2026 Norway Part 3

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18th Sep
Northern lights made a brief appearance last night. It seems they are very fleeting and ephemeral. A greenish circle in the north, then gone. I spent ages standing outside after this, until about 2.00am. I really don’t know if I was seeing cloud or not, stars were visible through the shifting pattern of light. What I do know is that I got very cold!

Drove the short way into Kiruna, and filled up with LPG. This is the only LPG in northern Sweden, so will have to keep a close watch on consumption. Now using heating, there was just a thin coating of ice on a puddle this morning.

After some shopping, went to Nutti Sami Siida, an open air museum of Sami life.

Inside an accommodation tent. The tent was a tarpaulin, which rather belies the claim of authenticity.

General view over the site.

A (rather wonky) storage hut out of the reach of bears, wolverines, wolves and foxes, and above the deepest snow.

Inside another living hut.

The outside.

When they moved, following the reindeer migration, articles they could not take with them were stored in here.

Inside, showing construction techniques, not sure why there is a suspended reindeer hide.

Reindeer, we watched then quite enthusiastically eating moss or lichen. Couldn’t see any difference between before and after they had grazed a patch, but they seemed satisfied.

Then to the very cosy cafe, with a welcoming fire.

Supposedly, a genuine Sami meal. The meat is reindeer. Not sure what the berries are, but they were really nice. Who know tomatoes and cucumber grew in the arctic north.
Sat 19th Sep
A nothing day. Found a hotel with a laundry room, who were prepared to let us use the laundry facilities (for 100SEK, about £8.70). The dryer took about three hours to leave everything damp. But at least the washing is done – no launderettes in Norway, and non north of Stockholm in Sweden.
Now parked up about 40 kms south of Kiruna.
Sun 20th Sep
After a late start, drove up to Ake pa toppen, a mountain lodge , altitude 823 metres (2,700 feet). The dreary low cloud of this morning was beginning to clear, not that you would guess from the photos.
Now parked up off the road towards Porjus, a hydro scheme and museum. Which is temporarily closed. We had considered the museum in Liikavaara, but that is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. We havn’t done very well for museums.

The drive here went through astonishing roadworks. For about 20 kms, it looked as if the road is being upgraded, so the existing road has been torn up. All 20 kms of it. And replaced with a potholed bumpy temporary surface, with speed restrictions of between 30 and 50 KPH. No attempt to restrict the disruption by dividing the upgrade into sections.
View from Aka pa toppen

Looking towards Dundret National park.
Mon 21st Sep
A late start, and drove to Porjus, site of an hydro dam and a closed museum. Everything nicely laid out, no one about and not very spectacular.

Today has been a nice sunny day (mostly), and forecast clear skies tonight, so we selected a site as far from light pollution as possible. Really difficult to find total darkness.
A layby just off the road, rather a nice place next to a lake.

Unfortunately, solar activity is light tonight, but we will stand a shiver just in case. We were originally due back tomorrow, but decided to extend our stay. Solar activity is forecast much better in two days time, forecast is total cloud cover, and in any case we need to head back tomorrow. A long drive. We are currently just inside the arctic circle. Not as cold as I expected, and really surprised at the number of towns, villages and isolated houses so far north.
Tue 22nd Sep
We did see a fleeting greenish tinge on the northern horizon…unfortunately that is as good as we are going to get.
Had a long uneventful drive to Pitea, on Swedens eastern coast, flatish road, straightish, lined with trees. For miles and miles.
From Pitea southward, a much wider road, more traffic, not a lot, and more roadworks. The first of note was a short section with a vertical drop of several inches, no attempt at any sort of ramp. Made a fearful bang. The second of note, whilst navigating a narrow section past an JCB digging or something, hit the first of two beams about four inches high bolted into the carriageway, presumably strategically placed to knacker the suspension, another fearful crash. The suspension seems to have survived, not sure about Sue’s nerves.
Regretting not travelling back through Norway, scenery much more interesting, and their roadworks much more helpfully organised. Will be well pleased to leave Sweden, but there is a fearful long way to go, plenty of opportunities to devise further vehicle unfriendly obstacles.
Found a place to stay for the night on P4N, down an unpaved dead end road for about 15 kilometers, parked up near the coast and rather attractive. No roadworks on the unpaved road!
Wed 23rd Sep
Last nights parking.

Another day of driving south, there is going to be a lot of them. Now in a place called Hamosand, in a carpark next to a marina, all quite pleasant.
Only one section of roadworks of note, about 25 kms where the road surface has been torn up, and replaced with potholes and speed restrictions. Only a few precipitate ramps, fortunately the authorities that be forgot to install vehicle damaging beams across the road.
Another day of mostly clear skies, warm sunshine. How we missed that in Norway, and now making it difficult driving constantly south into a blinding sun. Just ain’t fair!
Thu 24th Sep
A long drive again, this time to Uppsala. Almost completely roadworks free, no horrors. Except AdBlue light came on. Ages to a garage, supposed to be 200 miles available from the light coming on to the vehicle conking out and requiring a Fiat dealer reset. Nothing re AdBlue works in the way the manual says it should, so I really don’t trust anything about it, and want to top it up asap. Seems to be straight forward from a pump, but most garages don’t have a pump, have never found anywhere there gives locations of pumps, so have to buy a 5 litre plastic container, with a totally inadequate nozzle. Really difficult to refill, takes two of us, and we got into a real mess. Ending up dropping the container, spilt the damn stuff everywhere. A real mess. To celebrate, later this evening Sue spilt a glass of wine, in sympathy I suppose.
Sue wanted to visit a museum in Uppsala, we have parked up in a motorhome friendly carpark, except it is the wrong museum! Actually should have been very interesting, part open air, a ridge with many Viking burial mounds and a museum attached.
The museum, clearly very expensively done, was confusing and lacked focus or cohesion. Very disappointing, and both of us couldn’t help comparing it with Sutton Hue, dating from about the same time, and so much more cohesive.
The lower floor of the museum.

The upper floor.

The largest burial mound, very big, about the size of a three story house.

General view over the site. Loads more mounds to the left out of this picture.

Left rather disappointed, but made a change from driving.
Fri25th Sep
Only moderately successful shopping trip this morning. Then drove. No roadworks to exercise the minds of vehicle scrapyard owners. In fact, hardly any roadworks at all. Now parked up next to a huge water tower. Well, I don’t know it’s a water tower. A something tower.
Would have liked to go into central Stockholm, but couldn’t find anywhere to park which gave less than an hours bus journey. In fact, couldn’t get even close to an hour. So gave up on that idea unfortunately.
Sat 26th Sep
A long long drive, now just outside Malmo. Trees far less autumnal, coming south and down to sea level.
Will be leaving Sweden tomorrow, and will be quite glad, which is probably unfair, as we didn’t do much except drive. I completely underestimated distances and timings, never thought about it, but Sweden is very long!
Sun 27th Sep
A splendid start to a warm and sunny day. Left Malmo, and crossed the Oresund Bridge, much clearer than when we came up nearly a month ago.

Approaching the subterranean bridge – the tunnel for the last 4 kms or so of the crossing.

A long and uneventful drive across this part of Denmark.

Then, arrived at Rodby, and straight onto an earlier ferry than the one I booked. Now in Germany, and enroute to Hamburg, encountered roadworks. The day rapidly slithered downhill. About 20kms of roadworks, about an hour and a half. Then a motorway dash to Hamburg, and a monumental traffic jam. Had read that Hamburg was a traffic problem, and hoped passing through on a Sunday would be all right. It wasn’t. Took about an hour and a half again for about 10 kilometres.
Finally past Hamburg, which wasn’t a problem on the way up, and skirted round Bremen, only to encounter another traffic jam. Fortunately, our turnoff was only four kms further, and finally made it to our campersite at 5.30, two and a half frustrating hours late.
Tue 29th Sep
Yesterday, a shortish drive, via our first for us German bio shop. Then to Antoinettes and Brian, and a very nice evening, good to see them again.
Then, a long drive from Hengalo to Calais. Was going OK until Antwerp. In heavy traffic sandwiched between lorries on a complicated motorway junction with multiple branches leading in different directions, we ended up (of course)! In the wrong lane, going into central Antwerp, massive roadworks, huge traffic jam. Crawled slowly in the wrong direction for about 10 kms until we could turn round, and crawl back to the ring road.
Then, the same thing happened again, further towards Calais. Didn’t take quite as long to extract ourselves this time.
Running short of fuel, managed to find a garage (with a surprising amount of difficulty), and the queue was about half an hour.

Then, a real hassle booking the tunnel crossing. For some reason, had lost all the details of the Motorhome Club site, which gives discounted tickets (not that one would know, getting really expensive). Eventually filled in all the details, went to pay, and had to enter a one time passcode to complete the payment. My phone SIM was on the router……so had to unscrew the router and put the SIM in my phone. And the hot spot onto my Ipad. By the time I had done all that, the booking had been cancelled, start all over again with a very slow internet.
All this meant we were late and rather fed up when we parked up at Calais. At least we had a nice fish restaurant lined up. Except, before we set off, I checked it was still there. Yes it is still there, but closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. Yesterday was Tuesday.
A bad end to a not very successful rip. Too much driving, too much grotty cloud cover, not enough doing.