I got up in the middle of the night to get a glass of water and tweaked my back! I didn’t bend or twist, it just cricked. Put away your violins. I’ve suffered from minor, but painful, back problems occasionally throughout my adult life and this is on the lower end of the scale, so although I have been hobbling a bit today, I should be fighting fit in a day or two.
This may or may not be connected with our rather calamitous departure from Ekeberg Camping. Ekeberg Camping is a big grass site on a slope, so as soon as we arrived I was concerned about getting bogged down. We parked on a slight downwards slope, like an experienced motorhomer and sure enough we pulled away smoothly this morning.
Before we left we needed to empty and fill Basil so we headed for the service point. Being a big site the service point was surrounded by motorhomes and I needed to reverse in, due to the location of Basil’s orifices. Perhaps because of my back or just because after 6 months I’ve become blasé, I swung Basil off the tarmac road, to avoid various motorhomes, and onto the grass so I was at the correct angle to go backwards. I put Basil in reverse and heard the alarming noise of spinning wheels. I tried to go forwards and the same happened!
As occurs in these situations fellow motorhomers swarmed around and tried repeatedly to push me off, to no avail. Basil is a four ton tub of lard and takes some shifting. Blocks of wood appeared and went under the wheels, still no joy. A young site warden appeared and admitted he hadn’t got a clue what to do and started radioing his colleagues. Then up stepped a no nonsense Norwegian with a tow rope and a car and my embarrassment was eventually at an end.
Just to cap it all I asked Sarah to guide me back into the service point so Basil’s waste pipe was over the drain. I thought she was directing me too far and asked her why. She pointed to the front of the motorhome and said the pipe was still forward of the drain. With a straight face I explained to her that the pipe she was looking at was the exhaust pipe! After 6 months we are still sometimes like a couple of amateurs.
Released from Norway’s soil we were soon on the motorway south to Sweden, leaving clods of earth in our wake and across another more or less non existent border.
I had the full Lonely Planet guide for Norway because we intended to explore the country in detail, but with Sweden and Denmark I am relying on a Lonely Planet for Scandinavia generally and it is woefully blank on things to do in Western Sweden. Both Sarah and I have been to Stockholm, so we never intended to visit there and I have in fact been to various parts of Sweden, including Gothenburg, probably more than thirty times on business. So we intend just a few days driving down the west coast.
Stromstad
One of the only places mentioned in the guide is Stromstad, so that was our first stop. We had a wander around what is essentially a seaside resort and visited tourist information. They gave us a few ideas for the west coast and recommended we looked at a famous “stone ship” near the town.
Stromstad Marina
On our walk around Stromstad I reflected on the strange differences between Northern Europe and the South. Although Stromstad had a marina, it could never be mistaken for a Mediterranean sea port. The promenades were lined with fast food establishments and pubs. A British person could happily be uprooted from Bridlington or Hastings and be plonked in Stromstad and feel at home, except for the language. In fact being Sweden even the language wouldn’t be a problem. I often used to make the same observation in the days when I attended big pan European sales conferences, which often divided up into Northern European and Southern, with the Northern Europeans staying up into the early hours drinking beer, while those from the South disappeared to bed after dinner and a refined glass of wine or two!
Stromstad – No kiss me quick hats
When we had had enough of Stromstad, which didn’t take long, we headed 6 km inland to the Blomsholm Stone Ship. This is a set of standing stones, dating to about 400 AD set in the shape of a boat. At that time the sea came close to Blomsholm and so the circle probably overlooked it, now it is inland. The area is also home to a number graves, where pots have been found with cremated remains within them.
Blomsholm Stone Ship
It was pleasant to have a walk round. Nobody seems to know why they were erected, except that they obviously had significance for the nearby burials and there is no knowledge as to why a boat shape was chosen, except boats were very important to early peoples in this area, as we saw from the stone carvings at Alta in Norway. There are also very similar stone carvings to be found in this region.
Blomsholm Stone Ship
Stromstad was a bit unwelcoming to Basil. There were no overnight motorhome signs on the car parks, although there is an authorised aire slightly outside the centre. Fortunately there are no such signs at Blomsholm, which is nicely in the countryside, so we will be staying in the car park here for the night (58.973801, 11.244936) .
* An update to yesterday’s post. Apparently the Ra II boat in the Kon Tiki exhibition is the original not a replica as I suggested.