Day 8

Wednesday, September 21

Today is our last entire day in Sweden, we'll have to be in Trelleborg tomorrow morning so we'll have to make our way South today. It's a beautiful morning, the sun is already out but there's fog on the ground and hovering over the water. It's still quite cold, about 2 °C - fall has arrived.

As we have breakfast next to the cooking fire and boil some eggs for the drive we notice a cricket, very slowly moving into the sunlight, warming up and beginning to chirrup. There won't be many more mornings for it.

One our way South we stop at Karlskrona. The city was founded in 1680 as base for the Royal navy and covers over 30 small islands, it's really interesting. Sadly we only have time for a short walk and a mug of coffee before we hit the road again.

The far South of Sweden is very different from what we've seen in the last few days, in fact it's not much different from what Germany looks like some 100 kms south across the Baltic Sea, there are lots of fields and farms. Also it's the most densely populated region of Sweden. As we leave the E22 towards Ystad, now and again the sea comes back into view.

The afternoon is drawing to a close as we arrive at Ales Stenar, a large stone ship probably dating from the Iron Age. It sits atop a grassy cliff over the sea and was probably used for astronomy and after all these centuries it's still a sight to behold.

Dozens of sheep wander across the grassy expanse but except for one they won't let us approach them. We sit on the cliff for a while, looking down on the pebble beach below, phantasizing about camping there but it seems to hazardous with the sheep clambering all about the steep slope looking for food.

As we're not far from Trelleborg now we might as well find a camp spot for the night. There are camp sites but they all seem to be closed off and we'd like one last night "out in the wild" anyway. We head for the beach of Sandhammaren, hoping camping might be allowed there. Turns out it isn't but the beach is amazing, huge and empty. It's also great to walk on as the sand is firm and hardly yields underfoot.

When the sun has set we hide the tent between the dunes and I step out into the cold water. The surf is loud and it's a queer feeling standing there in the half light that softens the borders of beach, sky and water.

It's also getting cold really soon, dew begins to fall shortly after sunset and there are millions of stars despite the lighthouses left and right getting in the way. Even the lights of the Danish island Bornholm can be seen clearly across the water.

As we don't want to draw any attention to ourselves with a campfire we retire into our sleeping bags pretty soon, but I sleep uneasy, waking up frequently and looking out of the tent over the surreal landscape of dunes and beach grass under the pale light of the moon.