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| Mellbystrand to Saffle |
Right, time to get some more miles under the wheels so an earlyish start into yet another "blusky" (blue sky) morning. Could definitely get used to these!
But first we need to restock the larder, get some local currency and also refuel whilst we're at it. So after breakfast we carried out a full domestic service on Bertie as we've no idea where we'll be tonight then a short drive to a big shopping centre next to the motorway. Cash machines just love giving out large denomination notes, be fun trying to buy ice creams with a £50 note! An hour wandering round the Max supermarket trying to fill the shopping list then top off with fuel and on our way. Diesel is not as expensive as we first thought, this load costing us £1.65 a litre, but as in the UK it is quite a lot more than petrol. Most pumps also have a nozzle for ethanol, wonder what that would do in the tank.........
Anyway, back onto the busy motorway to Gothenburg (Goteborg) through unremarkable but pleasant enough scenery, diving into the multiple junction road system. For this bit, rather than trust Nellie or TomTom we chose instead to follow the road-signs, an old-fashioned but generally reliable way of navigating and turned onto the E45 (all major roads in Sweden appear to be E, i.e. European, numbered) with a target of Karlstad at the head of the Vanern Lake, which is more like an inland sea. Our maps showed this as a scenic route, okay if you're a fan of trees but an enjoyable enough drive.
Off the motorway now and still quite busy but an easy fast ride, mostly going around towns and villages. Very few rest areas so we paused for lunch at another shopping centre before continuing north. It seems TomTom may actually be getting more intelligent - whilst batting along he warned us of an upcoming right turn, apparently into the countryside and we started to think he was trying one of his short cuts. But we came round a bend to be faced with a road closed barrier and a diversion, right along the new route which TT obviously knew about!
That diversion behind us, as it was getting later than we normally like to travel Bren started looking for an overnight stop. Fully serviced we didn't need anything special so we eventually settled on a "free" parking area with 8 allocated motorhome spaces in the small town of Saffle. As promised in P4N it was clearly signposted and we quickly found a lovely spot, right by the river with nobody else on it. There were even 8 electrical hookups which we don't need of course although nothing else in the way of facilities. However a check of the signs showed that the town had introduced a low season charge of SKR100, about £8, which was okay but making the payment was something else. We could use Swish, a Swedish app-based system (which was no use to us as you need a Swedish bank account) or pay at the harbour office or Tourist Information. T set off to find said harbour office but the apparent building was closed and the pay machine there unintelligible. So back to the TI, which of course only opens 2 days a week for 3 hours and we'd missed it. So an executive decision was made to stuff it and wait to see if anyone comes calling. Another, Swedish, moho parked up but we didn't see how, or even if, he paid.
So, a refreshing cuppa before T took Jamie for a decent walk along the river and B sorted out the groceries and made the evening meal. We are quite happy about the 219 miles we've managed today but if we are to complete our Norway plans we need to better that somewhat over the next couple of days.
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| Saffle |
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