{"id":735,"date":"2015-07-29T10:34:40","date_gmt":"2015-07-29T10:34:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kiwihoods.com\/?p=735"},"modified":"2015-07-29T10:36:17","modified_gmt":"2015-07-29T10:36:17","slug":"vaxjo-malilla-speedway-karlskrona-sweden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.kiwihoods.com\/?p=735","title":{"rendered":"VAXJO, MALILLA SPEEDWAY, KARLSKRONA SWEDEN"},"content":{"rendered":"

One thing we forgot to put about Copenhagen: In the city there was road works everywhere we turned, but this was ok as it seemed they were making a concentrated effort to improve the roads and squares which was great to see.<\/p>\n

I want to reply to Di’s comment, each persons experience with a city is always different, I don’t think you had rose coloured glasses at all. It always depends on the weather, the people around you, the time of the year and how you are feeling. We liked Copenhagen – it is a lovely city, there were just some things we hthought were a little ordinary to us. I remember sitting in Amsterdam having our very expensive beer and looking at all the rubbish lying everywhere, but we watched guys cleaning it up. Unfortunately you cant stop people dropping their rubbish and butts everywhere but you can make an effort to clean it up every day. In the Haven in Copenhagen the rubbish, broken glass, butts etc had been there for a while which was such a shame, it wouldn’t have taken much to clean.<\/p>\n

We drove up to Helsingor and stopped up for half an hour and had a nice coffee and cake in the small busy village.\u00a0 If we had had a bit more time this would have been a lovely place to spend a little more time.\u00a0 People were from all over I think, who were either going on the ferry or had come over on the ferry.<\/p>\n

We drove down to the ferry and managed to get on an earlier one than we had booked.\u00a0 The crossing was only 20 minutes which wasn\u2019t even enough time for Scot to have a drink!\u00a0 He was disappointed.\u00a0 They were selling lots of alcohol on the ferry I guess because it is harder to get in Sweden.\u00a0 In fact we haven\u2019t even seen a place that you can buy it yet, except one supermarket but that only had low alcohol beer and cider \u2013 not quite what Scot wanted!\u00a0 The drink on the ferry wasn\u2019t that expensive at all \u2013 in fact quite a bit cheaper than Australia.<\/p>\n

Off the ferry we drove and would you believe it we turned on the radio and Abba was singing, welcoming us to Sweden. We headed up North East towards Vaxjo which was on the way to the Speedway.\u00a0 As I had been told there are lots and lots of spruce forests and they line the roads we travelled on.\u00a0 There are pretty lakes all over which seem to have most camp grounds located on them.\u00a0 We stopped for the night at Evedal which is just out of Vaxjo and right on a large lake.\u00a0 They had a great area for swimming and even had 3 diving platforms up to 10m but when you dived in you couldn\u2019t see what was under the water so it looked quite dodgy and would have been a leap of faith that no rocks or branches were hidden.\u00a0 Even Scot was unsure of diving there but it was a bit cold and late when we arrived.\u00a0 I wish I wasn\u2019t quite such a wuss with the cold otherwise I would have had a great swim there.\u00a0 The campground was like Copenhagen \u2013 not enough facilities for everyone there so we had to queue up for a shower in the morning.<\/p>\n

We went for a walk in the morning around the lake edge and one older man was in the water having a bath in the lake with his soap \u2013 maybe he didn\u2019t want to wait in the queue (the far queue\u2026haha).<\/p>\n

When we arrived at this campsite they wouldn\u2019t let us in to start with as we couldn\u2019t find our camping card we had bought when arriving in Denmark.\u00a0 We realised the buggar in Copenhagen hadn\u2019t given us our card back when we left, so we had to pay 150sek for another one.\u00a0 They are expensive and you can\u2019t camp in Scandinavia without one.\u00a0 They want to keep a track of you wherever you go here.<\/p>\n

Scot was chaffing at the bit to get going as he didn\u2019t want to miss out on the speedway.\u00a0 We hadn\u2019t been able to buy tickets as it wouldn\u2019t accept our credit card, which we found out the reason why\u00a0 and it was because our ip address for the computer was from a different country to our credit card.\u00a0 Which pretty much puts any tourist out of the picture as far as tickets go.\u00a0 Anyway I wanted to try to catch up on some emails as we were early and we had good free wifi for once so we left late in the morning.\u00a0 The road wasn\u2019t busy as it hadn\u2019t really been the day before, but it started to rain on the way.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t just rain but it poured.\u00a0 We started to wonder if it would be cancelled.<\/p>\n

When we arrived in Malilla we decided to go straight to the track and check it out for parking for the night etc.\u00a0 The guys on the gate wanted to charge us an extra 200sek if we weren\u2019t going to leave the park after the race but they said we could go camp down the road.\u00a0 There was a huge field that was starting to get filled with hundreds of campervans, caravans and tents.\u00a0 So we decided we would park up there and walk down to the track when the ticket office opened.<\/p>\n

The rain kept coming and coming and coming.\u00a0 The guys on the gate said the rain was due to stop at 5 so it would be all ok.\u00a0 We still bought our tickets knowing that if it was cancelled they weren\u2019t going to refund anyone although they would have tried to run it the next day first.\u00a0 The seats we wanted had of course gone, but in the end it didn\u2019t matter when we saw the track, there weren\u2019t really any bad seats.<\/p>\n

By the time we walked down as the gates were open, the driveway to the field was a muddy quagmire and the grass was soppy and mushy.\u00a0 The rain had stopped and the air was light misty foggy and damp, but at least not raining.\u00a0 There would have been about 10,000 people there, but the stadium takes about 15,000.\u00a0 The rain would have kept a lot away which is a shame.\u00a0 The alcohol being served was all light and the only food they served was hotdogs, pizza, licorice and lollies.\u00a0 Strange combination.<\/p>\n

It is still the middle of summer here so I am wondering why we are wearing: long johns, two woollen singlets, T-shirts,\u00a0jumpers, rain coats, scarves, boots, woollen socks and carrying gloves and hat!<\/span><\/p>\n

The 16 world class riders were from all over, but there were 3 Aussies in there \u2013 Troy Bachelor (from Brisbane), Chris Holder and Jason Doyle.\u00a0 We have seen them race at north Brisbane.\u00a0 They did really well, Doyle and Holder were in the semi-finals but unfortunately didn\u2019t make the final which is a shame.\u00a0 It was a great race and for Scot definitely worth the detour to get there, it was a tick off his bucket list and now he can\u2019t wait for the Isle of Mann.\u00a0 They did take quite a while to get the track right after all the rain but they had covered it up while it was raining so it didn\u2019t get saturated.\u00a0 We did cheer for the Aussie riders so did our bit to help them along and there were two other Aussie flags in the audience that we saw J.\u00a0 One guy yelled out Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, but by the time I realised he had done that it was too late to go Oy, Oy, Oy.<\/p>\n

Walking back to our van at the end of the night, the walkways were muddy wet messes.\u00a0 I had worried that we may get stuck trying to get out in the van in the morning but we were ok.<\/p>\n

They must have partied on till all hours at the track as we could hear the music from the van.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure how much partying can be done on light beer though?<\/p>\n

We lost our umbrella there as we weren\u2019t allowed to take them in but Scot scored a program left behind by someone so I guess it was even.<\/p>\n

We got up reasonably early in the morning as I didn\u2019t want to be the last one out in case we got stuck.\u00a0 The grounds were a quagmire of mud and puddles but most people were ok.\u00a0 I only saw people pushing one van out of a rut.<\/p>\n

Sunday 26th<\/sup> July<\/p>\n

We leave Malilla and head down the coast on our way around to Norway.\u00a0 We intend to travel the coast around the bottom of Sweden as it is meant to be the prettiest part of the country.\u00a0 We aren\u2019t sure what we will see as we head up to Gothenburg.\u00a0 We travelled down to a lovely area with lots of little islands and bays and a large port called Karlskrona.\u00a0 On the way down the tree lined roads thinned to more fields and hills and some forests.\u00a0 Makes a change from nothing but forest on all sides.\u00a0 We feel that Sweden\u2019s main income is probably timber \u2013 funny that.\u00a0 Of course Volvo is also a big industry as they are everywhere \u2013 but you can\u2019t complain about the Volvo driver in front as they\u00a0 aren\u2019t old men in hats\u2026.lol.<\/p>\n

We are staying in a camping ground that is quite huge with lots of wild areas and water front sites as it is on a peninsula. There are a lot of kids around this campsite everywhere and as much as it\u2019s nice to see the kids having fun, I will be glad when they go back to school in a week\u2019s time for a little peace at night.\u00a0 Since it doesn\u2019t get dark until about 11pm, they don\u2019t go to bed very early and you can still hear them when we go to bed ourselves.\u00a0 Scot calls me a bar-humbug, but I think there is a time that children need to quieten down for those who like to sleep earlyish.<\/p>\n