30th June 2016. Ekna, Rottne, Sweden.
We stopped for breakfast at a little café called Kuriosaboden, on the way off the island. I’ve never had an open sandwich and cake for breakfast before but it made a very nice change from a bowl of fruit and yoghurt.
As we drove to the bridge to leave Öland I was surprised to see how different the South of the island was from the North.
We saw different crops in the fields and some of the fields were separated by stone walls, something we haven’t seen in Southern Sweden until now.
One thing that was still the same, I’m pleased to say, was the abundance of wild flowers growing everywhere.
I also love seeing the fancy churches that even the smallest hamlets seem to have.
We drove over to the mainland across the bridge.
We needed to go into Kalmar on a quest to find a motorhome dealer who could repair our fridge which smelled of fumes. Darren went into two dealers, thank goodness they both spoke English. Both were busy but one of them phoned an employee who had set up on his own, Anders & Slap Husvagnsservice, and arranged for us to go over there.
The man was very helpful, he didn’t speak English so he went to the garage next door and one of the mechanics came out and translated for us.
The ‘translator’ told us that the mechanic would have to order a part for the fridge and it wouldn’t arrive until Monday (it was currently Thursday). We needed to get it fixed so the part was ordered and Darren decided we’d take the opportunity to go inland to explore that area as for some reason we’d decided that Kalmar wouldn’t be a very nice place to stay in.
We looked on the map for somewhere around two hours away, we chose a ställplats in Ekna in Rottne because it sounded like it might be pretty.
When we arrived in the area we followed the signs to the ställplats but went wrong somewhere and ended up driving down a teeny track into some woods. By the time we’d realised we’d gone wrong we had to continue forward in order to find somewhere to turn around, which was a little hairy. Nevertheless Darren kept his cool, found a larger area where the farmer must turn his tractor round and we drove back to the lane we’d left.
We drove into Ekna.
The ställplats was on a farm, there was a field with electric hook up for two vans or there were pitches down by the lake.
The farmer gave us both a hearty handshake. He was very happy to see us, he said we were the first British people to come to his ställplats in the 20 years it had been open.
I am so surprised, he’d gone to a lot of trouble to make private pitches, he’d even put signs at the top of the lanes down to the pitches that were to be turned around when you’d chosen your pitch so that no one else drove down to it or took it if you went out for the day. Pure genius!
We chose a pitch 500 metres down a little track to the lake.
The farmer had even made a turning circle down there and put a fire pit beside the pitch with fire wood in it and a couple of chairs to sit and look out at the lake.
It was so thoughtfully set out and he popped down on his moped to see if we were settled.
We went exploring as the sun was starting to set and found a little bay further up our track where we watched the sun going down over the water.
Click the link below for motorhome repairs Anders & Slap Husvagnsservice:
https://www.facebook.com/AndersSlapHusvagnsservice/
Click the link below for motorhome stopover Ekna Naturcamping: