Home again. Goodbye Scandinavia.

Always great to be home again.     Although a little sad.   No Poppy or Donna or Patrick.   Just empty rooms and a great deal of black dog hair, everywhere, just to remind us of Poppy.   Poppy, together with Donna and Patrick. is now in Australia, and happily going for walks on a beautiful beach.   I wonder if she misses her walks in Joydens Wood,with its narrow paths and plenty of mud and ditches to jump into.

We had an easy drive from Hamburg to Utrecht, in increasingly warmer weather.   Little did we know what was in store for us for the rest of the week.   

The line up of ducks at our Hamburg camping ground.   

Our last camping ground, De Vliert, by Houten, was quiet, luckily, otherwise we would not have been able to stay there.   There were preparations underway for the beginning of the Tour De France, which was in Utrecht the next weekend.  A temporary toilet/shower block, coloured bicycles hanging from posts at the front, and a large screen with a bar, in one of the farm buildings, predicted that the camping ground was going to be full.   We left on the Friday, before the onslaught of caravans and motorhomes.

The weather last week was exceedingly hot, and I believe the temperatures reached the mid thirties.   The flatness of the land just seemed to make the heat worse.   But the evenings were very pleasant, and the sunsets glorious.

A photograph taken from the campsite, looking over the fields, at about 11 p.m.   We opened every window in the caravan and it was actually very pleasant sleeping weather.  Luckily it did get dark.   We certainly could not have done this in Scandinavia.

It was lovely to see Aaron, Kylie, Mia, Abi, Raphy and their cousin, Murphy, again.   And to sit outside on their new patio, and admire the creative landscaping.   Such a beautiful area.   My apologies, no family photographs, due to leaving my camera in the caravan.   Walter took the photograph below, not long before a massive thunderstorm.   We had to pack away our chairs in quite a hurry, and escape to the inside of the hosue.

Last Friday we caught the ferry from Hoek van Holland, a ferry that was packed with people, and vehicles, due to the problems in Calais.   It took ages for them to get all the trucks on board, and we were quite late leaving the port.   Still it was a smooth trip, and the airconditioning was very welcome.

We arrived back at our caravan storage area, and had to unhitch the caravan in near darkness, thankfully it was not raining, there were no puddles and the caravan mover worked very well.  

Our garden was so overgrown, and the lawn a field of meadow grass, ready to be made into hay.   It was a shock to the system to fast forward in time, plant wise.   Scandinavia was about six weeks behind the Netherlands and England, in plant growth.   We left Denmark, where everything was green and lush, and lilac trees still flowering, to find that the grass had turned brown here, and field crops were nearly ready to be harvested.  

The small green patch in the lawn was due to the water running off the soaker hose, which I had laid amongst the rhubarb.   The watering system which I installed before I left worked brilliantly, and came on every morning at 7 a.m. for fifteen minutes.   Consequently the potplants, and the rhubarb, all looked really healthy.  

And so ended a fantastic trip to Scandinavia.    We covered about 4,500 kms by car, travelled on four ferries, plus cruises on Hardangerfjord.   A round trip from Hamburg and back to Hamburg, without taking the same road or route.

The trip took us via a ferry from Harwich to Hoek van Holland, to Houten, Netherlands and from there we travelled north to Hamburg, then to Puttgarden where we took a ferry to Denmark.  

After Copenhagen, we travelled across the Oresund Bridge, and up to Stockholm, which took two and a half days.   We drove across Sweden to Oslo, taking in Karlstad on the way.  

From Oslo we drove across Norway, via Seljord, and a very high pass, to Skare, where we turned north towards Lofthus, on the edge of the Hardangerfjord.    After looking around the area and taking a few cruises, we drove north to Voss, and a day trip to Bergen.

After Voss, we started our return journey, across another mountain pass, and through a deep tunnel under the Oslofjord, before turning south towards Goteborg.   We caught a ferry from Goteborg to Denmark, and then drove to the tip of Denmark, to Skagen.  

Finally we were on the homeward trip, three days driving back to Houten, through the centre of Denmark, and across northern Germany, and into the Netherlands.

Our car was brilliant, so very comfortable, and it pulled the caravan easily, even on the steepest of roads.    Our caravan, our home from home, was very comfortable.   We experienced only minor problems, such as losing one of the Alko hitch pads, breaking off the aerial on a tree branch, and having to jiggle the electrical plug to make a connection.    We drove slowly, and kept to the recommended speed, even though no one else appeared to be doing so.   A very stress free trip.   Except for the five minutes of sheer panic, when I could not reverse the caravan on the narrow stretch of road, by the Handangerfjord.  Just a small problem really.

A very memorable journey.