The West Coast Archipelago

The Swedish west coast offers a distinctly different form of an archipelago, not at all like the islands and peninsulas that can be found in the Stockholm archipelago on the east coast. On the west coast, the cliffs and the outer islands are bare, without a single tree on them.

The Swedish islands included in the west coast archipelago can, with a few exceptions, be found in the regional district of Bohuslän, situated between the Swedish city of Gothenburg (Göteborg) in the south and the Svinessund border of Norway in the north.

Bohuslän also has the only fjord to be found in Sweden, Gullmjarsfjorden. (The fjords in Norway are both bigger and, of course, outnumbers the silly little one we have in Sweden.) More info about the Swedish archipelago can be found on this canoe homepage.



Tara overlooking the boats lined up at the gas station.

Tara with some fisherman "closets" down by the harbor.

(Above pictures from Havstenssund, point 5 on the map above)

The northern archipelago around the little fishing village of Havstenssund between Strömstad and Grebbestad is very fragmented with high, steep rocky islands and islets.


(Caroline, Tara and Patrik in the cute litte boating community of Grebbestad.)

We continued our trip to Fjällbacka, number 6 on the map above. The archipelago of Fjällbacka has probably the greatest number of islands and islets in Bohuslän. These are hilly and lie closely together, separated by a labyrint of narrow passages and inlets, which are fascinating to paddle around. Porsholmen, Hjärterön, Florön and Vedholmen together with Hamnholmarna are the names of some well-known islands worth visiting.

In the evening, when the sky cseemed to be a little bit too cloudy, we headed across the island of Orust (7) and ended up on Patrik's old home island of Tjörn (9) , and came just in time for a hot meal down in the Skärhamn marina where the guest boats were crammed together...

Marstrand

Smiling on the island...
After swimming in the Atlantic

View from the fortress at Marstrand

A Paris Hilton pose in the marina


Marstrand with its unique atmosphere... Caroline, Patrik and Tara smiling along in the posh bay area on the east coast of the island.

Rock carvings in Tanumshede

Last Saturday Tara and Joakim went to visit Caroline and Patrik in Gothenburg, and together we all went on a two-day excursion up the coast - to see the Gothenburg archipelago.


We started on Saturday by visiting Tanumshede and the World Heritage Museum in Vitlycke (homepage in English). Here we spent the morning and middle of the day studying rock carvings from the Bronze Age, some of the dating as far back as 1800 B.C. We also visited a few grave sites (big rocks piled up together as in picture above).


Carving above: Ceremonial war scene.


Carving above: Man with sword.


Carving above: Ceremonial death ritual ship, transporting the honored warriors on their final voyage to the kingdom of death.

Football in Helsingborg

20.000 people filled the stadium to its maximum (during this hot July evening), which is pretty good for a town that only has 120.000 inhabitants.


It was supposed to be Henrik "Henke" Larsson's great return. Fans filled the Olympia stadium in Helsingborg to greet Henrik Larsson who left the club 13 years ago for a very successful professional career in Europe. (He also had some less appreciated years when he first became a pro in Feynoord but most people , probably including himself, would like to forget that...)
He came back after being a celebrated striker all over Europe for the past decade - in Celtic, where he won the Scottish Premier League several times (and was celebrated as the most productive scorer in Europe) - and Barcelona where he finished his career by winning both the Spanish League and the Champions League two months ago, Henke finally came back to where it all started - Helsingborg, Sweden. (Top picture of Henke Larsson in a close encounter with Dioh Williams. Second picture taken from our seats.)

With 38 attempts on goal, many of them very demanding, the game was intense during the entire 90 minutes. Häcken's goalie Christoffer Källqvist made some remarkable saves and eventually set up the stability his team needed to win with the score 1-3, where the last goal was made only a few seconds before the final referee ended the game.
Helsingborg was anything but effective, and both their defensive players and their goalie need to take blame for the loss. But apart from the grief of my mother I think the rest of the family very much enjoyed the game.

(Tara and my parents by the sideline after the game has ended.)

Mom is the die hard fan here. Her grandfather, my great grandfather, played for Helsingborg in the Swedish league during the first decades of the 20th century.
(Tara and Joakim by the stands.)

Swedish Open in Båstad

The opening of the Swedish Open tennis tournament in Båstad. Tara is catching some sun while waiting for the show to start.



Kim shows off his stylish sponsor hat at the center court in Båstad.


Tara has a great view of the center court while preperations are being made to welcome the players. Nadal couldn't make it.. (since he was playing the Wimbledon final at the moment) lots of other great players showed up...


...like old-timer Stefan Edberg (if only to play an exhibition game... ), Thomas Johansson, Jonas Björkman, David Ferrer, Juan Carlos Ferrero and Tommy Robredo.

Tara outside of our favorite house in Båstad, complete with a little fountain and a rose garden. It looks perfect for our retirement plans when we get old!

Homecoming

This is how happy we looked after coming back to the summer cottage after three dails on the Skåneleden trail.

Swedish Outback Hiking Experience

(Lake Hårsjön, at 11 PM.)

Here are some pictures from some wonderful days that we spent on the Skåneleden trail in southern Sweden, June 30- July 2. (Visit our photo album to view all the pictures.) We covered approximately 70 kilometers (44 miles) during our three days of hiking.


We started around 9 AM after being dropped off on the western part of the coast-to-coast trail, between point 13 and 12, and started our hike going east.
The sun was already shining bright and the temperature soon reached 80 degrees Fahrenheit.

A very tired Kim can be seen resting (in the photo album) after 8 hours of hiking, at a lookout place north of Åsljunga. From there we had a magnificent view with the forest stretching all the way to the horizon, with a couple of lakes placed in the middle of nowhere.


At 7 PM we finally reached the camp ground Lärkholmen, south of Åsljunga (point 11 on the map above). Tara was in charge of the washing up after Kim made dinner - the luxury menue included Knorr's vegetable soup and coffee boiled on the camp fire. We had a quick swim in the lake and could fall asleep to the sounds of the forest during this warm and bright evening. The photo album shows our beautiful scenery from the wind shield at 11 PM.

Day 2 included a very hard route from point 11 to point 10 (Hårsjön) which is depicted above. We both fell in a swamp and suffered from a tough heat in the low 90ies. When we finally reached the camp site we were soon accompanied by 17 off-road motorcycle guys who were kind enough to share some of their marshmallows with us around the camp fire.



Day 3 started at 6 AM with Kim making breakfast on oatmeal and oranges. We packed our tent and the rest of our things and left the camp ground at 7.45.
Along the way to Vittsjö (point 9 on the map) we found a few cute little cabins in the middle of the forest and stopped by one of them to borrow some water from the well. At around noon we made it to the Ubbalt National Park, by the lake Vittsjön. Here, we had lunch and took the opportunity to cool off by swimming in the lake before we continued to our final destination, east of the lake (close to point 8 on the map) where we were finally picked up and could soon travel back to the summer cottage in Båstad to our first hot shower in three days.


(Day 1. After 2 miles of hiking Tara is smiling on the hillside of the National Park area near Stavershult.)

Below: Kim in 90 degrees (F) weather on the moor in northern Skåne.

Independence Day Celebration

(Our friend Per enjoys the colors of Liberty. Click image to enlarge)

Our friends came to visit us at our Independence Day party. Tara organized a Texas barbecue, with steak, chicken and shrimp - in Lone Star State marinade!

Pictures taken in our garden in Lund.

(Our friend Ingvar shares his interpretation of "Rubber, no thanks" - Gummi, nej tak - from the Danish TV Show "Drengerne fra Angora.)

The Sörmlandsleden trail

My brother and his fiancée went hiking on the Sörmlandsleden trail during Midsummer. You can view their photo album here (password: vandring).

Outdoor pictures from the past

Here is a collection of outdoor pictures from around the world.

(Kim and Tara at Harper's Ferry, WV, 2004.



Haper's Ferry: Kim at the lookout and Tara on the trail leading to Jefferson's Rock.

The two of us visiting the old Native American villages in the mountains of Bandelier National Park, New Mexico, 2004.


Kim, his mother and brother having lunch on the top of the mountain ridge near Idre-Grövelsjön in the middle of Sweden. (Picture from the early 80ies). This cross-country skiing event is mainly remembered by the participants because of our mothers great fear when we heard wolves howling in the forest below.

And here is a picture of our friends:

Peter and Johanna eating whale and drinking red wine in the midnight sunshine up in Nordkapp (or is it Tromsö?) in Norway.

Our cats enjoying themselves

Nietzsche and Wittgenstein guarding the football.

It is very important to be comfortable when you sleep...