56°21'31.3"N 14°36'10.5"E
where the hell are those moose?
Who does not know it … the conversation between old friends that you do not meet as often as before. One is scattered to the four winds and it is almost impossible that everyone has time at the same time.
Exactly for this reason we came up with the idea of going on a journey together. In the beginning there was a basic idea: It should feel like it did before. No obligations, no rules, just live into the day. Probably there will be the one or other beer, too. Coupled with a few funny ideas – others might say stupid ideas – nothing stands in the way of a men’s holiday.
But where is it actually going? No, definitely not to the south. It just doesn’t feel like adventure enough. Don’t ask me why that is. In the end it turned out to be Sweden. Everyman’s Right sounds just the way we like it. Besides, none of us have been there.
Okay, Sweden it is. But where in Sweden? We only have a week. One condition: We definitely want to go to a lake! And we want to go straight to a lake. As close as it gets. We ended up at an old wooden house in Kyrkhult. It looks great, has its own lake access, a rowing boat and is far away from the action. The motto is „no neighbours, no problems!“
Another point: We don’t want to fly. Because first of all it’s bad for the environment and secondly… well… of course because there’s not enough adventure. So we realized that we had a 17-hour drive ahead of us.
That’s when the rest of our friends jumped out. Only six of us were left. In any case a great number, so that all of us would fit into one car. Including luggage and food, of course. Our choice finally fell on an old T4 bus. It originally came from the border patrol. Except for the old gun cases in the door panels and maybe the green paint, there is nothing to notice of it anymore. Maybe this is because of the hundreds of stickers that are now on the bus. Grasi, who owns the bus, said that his bus is no longer the fittest and that we might not even make it to Sweden, but after all he is in the same boat as the rest of us. In the old way we just thought that this will be ok.
And then the journey began. From Eggenfelden – a small town in Bavaria – via the motorway through the whole of Germany to Rostock. In the end Grasi, Lex, Simon, Vinz, Steffen and myself were on the bus. The first part passed by in no time. Our plan was to drive through the night so that we could take the ferry to Gedser in Rostock and arrive in Sweden as soon as possible. We agreed that everyone would take a driver’s shift. But as soon as it got dark, it became clear that not all of us would be able to stay fit to drive. As you might see on the pictures, a beer came in the way somewhere. Arrived at the ferry, we had to wait a little bit. Of course the perfect time for us to get a little wild. The half broken soccer ball, which had appeared somewhere in the bus, was a great pastime. Almost a miracle that no other cars or people were hit. When the ferry finally arrived and we parked our vehicle below deck, we were all very relieved that the T4 had brought us all the way to Rostock without any problems. Now nothing can go wrong anymore!
The ferry from Scandlines finally left Rostock with us on board and set off for Gedser in Denmark. As we were cruising through the night, I was hoping to see a really cool sunrise on the boat. But the Baltic Sea didn’t mean well with us. Instead of a sunrise we got to see a little storm. With thick black clouds, strong wind and rain.But the good mood and the excitement for Sweden was strong! It was actually really cool to stand on the deck of the ferry and look at the ocean. Adventure feeling like in a picture book!
At some point everyone started to get tired. Some of us even found a small play corner for children as a sleeping place. For me it was the bench with table in one of the board bistros.
„Let's see if we can cross
the boarder like this!“
When we finally arrived in Gedser the next morning, we all looked… how do I say this… a bit shitty. Probably came from the long drive, not enough sleep and one beer too many.
Well… luckily the first petrol station in Denmark was not far away! First of all, get fit with a good coffee and then we’ll see if the Swedes let six crazy people in a somewhat strange looking bus into their country. If we were asked at the border to clear everything out of the bus, we would have spent the whole day there for sure. Above all, nobody of us knew exactly what would be found in the car. Well then: sverige vi kommer!
And there we were. No problems, breakdowns or anything. The place is amazing! This 400-year-old jewel is huge and completely made of wood. It used to be a restaurant. As a welcome we got a guided tour through all rooms. Furthermore a story about all the keys that are needed for the various doors followed. Some of them were so huge that you could seriously hurt someone with them. The hosts were super nice and gave us practically complete fool’s freedom. In the main room there was a big open fireplace. How made for us! Luckily there was also some wood in the outhouse which we were allowed to use. Unfortunately we didn’t notice immediately that we had caught a few packs of wood shingle first…
I have already mentioned that the house is located directly at a lake. And it’s not too small either. There’s a private jetty, too. The first advice we got is not to jump into the water, because around the footbridge there are big stones in the water. We have also made acquaintance with them several times. Once with the boat and even more often while fishing. Let’s put it this way, the lake has kept several lures to itself. Speaking of the lake, I’ve never seen water like this before. It was deep red. You could totally smell the iron when you were diving down.
There was nothing but an endless forest around the house. At some point there were a few houses, but we were really completely on our own. Just like we wanted.
Everyman's Right
I mentioned at the beginning that in Sweden there is the so-called „allemansrätten“. It means that everybody is allowed to move freely in nature and can use it. Even if the land actually belongs to someone. The only important thing is to behave respectfully, not to leave your rubbish everywhere and not to cause any damage. A part of this is also that fishing is simply allowed on the lakes. On some of them a small fee is due, but not on ours. We didn’t need a fishing license either. It’s a good thing that we had a boat with us at our accommodation. It didn’t take long until this thing was in the water. To be honest it happened before we even unpacked all our stuff.
Before any question, yes, fishing was a big part of our vacation. Even if not everyone had that much of a plan, or even had a rod with them. But after all, you like to learn from your friends. And even the least interested one will eventually grab one of the rods and try his luck on the jetty. For those around the one with the rod, it can be a little dangerous. I’m just saying be aware of the hook. Or the rocks in the water, as I mentioned before. Some of us had to go swimming to get the line free again. All those baits are not for free after all. So yup, we had to learn the hard way what places to aim for in the lake.
Where the hell are those moose?
We were in Sweden in summer, but that does not necessarily mean that we had bathing weather. It rained a lot. But we were prepared for that. Each of us was armed with outdoor clothes. One better, the other worse, but still! If you don’t know anything about Sweden, you might find it interesting that there are wild moose there. For those who really know nothing at all: Bloody huge deer. And we wouldn’t be us if we didn’t run into the forest to look for one. Our accommodation was practically surrounded by the forest, so we had high hopes that this would work out.
The woods here in Sweden look a bit different than those in Germany. At first sight they even seem almost unkempt, as far as you can say that about nature. In Sweden everything is left on the ground. That means all fallen trees and broken branches can rot on the forest floor. So the forest looks much wilder. So absolute adventure potential. No wonder there are moose here. Theoretically, there are also wild wolves in Sweden. However, they are not found in the south of the country. It’s not a bad thing if you don’t run into a pack of wolves at once. But probably you don’t want to mess around with a moose that doesn’t really want to see six curious Bavarians. However, this only occurred to us after our forest hike.
In the forest itself, Vinz in particular was able to explain a great deal to us, as he is studying forestry. Always interesting to learn something new. Really amazing what is growing here. Of course, there are also wild blueberries in the homeland, but rarely in such a mass. I even spent some time with Vinz picking berries for a blueberry cake.
Back to our search for the elks. We came deeper and deeper into the forest. In between, every now and then one of the group got lost. Must happen. Ok well maybe we also hid in the bushes to scare the lost ones. At some point we realized that we are probably just too loud to see even the ass of an animal while it is running away from us. At least we could find the poop of moose. So there it is here. And apparently not so few of them. Was like a little minefield in some places. Our hike through the woods finally turned into a war with pine cones again. Not very clever but damn funny. We did not see any moose, but we had a really good time in the forest.
Cheers to friendship!
All in all, our adventure in Sweden went by quite quickly. But before we went back home, there was the topic with our bus. His condition had worsened during our time in Sweden. Grasi and I had tried to repair the clutch, but it didn’t work out very well. In any case, we realized that we had driven the almost 2500 km there and back with a slipping clutch. The mechanic from Grasi said that we probably could have driven only a few more kilometers. A little bit of luck is needed after all!
And honestly: I am super happy that we made this trip together! It makes you want to be on the road with your best mates and to relive the feeling of your youth. All the stupid ideas, the shitty talk for hours, often a little uncertainty if everything will work out the same way. We were only on the road for a week, but it definitely felt longer! In a good way. An adventure for the books that we will talk about for a long time.
Thank you guys for being a part of my life! I wouldn’t want to miss a single one of you.
