Krapsleep at Kramfors

Our experiment last night was to swap beds, so Jess and I were up top and the twins were in luxury at the back. Nobody is really sure why, Jess just decided that was the way it was going to be. It wasn’t too bad up there, that wasn’t a problem, but being in close proximity to a train line certainly was. Who knew there were so many night trains in Sweden. There were also some louts playing loud music at about 3am and it starts to get light at about 4am and it is not a blackout tent up there. So it was a very interrupted sleep for us. Since I was awake with the light I decided I may as well get up and do some work. Then at 6am Olivia’s alarm went off, there was a new release from Stray Kids she and Allegra wanted to listen to as soon as it was out. So we were all awake nice and early. Jess moved down to the back bed and pulled a Tate, she said she was wide awake and would never get back to sleep but five minutes later she was out for the count.
We decided we didn’t like Kramfors (renamed Krapfors) and that we didn’t want to stay another night as was our original plan. So we found a walk we could do on the Hoga Kusten and a place we could park our van while we did and maybe stay the night and started to get organised. The place we parked is at a marina with a few van pitches and there is well maintained cabin with cooking facilities, a TV and sofa and shower and toilet, all kept spic and span by local volunteers. There are a few payment options, one of which is apparently to leave some cash in an envelope in the cabin as there were a few there that hadn’t been collected yet. Such a trusting community, we were massively impressed. We took a while getting sorted but Jess whipped up some of her special sandwiches and soon enough we were good to go.
We had picked another 19km walk to do today, it seems like that is our lucky distance. It is right at the beginning of the Hoga Kusten trail so we had to start off with a bit of road walking, including over a fairly high bridge, and it was quite windy as we crossed. But soon enough we were back into the mixed terrain of woods, rocks and coastal walks., although it was mostly fairly easy going. There was certainly a big improvement in Tate today, no sore neck bothering her as it was the other day, and it was clear that sha and Allegra had made the most of their comfy sleep as they led the way. After a while the path opened up into a big slab of rock overlooking the sea. and so we thought that was a good place to have lunch. Well fed from delicious sandwiches and well rested after a break we carried on our way with some more amazing views over two coasts. We reached our turn around point where Google maps had promised us an open road ce cream shop. But we had been lied to, it is only open on weekends so we were very disappointed. We walked on a bit when we came across a restaurant that was open and that as far as we could tell served some form of sweet goodness so our mood picked up. I walked in and when I saw someone walking around the bar area, after checking he spoke English asked if they served cakes here. He then informed me that he didn’t actually work there (I think he was on his way back from the toilet) but that yes, that was the sort of thing that was served. We then asked someone who did work there and she also assured us that that they did, so we all felt our mood improve. Then the waiter came over, and he did not speak much English, but he brought us a menu which had a fairly poor selection but we did our best to select a couple of options. I think the fact that there is no photographic evidence that we had cakes speaks volumes as to the quality of what we received. I then went in to pay and on the other side of the bar saw a display cabinet with a selection of three or four very decent looking cakes, I was slightly confused as to why these were not mentioned to us given that is what we asked about. So, our mood turned back to disappointed annoyance. It had been a real rollercoaster.
We still had about 8.5kms to get back to the van so we decided the road option was our best bet as our legs started to tire. Not the twins though, who seemed to be singing most of the way back, with Tate especially vocal. At one point, as my watch kept me updated on our speed which was about 12.5 minutes per kilometre, we decided we wanted to beat our record of 11.37 from the other day. We luckily had a nice flat stretch and it is fair to say we absolutely smashed it with 10 minutes 36 seconds. We were very impressed with ourselves. We were all feeling quite sore though so were very happy when we made it back to Nena Schwarz.
After some hot chocolate and biscuits the twins dragged themselves onto the bed and Jess and I made use of the showers. A yummy dinner was created by opening a couple of tins and adding vegetables and rice and we have now all collapsed into our beds, with us all back in our original places. Tomorrow we are heading south.Read more