0615hrs. Awake. No rain. We lie there till about 0700hrs.
Jackie takes herself off to the loo for a final shower. Mike meanwhile packs
away most of the kit and waiting till Jackie returns then strikes the bivvy.
Grips and bergans packed we move our kit to the tepee.
A Landrover, canoe and tent. Life doesn't get much better than that! |
Beside the reception/shop there
is a communal kitchen, fully equipped. Electric kettle, toaster, good work surfaces
all very clean and tidy. In the centre of the room sits a dining table and
chairs, to one side, attached to a wall was a TV. By the time we arrived in the
kitchen the breakfast items were already laid out. Tea, coffee, milk and sugar
for a brew, Muesli for cereal and small chapatis, these we would nick name
UFO’s which could be toasted and spread with butter and jam as one desired.
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Reception at Lits Camp on the right. Kitchen at the end of the ramp. |
Breakfast over we gathered outside
for a working party. We drew eight grey plastic barrels with lids and a
compression ring to hold same on. Into these we would place all the scran that
Tim, Johan and Lewis had bought from the supermarket yesterday evening.
Tim who was the expedition chef
took charge of the distribution of everything needed to sustain us food wise in
the field. In this task he was assisted by Mel as the scribe. Each numbered
barrel held certain goods. Some dry, some fresh. Barrel 1 always contained the
lunchtime meal. UFO’s, “disc cutters”, a foot wide circular Ryvita bread,
cheese, ham, “pink toothpaste”, (Kaviar, a fish paste coloured pink) pickled
Herring, salami and occasionally apples or pears. There was usually a fruit
juice cordial to add to your water bottle. Into one barrel went seemingly
dozens of loo rolls. I assume this was as much a kitchen aid as anything. Who
would turn up for a week in the bush and not bring loo roll and wet wipes.
Unless they were that hard they would rely upon sphagnum moss for the duration!
0945hrs. With all the barrels now sealed and each numbered
barrel logged in Tim’s notebook we could draw BA’s. No not breathing apparatus
but buoyancy aids. Paddles were also issued, most opting for the traditional
wooden paddle. My only concern about the trip had been the colour of my canoe.
I hoped and prayed for a green canoe. Les had for weeks been ribbing me that I
was bound to receive a silver aluminium canoe. This had been on my mind to such
an extent I thought about carrying a can of olive drab spray with me! As the
canoe trailer drove up I was relieved to note all but two canoes were green.
The DS (directing staff) were quite sensibly in red canoes. We collected
bergans etc from the tepee and loaded the two VW mini-buses with all our kit.
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Jackie and Mel inside the tepee. |
1025hrs. We set off in the lead vehicle with Uber our
driver. He was also I believe the owner of the campsite and the canoe rental
company. Before long the rain started again. With Johan in the jump seat, Mike
and Jackie in row two and Les, Mel and Maisie in the rear what little
enthusiastic conversation there had been at the start soon dwindled as the rain
fell, ever more persistent. Uber was at pains to point out the unusual weather
front we were experiencing and assured us it would soon pass. The drive took
about an hour and thirty-five minutes. Much along hardened gravel roads, trees
either side of the road in the main. Occasionally we would gain a little height
that gave us a view but all too often we were, according to the map, running
parallel with the Harken River. Which remained hidden for the most part and totally
out of sight.
1215hrs. GR 3584. We arrived at the put in. Uber with
consummate skill reversed the VW and its trailer down to the water’s edge, the
bushes impeding his way. It was time to leave the warmth and comfort of the
wagon and start earning our pay. Not only was it still raining well but every
time we pushed past a bush or knocked into a tree an additional shower of water
would further drench us. Our first priority was therefore to don waterproof
jackets and trousers. The trailer, unloaded of the eight barrels and bergans
emptied from the rear of the VW, Uber drove back up the grass track to allow
his son to reverse down with the canoes. Various working parties were formed.
All kit was stashed in a mound under a tarp.
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Loading the canoes prior to the off. |
Boats were carried, dragged to the water’s edge, a difficult task given we had little “beach” to speak of and what existed was either very boggy or down right slippery with algae covered rocks. Others erected a tarp across the track suspended from trees and bushes and Tim opened Barrel 1, the lunch barrel. We managed to all squeeze beneath the tarp, there was plenty of head room even for “Land of the Giants” Les.
The view out over the lake whilst
we munched on salami, cheese and UFO’s was somewhat disconcerting. The rain was
beating down as hard as ever. The surface of the lake bore testament to that.
The thought of climbing into a canoe and paddling off held as much appeal as a
soggy Ryvita. It would have been nice to have put our bivvys up, had a brew and
turned in but we all knew that was not going to happen.
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As motely a crew as ever signed on! |
Settling into an ‘unsteady’
rhythm, the afternoon passed quickly. Mike, sat in rear and thus supposedly in
control of steering with Jackie providing the engine power up front. The rain
had not stopped. Sometimes it abated slightly, the sky looking less threatening.
Just when you thought it was stopping it would start again with renewed vigour.
At every opportunity we bailed out the boats using the huge pieces of sponge
that had been issued partly for that purpose and also as knee protection for
those purists amongst us who would paddle kneeling in the boat.
Some hours had passed and Johan
was now looking for our camp spot for the night. You can, within reason stop
and camp virtually anywhere in Sweden, given obvious restrictions, not in
someone’s garden or posted fishing sections. However they had a spot mentally pre-selected
which seemed to escape our locating it.
At Hotagen GR 3978 in the centre
of this huge lake we came upon a series of some ten islands that should have
been home for the night but on landing and closer inspection of the ground, it was
found to be far too wet and lumpy with the whole island seemingly infested by
midges. Despite the weather and desire to put ashore we were all adamant that
we would move on in search of a better location. Across on the far side of the
lake, the North shore, Jay thought he remembered a spot from a previous trip.
Thus we made our way over to the point and landed. I do not imagine that old
Chris Columbus could have been happier with landfall!
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I can take no credit for this photo. I believe it was Maisies. |
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Tim, Johan and Jay. First night's bivvy position. |
1630hrs. Bivvy One. We landed at GR 397784 on a promontory.
Climbing up from the shoreline some 20 metres above the lake we found
reasonably level terrain for bivvys, tents and hammocks. To our East along the
coast about a click lay the hamlet of Paradisel. Not that you would know it
unless you checked the map.
The sky was still grey and
foreboding. All around the trees added to a gloomy atmosphere, underfoot good
soft, wet moss and lingen berry bushes. The first priority for us “paying
guests” was to erect our bivvys. Whilst undertaking this task Jay and Johan
started a fire, using bush craft skills that they would demonstrate later to us
mere mortals. Remember everything was sodden.
The duty kettle was produced and in no time responding
to the shout of “Brew’s up, bring your mugs” bodies appeared from all parts of
the bush. Sat on logs and rocks around the fire we had a great view back out up
the lake in the direction we had come.
The rain had stopped. Whilst some
erected a tripod cut from the surrounding bush upon which to hang the cooking
pot, others went in search of timber to feed the fire. For cooking certainly,
but as much for warmth and moral as to dry out clothing. Others formed a chain up from the beach and
with Tim reading aloud from his notebook those barrels that needed bringing up
for tonight’s meal were unloaded from various canoes and dragged to “the
galley”.
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Chicken curry and rice. Fantastic. |
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Steve, tears of joy in his eyes. Or was it the smoke? |
2023hrs. All are gathered around the fire eating Tim’s
curried chicken and rice. There had been a moment earlier when one of the legs
on the tripod holding the “cocklick” cooking pots had given way. Chicken, rice
and vegetables had gone everywhere.
Now in the wild, we adopted the
ten second rule and scooped much of it back up and threw it into the pot to
continue cooking. The rain had turned to a light drizzle but away to the South
it had cleared. Let’s hope it holds for tomorrow.
With dinner finished we all
huddled around the fire, the smoke was blinding but the warmth generated was
most welcome.
Maisie caused some concern as she
was feeling very cold and was shivering. She had been late arriving for dinner
and was not eating or drinking sufficiently. Her clothes were damp, as indeed
where many of the other paddlers. We perhaps more experienced knew what we had
to do and took steps. This was Maisie’s first foray into the wild. All gathered
around and offered what I hope were words of encouragement. Jay had a spare dry
jacket which he passed to her.
It took a large set of ‘cahonies’
to undertake such a trip as this and in the days that followed Maisie was to
demonstrate to all she was certainly up there with ‘the boys’ without losing
any of her feminine charm. Good on her!
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Jackie. |
2225hrs. We turned in. The winds picked up quite
strongly during the night but no rain.
