A Swedish ‘Minute of Madness’

Day 45 - July 8^th 

Waking up the next morning, we realised we made the right choice in not going over the bridge the night before as it was a lovely sunny morning. After a quick ride around the nature reserve, we packed up and then made our way to the Oresund Bridge. 

As bridges go it was pretty good, but for 80 Euro I was expecting a bit more bang for my buck, like flying circus performers dangling overhead or maybe having to drive through a ring of fire before you pay the toll.

We also found that the strict regulations on bringing alcohol into Sweden was a fallacy, as we sailed through customs without any body cavity searches or them bringing out the Beagles.

The Oresund Bridge that links Denmark with Sweden. It
also depletes your bank account very quickly!

The first town you hit entering Sweden is Malmo, however, it had been described as crime ridden and tatty so decided it wasn’t worth stopping at. We then continued north to Helsingborg, which is where you would arrive if you take a ferry from just across the water at the Danish town of Helsingor (Hamlet’s Castle). 

This was also a fairly drab little city, but we did manage to stop on this occasion to check out a massive car boot sale they had just on the city limits of town. 

You may wonder why we would stop at such a random event, however, we were having issues with the battery that runs our water pump, lights, fridge etc. (i.e. it had gone flat) and decided to take the chance that we may find a cheap battery charger at such a place.

After about 20 minutes of trawling through peoples old unwanted shit, we decided that it was highly unlikely that anyone would want to sell a car battery charger and if they did it probably didn’t work anyway, so left and got back on the road.

As we continued north we came across a nice coastal town called Mallbystrand and decided to cook up lunch just behind the dunes of the beach. Following lunch we took a walk down to the beach to find a plethora of people and their cars parked on the beach!

Going to the beach has a different meaning in Sweden as everyone drives their car right on to the coast for a seaside view.

It was quite a strange site to see and I’m sure the Australian public would not have a bar of it, but obviously the Swedes only get about 4 days per year where they can get down to the beach, so hey, what the hell. 

Within minutes of being there though, we saw an old classic Volvo (can you say that about Volvos?) being dug out of the sand, as the driver obviously got a bit excited and optimistic about his cars abilities and got the thing bogged up to it’s axels. Muppet.

With no particular destination in mind, we continued to head further north finally stopping in a fairly large town by the name of Varberg. 

As it was a Sunday, and great summer weather, the town and beaches in Varberg were rammed with people, which made it very difficult to find a wild camping spot. 

After about 45 minutes of searching, we decided to head to McDonalds to get some Wi-Fi and lookup a wild camping recommendation only to find that there was one at a nature reserve only 5 minutes down the road from where we were.

Despite the big sign saying no campers, the car park was completely empty  (albeit another camper) so we decided to ignore it (again) and parked up at the rear with a wonderful sea view, complete with grazing cattle.

The rest of the night we were visited by a number of other campervans, which came in, procrastinated and then headed for somewhere else up the road that did allow camping. 

This brings me on to something we would like to document as the Wild Camping ‘Minute of Madness’. 

When arriving into most wild camping destinations (particularly those with ‘No Camping’ signs), there is about a minute of sensory overload where all sorts of thoughts and scenarios enter your head to try and convince you that what you are doing is not only illegal but you will get woken up in the middle of the night, half naked and told to move. 

After the minute is over though, you crack a beer say hello to your fellow ‘illegal’ wild campers and never think about it again.

Taking a sunset walk through the nature reserve we were camped at.

The parking lot said 'No Camping', but with a location like this how could you resist?

View from the door as the sunsets over the Varberg coast.