Sveg (a giant bear) and Lillholmsjö

The journey was uneventful again today, with more quiet, smooth roads through forests and past lakes. The scenery changed a little though, becoming hillier and rockier with shorter, less dense trees. The ground was also pale green due to the abundance of lichen.

After a couple of hours of driving, we reached Sveg where we stopped to see the world’s largest wooden bear and have some lunch. We parked up on an island in the river where there was a lake and park with picnic benches. Then we pulled on our trainers and walked down the road to see the huge bear.

The bear is built from 60cm long pieces of plank and is 13 metres high, weighing about 86 tons. There are 3 floors inside but the hatch above the steps was locked so we couldn’t go in. Apparently, there are still a few hundred bears in the area’s forests.

We then sat and enjoyed a sandwich by the lake before heading to the fuel station to fill up with diesel and adblue. We drove for about two and a half hours through more forests with rivers and lakes to the park up we had planned on the island of Frösön.

After pausing to see a beautiful wooden bell tower that dwarfed the church beside it, we arrived at a lovely sheltered cove with a little toilet block and level parking… perfect! Unfortunately, there were a couple of tents and a small group of teenagers, which began to raise concerns about a quiet night. A man then wandered over and told us we were most welcome to stay, but we he warned us that a group of 70 teenagers were going to camp. We decided to move on!

As there was no where else suitable in the area and we were feeling ok, we left the island and pushed on north for another hour. I did some research and found a campsite in a tiny settlement called Lillholmsjö. It’s a little run down and there’s only one other campervan here but it’s pretty and has everything we need. Even though we’re near the road junction there’s hardly any traffic, apart from occasional huge timber lorries, and we’re surrounded by… you guessed it… more forest! It’s very peaceful and we watched a fox trotting down the road while we were eating our tea. Soup and cheese on toast tonight because we forgot to take the chicken out of the freezer!