Of course, we couldn’t go to the very North of Sweden with the RV, the distances are too far to see whole Sweden in only one month. But after the evening in “Lille Björnen”, we didn’t regret so much anymore, as the “only” thing to film what is new would be bears (too dangerous) and snow and ice (too cold, and we had done already “ice recordings” in ICEBAR Stockholm…). But of course, we wanted to see and film in Swedish mountains! For three reasons! First: I LOVE mountains! Second: This part representing a huge part of Sweden had to be part of our Sweden video! Third: This time I would make it to the Swedish mountains! Why? …the “Kungsleden” is a very famous hiking trail in the Northern Part of Sweden, following the mountains for 500 kilometres. In 2015, I planned on doing (a part) of this hike with my friend Ariane, but unfortunately, I had been at the wrong airport in Germany, missing my plane, so we “had” to do another trail in the French Alps (fantastic as well!) and decided to postpone the so named “King’s Trail”.
We drove through different kind of woods (I didn’t know, there could be such a variety of trees in colour, size and density within the 400km drive). The roads were tiny, speed limit at 40km/h, we were surrounded by trees and nature that it felt like taking a long walk (nice and warm, and without losing calories…). And suddenly there he was!
Rudolph!!! A reindeer and his family crossed the road, relaxed and slow (of course, we were in August, quite a while until Christmas work…). Like in a fairy-tale and exactly how I had imagined, they are cute with fleecy horns and fluffy fur, in different colours, white, brown and black! Could we please take one in the RV (next Christmas will come for sure!) or at least have a small ride in the Swedish sky… They are quite like sheep and unfortunately, I have to say that they have the same level of intelligence…
Standing in the middle of the street, they starred at us like it was us the aliens. And maybe there were right: on this street, we hadn’t met any car on our ride of a couple hours and maybe they hadn’t had seen a blue- white caravan in their whole reindeer- lives! So, we starred one at another for quite a time. One Swedish guy would tell us some sad anecdote about the reindeers later: More you go north, more you meet them randomly on the street. Although the speed limit at these roads is limited at a minimum to avoid accidents, truck drivers often hit animals as they cannot stop or hit the break fast enough. Once, a Chinese tourist group, on their way to a famous reindeer restaurant followed a truck that had just killed ten animals, unfortunately daily life in Northern Sweden. The procedure is well organized: calling the police, they send a specialist to remove the dead reindeers, the truck driver signs a paper and continue his drive… waiting for the next reindeer☹ And the group of Chinese preferred the vegetarian menu this day…