Sweden

I’d only been to Sweden once before — to Malmø on a slow Sunday afternoon — and I wasn’t impressed. Or in a hurry to get back (that was almost two years ago.) This time I saw a very different part of Sweden, and would welcome the opportunity to go back.

Lisbeth and her sister Hanne had been in Sweden for a week, canoeing and camping. They were joined by Hanne’s boyfriend Kaspar, and two of their friends Søren and Lotte from the collective where they live. But they didn’t come to canoe. They came for rock climbing.

The area where we were, Kullen, has very rugged terrain. It’s pretty much rock coming straight out of the ocean. The scenery is stunning, but it’s hostile too. Everything is rocky. There’s no sand on these beaches, just big rocks.

Just getting to the beach from the car is quite a hike. It’s a steep decent down to the beach, and then a steep climb to the top of an outcropping, then another drop. And then there’s only own more steep climb and you’re there. There are places on the trail where metal stairs are fitted to the rock, and others where the rock is carved into stairs.

I’m not crazy about rock climbing, and this trip didn’t change that. (I think its ok — and I did a short climb on the first day, but I’d rather take pictures than cling to a rock.) But it is an interesting sport. There are lots and lots of cool metal toys. It took a little while for them to get all geared up and ready to go.

It was hot. It was the hottest I’ve been in Europe, in fact. I mostly wanted to go into the water. Unfortunately, however, the water was full of jellyfish, some of which are the really painful kind (‘brandmand’ in Danish, or “fireman”)

Lisbeth and I did go swimming later that day (after over an hour of hiking around looking for the optimal spot from which to get in) but it’s not as relaxing as it could be, knowing that at any minute you could come in contact with the long, wandering tendrils of a jellyfish. Nevertheless, the water was fantastically cold.

I was a bit surprised (and impressed) at how keenly Lisbeth took the rocks. She did two climbs that day, and had done a longer one the day before I got there. I don’t know why.

After our swim, we watched Kaspar and Hanne to a long climb (it required 37 meters, or 120 feet). It was fun to watch them, but it was also hard to concentrate on them when the scenery behind them was so fantastic.

We stayed in an odd (odd to me anyway) camping area about five minutes from the cliffs by car. The area is owned by a Danish climbing club that is pretty well attended, so it gets a lot of use. So it was surprising to find that we had it all to ourselves. Apparently it’s not uncommon for thirty people to camp there during the summer. Only on the last night did anyone else show up, and even then, it was only four people. 

On Sunday we went to another climbing spot, and once again the hike to get there was interesting. In this case it was a very steep set of drops. Steep enough to require hand-rails, in this case constructed by running steel cable through a garden hose. (At first I thought it were just plain garden hose, and thought, “Wow, why do the Swedes make SUCH strong garden hose?”) The hose makes for a good grip though — pretty clever.

We were much closer to the water the second day, but there was no swimming. The seaweed and algae was thick, and, if you look in the center if this picture and to the right a bit, that’s a ‘brandmand’, which I believe is a Lion’s Mane jellyfish.

Lisbeth and I didn’t climb that day. We were tired from the previous day’s climbing and hiking, for one thing, but also, there was shade in this spot. So we took it easy and let the others climb.

This gave me a chance to play with my latest camera lens — a “macro” lens, designed for close-ups. I explored the area, looking for tiny things to make big… and discovered that seaweed is strange looking stuff…

When I got back, I found Lisbeth napping in the shade, but I still wanted to play with my new lens… so…

And then my camera battery died.