Summary
Wednesday was a relaxing drive from Harnosand to Skeppsmalen. 108 miles driven including views of the High Coast Bridge (aka Sweden’s golden gate) and a detour for lunch at the Rotsidan nature reserve. Rotisdan is a 4km coastline with beautifully polished and flat diabase rock, framed by windswept coastal pines.
We arrived mid-afternoon at Skeppsmalen where there is a Stellplatz near the harbour. The sun was strong, temperatures reached a barmy 22C and we enjoyed a coastal walk and a fish BBQ in the evening.
In contrast, the forecast high temperature for Thursday in Skeppsmalen was 12C so we decided to head further north where counter-intuitively the weather would be a little bit warmer.
We left Skeppsmalen at 09:30, stopped for lunch at IKEA in Umea (why wouldn’t you?), refilled with beer at the Systembolaget near to IKEA and stocked up with groceries from the COOp.
Just before Pitea we refuelled with Diesel at sub £1.50 per litre.
233 miles and we finally arrived at Vallen around 16:30.
We had originally planned to stay Friday and Saturday nights at West Coast campsite in Pitea but given this weekend is mid-summers celebrations, and a bank holiday to boot, we decided to head into the sticks instead.
We reserved a pitch at the rather rustic Vallens Turism och Fritid camping. This site really is remote and perhaps rather more rustic and basic than we imagined. But the sanitary facilities are clean and given the bank holiday weekend, we have a pitch! Obviously our preferred direction of parking was not allowed. Nor our second or third orientations which would have maximised our solar gain; however, given that there is only a pitch price including electricity, we decided to hitch-up and we’ll be able to avoid using the diesel heater.
We nearly abandoned the site altogether when we found out there was no campsite WiFi. We hadn’t had any mobile signal since Umea but just when we were thinking we’d need to find another site, our mobiles kicked into action.
The temperature is around 14.5 C and sunset is at 11:49 pm with sunrise at 01:49 am. The sky just doesn’t get dark in the couple of hours the sun sets.
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Our travels on Day 11 took us further into the Hight Coast region.
Firstly to the High Coast bridge, or also known as Sweden’s Golden Gate Bridge. We parked up at the services on the North side of the bridge which also features a Stellplatz with stunning views of the Bridge. We could only see that you needed to use Swish as the payment method so that might be problematical for non-Swedish residents.
From the High Coast bridge we drove to Rotisdan which is a nature reserve a little further North of the Bridge. We parked-up here for a couple of hours, walking to the coast and enjoying a picnic in the woods.
From Rotisdan, we completed our journey to Skeppsmalen by mid-afternoon. Skeppsmalen is a fishing village known for fermented herring and the fermented herring museum. The village or port authority also runs a Campsite or Stellplatz in the middle of the village with room for a dozen or so units. Very modern and clean sanitary facilities.
From the campsite we walked one of the coastal circuitous paths. The first gallery below shows the various information boards describing the area, the geology and the history of the fishing port. Click on an image in the media file to see the full detail.
Day 12 was a much longer drive from Skeppsmalen to Vallen. We left site around 09:30, arriving at Vallen late afternoon. We passed one of the most Northern IKEAS in Europe around lunchtime so its seemed appropriate to visit it in its home country.
It’s exactly the same as every other IKEA we’ve ever been to! There were many motorhomes in the carpark and did wonder if it’s used as some kind of add-hoc Stellplatz.
