Friday July 8, Ostersund

 

A change of scenery tonight...Ostersund town.

It was such a wonderful spot where we camped that I didn’t really want to leave this morning, consequently we were a bit sluggish and it was mid-morning before we set off. The drive was over two hours with the first stop at a small store to see if they had fresh buns, but no luck. It was quite an intriguing place, felt we had stepped back in time and the surrounding buildings showed little sign of life. In fact, during much of the drive today, we were reminded of travelling in Alaska with a lot of forests and many empty houses, quite a depressed area. Could see the remnants of the winter snow on some of the distant hills and the temperatures were certainly lower, around 14 degrees.

And Vicki, you asked about wildlife, there are signs for moose on the highway and found a pile of moose poo at our lunch stop, and a fox ran across in front of us and we just missed it by about a metre, but nothing really exciting! They do mention the mosquitoes but so far haven’t been bothered by them, thankfully!

There are so many motorhomes on the road, but guess this is summer holiday time. Most are from Sweden but quite a lot of German vans and a handful from Norway….and us Kiwis!

Decided a change of scenery for tonight’s stop when we found a parking area in downtown Ostersund overlooking the water. A really nice place and only had to pay for parking until 6pm, €2! There is quite a cold wind blowing and heavy rain is predicted overnight.

Rugged up and went for a wander through the town, lots of bars and restaurants and some nice shops, although many had closed for the day. We were quite happy to get back to the warmth of Ruakiwi. 

A forest fire seems to have wiped out large areas.

Typical of todays drive.

According to Ian, definitely
moose poo!!!!

 

Shame the shop was closed!

A pretty amazing bouncy "castle"

The conductor and the choir

Side view of the biggest bouncy castle I have seen

Interesting. And 79SKR is about NZ$11