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| 101 miles |
As we are now officially in the land of the Midnight Sun, it didn't get dark but we managed to black out the van enough to sleep well. Once again a bright sunny morning but a little cooler, although we were up early as it seems to make the day go better somehow. As suspected no trains disturbed us so breakfast then away by 9.00am.
We suspected that we would need to visit a vet for worming treatment for Jamie in order to take him into Norway, confirmed by a Funster although the official website is far from clear. We should have perhaps organised this a little earlier but not knowing where we would be at a definitive time made this awkward. But as we were now within a days drive we felt we should check and found a vet in Gallivare who confirmed this was correct and was able to see us straightaway. Great - however the little monster wasn't having any of it today; he's normally difficult when it comes to tablets anyway but today he surpassed himself. At one point there was the two of us, the vet and a nurse rolling around on the floor fighting with him so as he was getting quite distressed we put everything on hold and took him outside to calm down. It didn't help though and eventually between them Terry and the vet managed to get the tablet down, at the risk of nipped fingers from a very very angry little Westie. He can be a XXX when the mood takes him but we got his passport stamped and parted with SEK450, about £40 which is not the worst we've paid but we still think the whole charade is a ripoff.
But as for the UK, we now had to wait a minimum of 24 hours before we could cross into Norway and as we'd sort of planned to do the shopping, refuel and get some laundry done we'd need a campsite. There is one only a few minutes from the city centre with the necessary facilities so after stocking up the larder and having lunch we headed to Kiruna Camping. Now the reviews on both P4N and Campercontact were not very complimentary but we arrived to find a beautiful and well laid out place and the views of the iron ore mines people complained about were hidden by well planted trees. There's no pleasing some folk! Around £25 per night, this included electricity, the usual waste and water, showers, and even a sauna. As well as the self-service laundry (£7.00) there was access to cafes, a bar and restaurant, spa and gymnasium. We thought very good value for moneu and it also seemed to be quite popular with Swedes as whilst we had no problem getting a pitch there was a constant stream of arrivals all afternoon.
Some interesting facts about Kiruna. In 1900 the town was created to service the extraction of huge amounts of iron ore and during WW2 it was the main supply to the UK via Narvik in Norway, the Axis countries doing their very best to disrupt that supply. Sweden, however, was a neutral country so actually supplied both sides of the war! Nowadays the old wooden frontier-style town has been rebuilt with modern concrete structures and has little to see apart from the iron ore industry and some Sami (the original indigenous population) museums and culture centres. But Kiruna has a literally underlying problem - due to all the mines around 1km below the town it is slowly sinking! This has been recognised and plans are in the making to move the whole town to a new location, starting with the construction of a new railway station and main road then eventually every home is to be lifted complete and transported to the new site. A time scale of 10 years has been mooted but nothing yet appears to be happening; apparently the population aren't too fussed about the upheaval as they recognise the significance of the iron ore mines to the town.
But back to today. Unfortunately whilst enjoying a cuppa we realised a problem, caused by not paying enough attention to what day it was. We need to find gas before we go much further and our LPG app showed the nearest to our route being in Narvik; no problem except they were not open for autogas at the weekend, neither was the one just a few kilometres away that suddenly appeared on the app and which had just closed. Many naughty words uttered! This definitely put a spanner in the works as the first part of our tour was into a relatively unpopulated area so we wanted to be fully topped up before we started. Little to be done now however so we'll just move on tomorrow taking our time and the opportunity to chill for a day or two. There are loads of stopover places between here and Narvik, I'm sure we'll find something.
We've now traced the problem with the camera to a faulty cable so can now access the piccies Bren has taken along the way so we'll maybe add them in later.
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