Dear and gentle reader, we did not dissappear from the face of the earth. No, we just prolonged our stay in Camp Grinsby with an additional day. The weather had something to do with it 🌞.
Day 51 Reconnaissance and getting unexpected help and sponsoring
The day starts with: The battle for bread
At 8:30 AM, you can grab some bread at the food truck. But imagine an entire campsite wanting bread for breakfast! 🍞🥖
And that without any sort of queuing.
The area was already packed when I got there at 8! 😅 Luckily, I could grab a free chair pretty close to where the real queue was supposed to start. But hey, a picture’s worth a thousand words, right?
Leen was just waking up when I got back to the tent, so I could surprise her with breakfast in bed.
But we’d never let crumbs in our sleeping bags (the horror!), so we ate in the apsis since it was still a bit chilly outside.
After breakfast, we checked out the campsite to see where we ended up. It’s a nice campsite indeed, with an unbelievable number of Belgians. We rarely meet Belgians in Sweden, but apparently they’re all here. Mr. Coppens must have a good advertising program running somewhere!
But these two days, Mr. Staf was nowhere near Camping Grinsby. His son apparently has a performance on a program called 10 to be seen (10 om te zien), so posing before the camping logo is the next best thing.
We settled ourselves on a bench near the water to appreciate the view on the lake.
For lunch, we tried the fancy Danish chicken noodles since that was the only other food at the camp store.
It was also an excuse for us to eat some old bread.
Later that day we met some awesome people at the campsite who were super impressed by our adventures and really wanted to help where they could.
Like Christian and Benedicte, who wanted to know all about our trip and even gave us an extra gas cannister because I told them it was hard to find one in Sweden.
We were even allowed to use their chairs if we wanted to.
We also met Annelies and Koen’s family, who were super nice and did some shopping for us at the not-so-close COOP. They got us bananas, blueberries, bread, and yogurt.
It was so nice to see all that heartwarming solidarity on our trip.
I also got to draw a bit this afternoon. Man, I missed that so much. It felt really good to hold that pen and create something on paper.
Day 52 🌞🌞🌞 x 10
30 degrees today, so it will be probably a lazy day.
It starts off course with the gathering of bread and coffee.
And breakfast in around the tent.
Soo many breakfast foto’s you ask? It is most important meal of the day. And for the remainder of the day we did not too much activities 🥵.
We looked for a place in the shadow and tried to see if there was a way to find a route with less climbs. But no magic to be done there. The hills stay and we have to take them.
Our biggest decision today was to stay an extra day since tomorrow’s also gonna be 30 degrees.
In the evening it was pizza night and time to take a shower (oh, how lovely water can be).
And then it was time for bed. A quick visit to the loo, and waving good night to the lake.
Day 53 Extensions
Since it was gonna be as hot today as it was yesterday, we decided it was time to get more involved in the camping life.
After breakfast (yeah, we queued again), we chatted with a few neighbors, all from Belgium.
So, we decided to take a walk in the nearby forest, based on a few suggestions of people on the camping. It’s always cooler under the trees, you know. There were 4 different walks marked, and we picked the 5-kilometer one. It was absolutely amazing! But I’ll let you decide for yourself:
The blue forest berries were a great bonus on this walk. Or just an extra dose of vitamin C for the day.
It was pretty late when we got back to the campsite, so we hurried to our tent, which was already scorching at 50 degrees, to grab some bread we bought that morning and have a quick lunch in one of the shelters.
But first I needed to remove a thick from Leen’s buttcheek. It was a nasty little bugger that resisted strongly.
Due to the high temperatures, an additional afternoon activity was necessary: a swim in the lake.
And I must be honest. That was a stretch at my side
Subsequently, we hurried to the shower as dinner was scheduled for 18:00 at the campsite, and hamburgers were on the menu for the evening.
Even Leen had to admit they were delicious. And potatoes! How long has it been since we had those?
And to top it all off, Leen got to chat with Staf Coppens and take a pic that the kids wanted. Staf was a presenter on a Belgian kids’ show when they were little, and they’re huge fans of his.
To finish the night we walked around the campsite, chatted with some of our neighbors, and sat by the lake for a bit enjoying the view, but then it was time to find our tent and bed.
Tomorrow it’ll still be 27 degrees and we have to do 62 kilometers. Not keeping up with our promises, I know, but we booked a room in a hotel so the evening ceremony is a bit simpler.
And that’s also a first in our trip 😀.
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