Running on Empty

Day 46 - July 9th 

The following morning we awoke to our motorhome battery on the verge of collapse. As we had been wild camping and not plugging into sites for the past 10 days our battery had no real opportunity to recharge and was now on it’s last legs – so much so that we had to start the car just to get a little bit of water out for a shower!

The rest of the morning was therefore spent investigating suitable chargers for a leisure battery, as apparently they’ve got deeper cells than car batteries and need to be nursed a little more when charging. Who would of thought?

After we forked out the £80 for the charger we then tried to figure out a way of getting it recharged without having to check into a registered campsite. After spending 10 days camping for free and in some amazing spots, we were very reluctant to break the trend.

The option we came up with was to find a Laundromat (as I was running on my last pair of jocks) and kill two birds with one stone. Now this plan would have worked really well if the Swedish actually had Laundromats. After searching high and low through Varberg, we then tried looking it up on the Internet only to find that Sweden does not have Laundromats! 

Seemingly the wealth and living standards of its citizens is so good that everyone can afford a washing and drying machine. And if they can’t afford one then there is always a communal one in their apartment block. 

I found this extremely hard to believe so did a search for a Laundromat in the next town we were heading to – Goteburg.  I managed to locate one place and it was a quick drive up the highway to get to it. Sadly, it turned out to be a laundry operated by an old lady who would do it for us at the small price of £6 per kilo. With 5kgs of washing we were looking at about £30, so we then decided to bite the bullet and check into a campground!

Despite our apprehension to using campgrounds, it is always a relaxing experience as there is no need to worry about how long you’re running the pump for, whether your going to run out of water or using the chemical toilet as all the facilities are on your doorstep. We could even pull out our camp chairs and awning without the worry of pissing anyone off, as would be the case in a wild camp spot.

The rest of the day was spent doing washing, recharging the leisure battery and all other manner of batteries, plus cleaning out the van. I guess you could think of it as checking into port to restock and refuel after a journey out at sea.

P.S. Sadly, there were no photos taken on this day so you're just going to have to imagine what a battery charger, dirty washing and a laundromat looks like. Cheerio!