how were we so naive?

The next 200 km were pretty bad, we had to keep the windows open to get fresh air in so we wouldn’t have the fish stink, but doing that we had to put up with the fuel/exhaust smell from the car, which now seemed more bearable. We kept a close eye on the miles as they rolled by, counting them down. 

As we were about half way through we spotted slowing traffic ahead and in front of that a herd of animals. We had found a huge herd of around 200 reindeer on the road, grazing either side and some of them resting on the tarmac. There were a few big males with huge antlers, but mostly females and young reindeer. It was an amazing sight and we got out to take a look along with the two other cars that had been blocked by the herd. After a few photos we saw some cars coming the other way, who didn’t intend on stopping and just beeped their horns which caused the animals to move towards us! We made it back to the car and then moved slowly towards and through the beasts as they barked and trotted along the road with us. It was spectacular. 

We came across another smaller group further down the road too, four or five reindeer, which I think is more common to see. Several hundred together must be unusual? We made our way onwards and passed the 200 km marker, after which we stopped at the next town, ditched the fish and refuelled. We had a bit to eat, which is when I could still smell the fish on my hands, even after washing them. We tried to find a public toilet in the town, but after a 1km walk the toilet indicated by Google was locked and we had to walk back to the car in scorching heat desperate for the loo. We’d stop at the next rest stop and use them there, there is usually plenty on the Swedish roads. 

We headed north again and after a few kilometres found a roadworks sign, the type that in the UK signals that smite chipping are on the road surface and that you need to slow down. In Sweden this means something else entirely. The road was basically being re-laid and the stone chippings were gravel the size of golf balls, some were rocks the size of tennis balls. It was like suddenly driving on a pebble beach, with a Porsche, that is loaded up and only a few inches from the ground. It was painful as we slowed to 10 mph and crawled over the rocks, being careful to avoid any big spiky ones or potholes that had formed. The other road users didn’t care one bit, and drove like normal on their Volvos and 4x4s. Even the HGVs overtook us!! They all left clouds of dust behind them as we tip toed over each stone. After several kms we returned to asphalt, only to be greeted once again with gravel after a few thousand meters. It went on for about an hour. 

Eventually we got to the end of the roadworks and released a sign of relief, the tyres had held up. Toyo Tires UK provided me with the Proxes Sport tyre for the trip, neither of us knew that they’d need to suffer that torture, but they were strong! We were determined to get to Jokkmokk and put in one last shift to get there and pulled into the campsite at 7pm. They had space and we rumbled over to the lakeside to set up camp, cook our dinner of couscous, tuna and tinned veg and settle down for the evening. 700 kms today, a good stint but we were cautiously thinking how many more roads like that would we find on our way north? Tomorrow we would find out.