Dreaming in cardinal directions Jun 12 2015

“I love the … east, west, north and the south of you”
Cole Porter in “All of you”

I love the winter and therefore the North, that’s why I called my blog way-up-north. But there may be other nice directions as well, as for example south, east or west. Today I’ll invite you to accompany me on two journeys. Virtually and right now! We’ll travel round 57000 kilometres in total, but don’t be afraid, it won’t take long.

Let’s start with the longer journey:

Longitudinal journey – ca. 40000 km

Let’s start in Skelleftehamn, where I live. We enter our magic flying carpet and just head south. Already 44 km later we leave Sweden, cross the Baltic Sea and enter Finland. We traverse the Baltic Sea again, next countries are Latvia, Lithuania and the Kaliningrad Oblast, with is part of Russia. Remember? We fly south, not east! Next countries are Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Kosovo, Macedonia and Greece. Skelleftehamn is quite an eastern place, countries like Denmark, Germany or even the Czech Republic are more in the west.

Time to undress the jacket, we’re crossing the Mediterranean Sea. Soon Africa is within sight and we fly over Libya, Chad, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where we cross the equator. Next countries are Angola, Namibia, Botswana and South Africa, where we leave the African continent at a nice sandy beach.

Time for the jacket again, we’re continuing the journey south. I hope, you love water, because it takes us almost 4000 km flight until we reach the next continent: Antarctica. I hope you brought your warmest jacket, the flying carpet has no heating. 2250 km later: The South Pole!

Antarctica is one of my dream destinations and I would love to travel to this place. But this is probably the most expensive of my travel dreams and I’m not sure if the dream will come true some day.

The flying carpet doesn’t stop, it just continues straight ahead. It flew south on the longitude 21°15′ E, now it heads north on 158°45′ W bringing us back on the other side of the Earth. We are still over Antarctica and fly another 1300 km until we are over the sea again. I really hope, you love water, you will see a lot of now. We reach the equator again without traversing a single island! Later we fly cross Hawaii between the Islands Kaua’i and O’ahu, but still only water under our flying carpet.

It takes us almost 15000 kilometers from Antarctica until we finally reached land again: Mitrofania Island, part of the Aleuten, part of Alaska, part of the USA. Our flying carpet doesn’t stop – we just traverse Alaska heading north until we reach the Beaufort Sea. Now we’re over open sea again, probably partly frozen and we reach the North Pole.

That was the only mainlands on the other side of the earth: Antarctica and Alaska, that’s all! Now the flying carpet has its original heading again: south on longitude 21°15′ E. To my big delight we’re traversing Svalbard.

Svalbard is another of my dream destinations but there are a lot of polar bears around. You should (a) know how to avoid them and (b) be able to use a weapon. I neither know (a) or can (b), so it’s probably a more future destination for me.

We leave Svalbard continuing our flight south. Soon mainland is in sight and we enter Norway, Finland and finally Sweden. After a while we see a minor town at the seaside and a green painted house surrounded by grass that is in the urgent need of being cut.

We’re home again in Skelleftehamn. Time to take a short break until we’ll start the other journey. You’re invited to follow, it’s shorter than the first:

Latitudinal journey – ca. 17000 km

I throw a coin, will we head east or west? The coin says: “East!”. OK, let’s enter our magic flying carpet again and start.

After 1500 meters we reach the Baltic Sea and after that Finland. I hope you can read cyrillic, the next country is Russia and it’s huge! It will take us round 7000 kilometers flight just traversing Russia. The last parts of Russia that we cross are the Sakha Republic (also known as Yakutia) and Chukotka Autonomous Okrug.

Yakutia is another dream destination. As a fan of cold weather I must travel to Oymyakon, probably the coldest inhabited place on earth, one day. But I’ll be disappointed if I won’t experience at least -55 °C, -60 °C.

The flying carpet continues and soon we’re over the North American Continent, first Alaska, USA, then Canada. In Canada we hardly see any people, just some Inuit, since we’re in the Canadian Arctic that has a much extremer climate than Sweden. The last part of Canada we traverse before the Arctic Ocean is Baffin Island.

I’ve never been in Canada and I definitely want to travel there, both in Autumn and in Winter. There are many places that are interesting to me, amongst others Nunavut and Labrador, but some towns as well.

The next mainland: Greenland.

Greenland, another dream destination, probably in wintertime.

The next mainland: Iceland.

Iceland, yet another dream destination, too, in all seasons! I need a sponsor!

The next land is better known to me: Norway. Always extremely beautiful and not too far from my home. But the flying carpet flies on, crossing the Norwegian-Swedish border, flying over the fjäll, the forests of the inland, the town Skellefteå and finally lands gently on the grass of my backyard. Home again!

Thank you for following me on theses journeys. It was fun, wasn’t it? What were your dream destinations on these trips? I’m looking forward to your comments!

Submarine flower Jun 8 2015

I love the golden yellow blossoms of the marsh-marigold. They bloom and gleam all along the shallow shores of ponds, lakes and rivers. They love water.

Me too, I love water as well! But I like it less when it comes as rain. And this year’s May has been extremely wet, it rained many days. Beside of this the snow in the mountains is still melting and fills the rivers and streams with water. The result? High waters. And submarine marsh-marigold that I discovered at some places round the Innerviksfjärden.

Translation:

English	German
marsh-marigold	Sumpfdotterblume

Sundown at Långhällan Jun 5 2015

A short trip to Umeå May 27 2015

I have to admit, that it felt a bit strange to travel to Umeå. For one thing it’s a big town and for another thing it’s south from Skellefteå and that’s not my usual travel direction.

You may laugh at me calling Umeå a big town. Umeå has 80000 inhabitants and that may not sound very much, but the whole city with its many big buildings and streets feels much bigger, especially if you compare it to Skellefteå – the next town nearby – which is less than half as big and appears only a tenth as busy as Umeå.

I stayed over night in a hotel in the 12th floor with a nice view over the town and the river Umeälven. What a pity that it rained almost the whole time.

Today it still rained a lot and I didn’t have any interest in city sightseeing. So I fled the town and took a long walk in nature. That’s much more my cup of tea.

Rainy day at the shore of the Baltic Sea

Travelling back in time May 17 2015

Believe it or not, it is possible to travel back in time, at least some weeks.

Here in Skelleftehamn near the coast the ice on the Baltic Sea, the river Skellefteälven and all lakes is gone and all birch trees are bedecked with green leaves.

Yesterday I had a gig in the Skidstugan Stenabäck – a small ski hut between Norsjö and Lycksele. On the way there I could see the birch trees being less and less green until they were leafless again. As I said – like travelling back in time. But I was even more fascinated by the fact, that parts of the lake Stor kvammarn were still covered with ice.

Just at the driveway to the ski hut some reindeers were hanging around. I saw them again several times this weekend. The group was easy to recognise because of the white reindeer with the pale pink horns.

I stayed over night and so I got the opportunity to make a picture of the incredible evening sky. It looked like clouds burning in slow motion.

Today I took a short tour by car with R. who drove along some forest roads nearby. We saw a young moose standing in the forest and just beside the road a Western capercaillie probably looking for a hen.

Then I took my own car and drove home, not the fast and boring main roads but the smaller ones. I saw four more moose on three different places. Five moose total – a new record, but there all were quite camera-shy, trotted away and hid in the dense forest – one even crossed a small river and even if I couldn’t see her anymore I could still hear her feet splashing through the water.

One photo through the windscreen – just for the records.

Translation:

English	German	Swedish
western capercaillie, wood grouse, heather cock	Auerhuhn/Auerhahn	tjäder

Some images of a short kayak tour May 10 2015

Today I took a short tour from the small boat harbour Killingören, just 650 meters away from my house. After taking the Kejsar Ludvigs kanal – a small channel, that splits the peninsula Rönnskär – I headed to the small island Kalkgrundet, where I landed my kayak. In the shadow of the trees there’re still some patches of snow left – up to 30 centimetres. I guess it’s the leftovers of a huge snowdrift.

I walked round the island and saw a Canada goose swimming nearby. One more step and I saw another one fleeing from land to sea. It was really near but I didn’t see it before it fled. I took some photos and continued my walk. Then I saw the reason why the geese didn’t just swim away: They were nesting. Sorry, my geese, I didn’t know this. I took a very quick photo of the nest and continued walking round the small island. When I was round the corner I peeked back and could see the geese going on land again.

I continued my kayak tour to an old pier at the shore of Örviken. From the distance it looked quite stable, but when I came closer I could see that it was ruinous and many of the wooden logs wobbled in the tiny waves.

I crossed the Sörfjärden and entered the bay Kurjoviken. I could see the bright coloured blossoms of the marsh-marigold (Caltha palustris). I love these flowers and when I was home again two hours later I visited the place from land to make some photos. Here they are:

Nu grönskar det … May 9 2015

I have an “Ohrwurm” – an earworm: a piece of music that lingers in my mind. It’s a Swedish folksong based on a part of Johann Sebastian Bachs cantata “Mer hahn en neue Oberkeet”.

The text starts with “Nu grönskar det i dalens famn” which means “Now it flourishes in the valley’s arms”. And so it is: The birch trees in Skelleftehamn start to open their leaf buds and slowly, but surely nature becomes green again. And now – after much rain in the morning – even the sun came out. We had rain, now we need warmth and nature will explode. Sometimes spring in Northern Sweden is not a season but just a short switch from winter to summer.

Paddling round Storgrundet May 3 2015

Two weeks ago the sea between the island Storgrundet and the mainland was still partly ice covered. Today I paddled round Storgrundet and couldn’t discover any ice left. The view of the blue sea almost looked like spring, but it didn’t felt like spring at all, it was very windy and chilly. When I left the protected bay I tried to make some photos but soon gave up since I was blown back ashore faster than I could take my camera out of its pocket. I only made a selfie on which it’s quite visible that – measured by temperature – spring hasn’t come far yet.

At the outside of the island I didn’t had a chance to release the paddle for a photo, too high were the waves. I regretted soon that I paddled without spray deck, because some of the bigger waves made it into my kayak. The next photo I made in a sheltered bay, where the water finally was calm enough and I could empty my kayak with a sponge (it wasn’t so much water, that came in).

Selfie: It’s still quite cold on the sea

Some hours later …

I had a look at “kanotudden” (literally: the canoe bay), a bay of the river Skellefteälven, where the ice is finally gone, too. Almost. There is some leftover ice, mostly crushed to small bits that were jingling and clanging with each arriving wave. But even the small bits were still solid enough to bear a wandering wagtail looking for food.

The canoe club, which is located at kanotudden still seems to be in hibernation, I’ll have to check later …

Valborgsmässoafton May 1 2015

Valborgsmässoafton, that’s the Swedish name of the Walpurgis Night, which is celebrated on April 30, which is today (or has been 15 minutes before). A friend invited me to celebrate valborgsmässoafton with her family in Aspliden and I accepted gladly.

Beside of nice people to celebrate with you need three ingredients for a typical valborgsmässoafton:

1. Good food.

In this case a so called “Smörgåstorta” – a sandwich cake which is a very popular dish for special days as today.

2. A big bonfire.

The bigger the better. It can be quite hard to light a bonfire, because the cut down trees, twigs and branches are mostly very cold and soaking wet.

3. Cold weather, preferably with wind and snow showers.

While the first half of the day was sunny, clouds came in in the afternoon and round 8 o’clock we got our first snow shower. Last year it snowed as well.

Most Swedish people don’t think at all that chilly and snowy weather must be a part of the valborgsmässoafton, put it’s quite typical.

And just an off-topic photo from today. Three whooper swans that I saw today at the same place.

Asia Zircon I Apr 27 2015

Skelleftehamn tonight: The “Asia Zircon I” landed in Skelleftehamn. That’s one of the bigger ships – 190 meters long. The ship came directly from Taicang, China with 4599 tons of wind turbine parts.

Taicang – China, that’s a long trip. My travel bug awakes. Perhaps I should join the crew and travel back to China. I’ve never been there. But the ship continues to Fredericia in Danmark, so I guess, I’ll stay home.