Day 16 – today we're really going back to the Swedish mainland!

So I packed up our mats and sleeping bags – we've been sleeping in the hut on the airfield at Kumlinge, haven't seen a soul yet, they leave it open. The day looked bright and all was well. The Julian checked the weather & I went out and looked up. Oh. So then Julian started looking into going East to Finland instead, hmmm. We're basically in the middle of a high (came through last night with rain) and a low, here now, which means that the weather is less ideal across Scandinavia. So we had a think about what to do and I got ready to go swim at a nearby beach I'd scouted out from the air as we came in to land yesterday. And the thunder started, so I got Julian to come with me before the weather got too bad. Hmmm the rock entry to the water (no reeds the other nearby entries to the water are obscured by reeds) takes us past 2 houses, both of which appear not to be habited. Luckily in Scandinavia you have a right of way across all land, even private. So we were 5m from the water when there was a massive lighning bolt accompanied by really loud thunder which made me cover my ears. I was behind Julian who saw the lightning strike the reeds on the other side on the lake area we were trying to swim in..... So since the rain was pretty heavy by this time we decided to take our wilderness wash (non-toxic to the environment) and have a rain shower. Julian washed and rinsed out his hair before I decided that I would manage this feat too, which I did. Luckily the rain here is warm unlike the cold Melbourne rain and it really was just like taking a shower, apart from the splashback of tree bits up our legs.

Back at the hut I got bitten behind the knee by a horsefly, which over the course of a couple of hours blew up to 20cm diameter and 1cm deep and really quite sore, why do all the bites etc. happen to me and none to Julian? This is definitely an ad against expensive hair removal, maybe hairy legs would have saved me????

Day 15 - tick blues and flight training

Well we kept the tick in a zip lock bag (thanks Nick for all those small zip-locks!) and took it first thing to the Apotek, which I had luckily seen in my travels the previous day & my German allowed me to recognise as a chemist. It was a pretty amazing place from the 1860s with all the brown glass ground neck bottles, wooden drawers of various herbs and chemicals and a lovely wooden cash register (no longer in use). The chemist explained that we'd got all of the tick out (phew), I was worried about breaking off its head, which apparently isn't that bad either, and that my tick was a 3 year old female, cool. She also told us what to look out for if it had given me either of the diseases and reassured me that the bacteria needs the tick to have lodged itself in you for a few days, phew, just have to watch out for flu-like symptoms and go to a hospital if they occur.....

Old style chemist

and from the outside

So after that reassurance we decided to check the weather and continue on back to Sweden. Well it was looking wild and woolly in Sweden so we thought we'd go to nearby Mariehamn on a larger island of the Aaland archipelago. We'd been told that Mariehamn was a party (and ferry) boat destination with duty free alcohol so we were expecting something a bit wilder than quiet Kumlinge, but to be honest with you it wasn't. It had a lot of downmarket looking bars, clothes shops and a large supermarket, a few sand beaches (d'oh no bathers again and the Scandinavians again failed to live up to their nudist reputation), we spent about 3h there and then moved on.

a church in Mariehamn

Total landing bill €25, fuel €2.44/L (quite expensive), place: cycle paths 9/10; town 2/10; beaches 6/10

Kumlinge 1: Mariehamn 0

The weather started looking a bit iffy around 5pm so after picking up some smoked salmon from the smokery on the fishing harbour we happened to come across (€18.90 / kg), we hurried back to the airfield and my flying lesson continued back to Kumlinge.

It's funny but I've been telling everyone else, but never told Julian it appears, that I had the intention to learn how to fly in our plane, so since he realised he's been telling me the theory and getting me to practise turning etc. I'm already pretty good at straight and level, as sometimes there is stuff on the ground that needs photographing out his window / maps that need folding / he needs a rest. Before this starts to scare you, the pilot in command (P1) is allowed to let anyone fly a plane under their supervision, which in practice means that the co-pilot (P2) of your Boeing / Airbus is often doing the landing of your plane, with their 250 hours of experience (50 of which on a flight simulator) – have you ever wondered why your Ryanair / Easyjet flight lands which such a bang on the runway???

Anyway I'm no where near taking off or landing yet :-)

Day 14 – Skaa to Kumlinge - tick magnet

We flew over Stockholm itself and then across the sea to the start of Finland the Aland archipelago.  We landed on Kumlinge, an airstrip ending on the sea & beautifully quiet. A lovely undisturbed ecosystem with a whole variety of different plants & wildlife (inc ticks, mozzies & horseflies). The runway is lined with bluebells, cornflowers & reeds. I picked up a bluebell to have a closer look at the flower & discovered there was a fat bumblebee head down in the flower and let it fall again in a hurry! 

We lunched on a quiet rock by the water: smoked reindeer bought in NK department store, which tasted almost resiny from the pine smoke – very thin slices with loads of flavour. Also the divine French washed rind goats cheese found at the covered market in Stockholm and a very ripe Swedish blue, described as being 'like Rocquefort'. Not to forget the smoked eel (very rich) and beautiful smoked salmon, with a lovely crispy skin. 

We bumbled around all day on the bikes, coming to the conclusion that 399 inhabitants (or 370 depending on which part of the local authorities' website you find most up to date) means that you really see no one around. We went to the ferry port and there were several tourists' cars (mainly Finland & Estonia), and tourists on hire bikes but really not much else. It's funny the island is Finnish, but 95% of the population speak Swedish, and all the guest house ads stapled to the barn at the ferry port were written in Swedish. 

waiting for the ferry

We continued on our way trying to explore all the main (& many of the minor roads) & finally came upon the Remmarhamn (guest marina): the significance of this place is that in looking on Kumlinge's website I discovered that they hold a market every Tuesday evening (18.30) at the Remmarhamn, which is not marked on any map, so was causing me a large amount of (understandable) worry. We took the bridge over to a neighbouring island but decided to turn back and have a closer look at the marina, getting there at about 6pm. At which point there were 3 trestle tables and not much else. Hmmmm. So we chatted to some Finns who were sailing the archipelago and drinking in the marina's pub and by the time we turned around again the entire island's population were queueing up at the trestles. So we hurried back, as one of the few items already laid out was one of the traditional carved wood Swedish bread knives, which I'd been looking for, and I had a gut feeling that someone else would buy them. But I was lucky. Julian scored an amazing gooseberry tart, really a very simple thing, just some fresh gooseberries baked on what was essentially a shortbread base (shortcrust pastry with extra sugar), but lovely. I got a local fish of some variety, that was selling remarkably quickly at 12€ a fish, as well as a huge block of lovely cured salmon (5.50€) - dill on top, a bit of sugar in the cure at a guess, along with some great citrus notes – I guess grated lemon & orange rind. So we changed our dinner plans and had the smoked fish with steamed veggies for dinner.

the market going off

Julian with gooseberry pie

After which I discovered I had a tick on my back, and did the usual 'just get it off me!'  So despite my better knowledge I had Julian burn it with a cigarette lighter, then once dead I got him to do what would have been the right thing in the first place & twist it out with my tweezers. The sight of the little legs scrabbling as it munched into me was too much to bear. So for all you Europeans reading this blog: I have never been bitten by anything nastier than a mosquito in Australia, but in Sweden I have been bitten by a tick potentiallly carrying a nasty bacteria or TBE virus and in London I have been bitten on the face overnight by what I think was a spider as my cheek was numb for over a month. Which just goes to show that if you want to sleep safe and sound in your bed at night, avoid Europe and come to Oz.