I'm now out at West Wyalong, I've been here for a few days, visiting a gold mine here. I've not really had a chance to look around town at all though, so I've not had a chance to really explore the town at all... arrived midday on Monday, straight to work, and been at work from 7am to 5pm each day, or longer. Tomorrow is the last day here, so I'm planning to get up early and have a drive around town, get some photos, explore a little.
I'd like to talk a bit about the significance of the town to me. It's kind of an odd coincidence that I should be sent here, the town where my grandfather lived, with his family. He died when my father was 10, and the family moved to Canberra, and my father went to Chevalier shortly after, I believe. I need to find out more about what happened. Why were they here? How long were they here for? Are there any other links to this town? I know he worked as a doctor out here, a doctor in a small country town, and died from a heart attack... beyond that, I don't know. I remember a story my uncle told me about the dirt storms here... it's so dry and dusty, I can believe it.
The town is larger than I thought it would be. Across the hotel from me there's an old plane and an Air Force museum. I won't get a chance to visit it, but perhaps some other day... I may well be back here, judging by work. And if not for work, I'd like to bring San here to see it. The people here seem friendly and trusting... I needed a cable for the charger on my video camera, one that would fit in an Australian plug. I went to the Harvey Norman store in town, and they didn't have any of the cables I was available, but they did have items that used the cable in stock. They ordered in the cable from a nearby town, and they handed one of the cables from another device to use until it gets in. I offered to pay up front for it, and was waved away, and if the cable didn't arrive by the time I had to leave, to just return the one they'd lent to me. Trust in a complete stranger like that strikes me as unusual, I'm not used to it. Too much city living perhaps?
Same happened for me in Sweden... John was laughing at me, because every time we got out of the car to look around, I'd lock the doors. "We really need to worry about all the car thieves around here...", gesturing to the vast expanse of tundra, without a sign of civilisation in sight. It's quite true, our habits are our worst enemy and our most powerful weapon at the same time, they really do make or break us. So I need to decide what habits I want to develop, and establish them... decide what habits I want to get rid of, and break them... and then, after that brief effort, my subconscious will take over the rest. Some time set aside for such a self-examination is probably warranted at this point.
I have the car keys. Tomorrow morning, I'll get up at 5am, and my plan is to travel around the town a bit, taking some photos and getting an idea of the layout. I did get one photo today, of a building which offered Kitchen Design, Joinery, and Funeral Parlour services. Good to know there's a one-stop-shop in town at least.
Thursday, 15 November 2007
Saturday, 29 September 2007
Moonlight Shadows
Last night I saw the Aurora for the first time in my life.
I'd had dinner with John, a coworker, at the American Sports bar in town. I'd told him about my hope to see them, and he'd been sure we'd see them sometime during this trip. On the way back home, he pointed up and said, "I think that's them".
It looked like clouds, lit by moonlight... but these were the strangest clouds I'd ever seen. Clouds didn't form straight lines that ran the length of the sky, or fall in vertical curtains. We walked away from the hotel and the bright lights, over to the train station and then up over the lines and down the other side, to a space between lights so we could see more clearly.
The aurora brightened and dimmed, reappearing in sheets hanging from the sky, forming rivers overhead. It wasn't very bright, and was hard to pick out, but it would fade and appear while I watched, it was magical. I'm hoping to see them again and brighter, and take the video camera out. I've got a spot out in the countryside chosen where I'll drive out, well away from any lights and sit back and watch them until the cold drives me indoors again.
Today was another adventure. I was up late last night after the Aurora working, so slept in today a bit until the late, late hour of 8am. After getting up and checking over emails, having breakfast and refuelling the car, we (John and I) headed out of town. I drove down the road I'd taken my first day here, knowing where I was going this time.
Here's the route we followed, from Gallivare to Akkajaure
The route was incredibly scenic. It took about 3 hours heading out, and 2 and a half heading back, just because we stopped so many times to take in the scenery. I got about 30 minutes of video footage, most of it in 10-30 second chunks as I took in the scenery, rather than capturing movement or action.
We drove up through deserted wilderness. I never knew that Europe had this kind of wilderness still, but it was a dense forest with little to no sign of human habitation aside from the road we travelled along. We crossed a river, which opened up to a large lake, which we found ourselves driving along the shore of. It was an enormous lake that went for miles. In part of it a dense cloud hung over it, but elsewhere it was clear and as still as a mill pond.
After a couple of hours of driving, we stopped at a place a Swedish helicopter mechanic we'd met in the Sports Bar had recommended to us. It was a kind of retreat / restaurant, and we had lunch there... reindeer, potatoes and peas. It was quite nice, the meat was gamey but tender. They had a variety of knicknacks for sale, many made of reindeer horn.
After lunch we drove on. We came to a dam in the lake, with a large wind turbine to one side of it that was barely moving in the sluggish air. We stopped to get a photo of the dammed lake above it, and I noticed a whirlpool in it... it was strange to watch this spinning hole in the lake, seemingly unconnected to the dam nearby, though it must've been an intake for the hydroelectric station... looked like someone had left the plug out of the bottom of the lake. Oops.
We drove on along the windy road along the lake shore. All along the roads here, whenever you're out of town, every 10 metres or so there are poles driven into the ground, about 2 metres high. They're there to mark the edges of the road for the snow ploughs as they clear the roads. They must get pretty deep snow during winter!
Eventually the road ran out, and we ended up driving away from the lake along a dirt track that was marked out for snowmobiles. It headed north, so we followed it, happy that the rental car is a 4WD. We weren't sure where we were going, but the scenery was beautiful and it was an adventure. We came to another lake, shallow and expansive, dotted with islands. The water was clear, you could see the bottom for quite a way. There was a faint roar in the distance, the muffled thrum of a waterfall as glaciers melted above the lake. Looking now, I see we weren't far from the border with Norway.
After taking in the scenery and absorbing the remoteness of the area some, we headed back to the lake and spent some time looking across it at the mountains, and the glacier that slumped between them, glistening in the afternoon sun like a lazy cat. I don't have the name of the mountain just now, but I was told it was the highest mountain in Sweden, and the lake we were facing the deepest. At least that's what I recall being told.
After driving back a bit we swapped, and John drove while I rested. As we got back to Gallivare, we drove up the hill I had been up the first day here. At the top, we were able to look out over all of Gallivare, with the sun slanting in over the valley, and all the way over to Aitik, where the pit was barely discernible. It was a superb vantage point, and I want to be there for a spectacular show of the aurora one night, I want to see the sky lit up with neon. If I'm lucky, that'll happen before it's time to leave.
I'd had dinner with John, a coworker, at the American Sports bar in town. I'd told him about my hope to see them, and he'd been sure we'd see them sometime during this trip. On the way back home, he pointed up and said, "I think that's them".
It looked like clouds, lit by moonlight... but these were the strangest clouds I'd ever seen. Clouds didn't form straight lines that ran the length of the sky, or fall in vertical curtains. We walked away from the hotel and the bright lights, over to the train station and then up over the lines and down the other side, to a space between lights so we could see more clearly.
The aurora brightened and dimmed, reappearing in sheets hanging from the sky, forming rivers overhead. It wasn't very bright, and was hard to pick out, but it would fade and appear while I watched, it was magical. I'm hoping to see them again and brighter, and take the video camera out. I've got a spot out in the countryside chosen where I'll drive out, well away from any lights and sit back and watch them until the cold drives me indoors again.
Today was another adventure. I was up late last night after the Aurora working, so slept in today a bit until the late, late hour of 8am. After getting up and checking over emails, having breakfast and refuelling the car, we (John and I) headed out of town. I drove down the road I'd taken my first day here, knowing where I was going this time.
Here's the route we followed, from Gallivare to Akkajaure
The route was incredibly scenic. It took about 3 hours heading out, and 2 and a half heading back, just because we stopped so many times to take in the scenery. I got about 30 minutes of video footage, most of it in 10-30 second chunks as I took in the scenery, rather than capturing movement or action.
We drove up through deserted wilderness. I never knew that Europe had this kind of wilderness still, but it was a dense forest with little to no sign of human habitation aside from the road we travelled along. We crossed a river, which opened up to a large lake, which we found ourselves driving along the shore of. It was an enormous lake that went for miles. In part of it a dense cloud hung over it, but elsewhere it was clear and as still as a mill pond.
After a couple of hours of driving, we stopped at a place a Swedish helicopter mechanic we'd met in the Sports Bar had recommended to us. It was a kind of retreat / restaurant, and we had lunch there... reindeer, potatoes and peas. It was quite nice, the meat was gamey but tender. They had a variety of knicknacks for sale, many made of reindeer horn.
After lunch we drove on. We came to a dam in the lake, with a large wind turbine to one side of it that was barely moving in the sluggish air. We stopped to get a photo of the dammed lake above it, and I noticed a whirlpool in it... it was strange to watch this spinning hole in the lake, seemingly unconnected to the dam nearby, though it must've been an intake for the hydroelectric station... looked like someone had left the plug out of the bottom of the lake. Oops.
We drove on along the windy road along the lake shore. All along the roads here, whenever you're out of town, every 10 metres or so there are poles driven into the ground, about 2 metres high. They're there to mark the edges of the road for the snow ploughs as they clear the roads. They must get pretty deep snow during winter!
Eventually the road ran out, and we ended up driving away from the lake along a dirt track that was marked out for snowmobiles. It headed north, so we followed it, happy that the rental car is a 4WD. We weren't sure where we were going, but the scenery was beautiful and it was an adventure. We came to another lake, shallow and expansive, dotted with islands. The water was clear, you could see the bottom for quite a way. There was a faint roar in the distance, the muffled thrum of a waterfall as glaciers melted above the lake. Looking now, I see we weren't far from the border with Norway.
After taking in the scenery and absorbing the remoteness of the area some, we headed back to the lake and spent some time looking across it at the mountains, and the glacier that slumped between them, glistening in the afternoon sun like a lazy cat. I don't have the name of the mountain just now, but I was told it was the highest mountain in Sweden, and the lake we were facing the deepest. At least that's what I recall being told.
After driving back a bit we swapped, and John drove while I rested. As we got back to Gallivare, we drove up the hill I had been up the first day here. At the top, we were able to look out over all of Gallivare, with the sun slanting in over the valley, and all the way over to Aitik, where the pit was barely discernible. It was a superb vantage point, and I want to be there for a spectacular show of the aurora one night, I want to see the sky lit up with neon. If I'm lucky, that'll happen before it's time to leave.
Saturday, 22 September 2007
First Week in Sweden
I've been pretty quiet, mainly because there hasn't been a lot happening. There have been a few things, spread over a few days, so I'd like to write about them now.
Mostly I've just been focused on work. There's a lot to get done before we flick the switch next week, so I've spent the vast majority of each day and night on getting ready for that.
The weather finally broke on Wednesday, and I saw the sky for the first time since landing. The bright light in my window in the morning I eventually identified as the sun and not an extra bright street lamp. With the rising sun came the revelation that it had snowed overnight! I had breakfast looking out at the nearby snow-capped mountain.
The dry weather though showed something I hadn't expected, though in hindsight I should have. All that mud around the mine site? When it dries, it becomes dust... and strong winds whip it up but good.
The people I've been working with have been good, the non-adversarial approach they take is refreshing. So many times working with clients in the past they act hostile from the outset, which means you can't make a lot of progress on the real issues. So we've been able to bypass all of that and get stuck into the work. Every morning I have an hour long conference call with Australia, reviewing the issues I'd raised from the previous day, and it is quite an extensive list each time, which is good, we're making progress.
On Thursday evening they blew up a section of rock at the mine. I was standing up to leave my little server room, when the earth started shaking. I'm familiar with the sensation, it happened nearly weekly in Japan, but didn't think they had seismic activity in this region. As I left the building, I saw a large group of people heading back to my building, and realised they must have been in a bunker for the blast. Oops.
At each car parking space, they have a little stand. I thought at first it was a parking meter, but there was nowhere to put money in, and closer inspection showed it had a power point in it. Odd. I asked someone about this, and they explained it is something they only have in Northern Sweden: Power points to run engine heaters for the car. That way your car engine doesn't get frozen in the -30 degrees Celsius temperatures. To me, it shows they have all the infrastructure they need to introduce electric cars. I was told that about 20% of their electricity comes from hydroelectric, 10% from aeroelectric, and the remainder from nuclear power. I'd need to check those figures to be confident of them though.
If you've seen the documentary, "Who Killed The Electric Car", you'll be familiar with the vehicles they introduced in California. Something I've been wondering about: On those vehicles they had special attachments to provide electric power. These required special recharging stations with the attachments fitted. What would be the problem with using a normal electrical connection? It would almost remove entirely the need for any dedicated infrastructure for the introduction of electric cars... anywhere connected to main electricity could offer recharging services. Specialised stations could offer instant recharges: Swapping the flat batteries of a vehicle out for a freshly charged set. Drive in, swap batteries, and off you go again. Faster than filling up on petrol.
Electric motorbikes are my secret passion though. Ok, not so secret, and not a burning passion, but it's still something I keep an eye on. That would be such a lot of fun to ride, hoping to get the opportunity some day.
Mostly I've just been focused on work. There's a lot to get done before we flick the switch next week, so I've spent the vast majority of each day and night on getting ready for that.
The weather finally broke on Wednesday, and I saw the sky for the first time since landing. The bright light in my window in the morning I eventually identified as the sun and not an extra bright street lamp. With the rising sun came the revelation that it had snowed overnight! I had breakfast looking out at the nearby snow-capped mountain.
The dry weather though showed something I hadn't expected, though in hindsight I should have. All that mud around the mine site? When it dries, it becomes dust... and strong winds whip it up but good.
The people I've been working with have been good, the non-adversarial approach they take is refreshing. So many times working with clients in the past they act hostile from the outset, which means you can't make a lot of progress on the real issues. So we've been able to bypass all of that and get stuck into the work. Every morning I have an hour long conference call with Australia, reviewing the issues I'd raised from the previous day, and it is quite an extensive list each time, which is good, we're making progress.
On Thursday evening they blew up a section of rock at the mine. I was standing up to leave my little server room, when the earth started shaking. I'm familiar with the sensation, it happened nearly weekly in Japan, but didn't think they had seismic activity in this region. As I left the building, I saw a large group of people heading back to my building, and realised they must have been in a bunker for the blast. Oops.
At each car parking space, they have a little stand. I thought at first it was a parking meter, but there was nowhere to put money in, and closer inspection showed it had a power point in it. Odd. I asked someone about this, and they explained it is something they only have in Northern Sweden: Power points to run engine heaters for the car. That way your car engine doesn't get frozen in the -30 degrees Celsius temperatures. To me, it shows they have all the infrastructure they need to introduce electric cars. I was told that about 20% of their electricity comes from hydroelectric, 10% from aeroelectric, and the remainder from nuclear power. I'd need to check those figures to be confident of them though.
If you've seen the documentary, "Who Killed The Electric Car", you'll be familiar with the vehicles they introduced in California. Something I've been wondering about: On those vehicles they had special attachments to provide electric power. These required special recharging stations with the attachments fitted. What would be the problem with using a normal electrical connection? It would almost remove entirely the need for any dedicated infrastructure for the introduction of electric cars... anywhere connected to main electricity could offer recharging services. Specialised stations could offer instant recharges: Swapping the flat batteries of a vehicle out for a freshly charged set. Drive in, swap batteries, and off you go again. Faster than filling up on petrol.
Electric motorbikes are my secret passion though. Ok, not so secret, and not a burning passion, but it's still something I keep an eye on. That would be such a lot of fun to ride, hoping to get the opportunity some day.
Tuesday, 18 September 2007
Walking Amongst Monsters
Walking between the enormous machines, I think I can understand the inspiration that led people to imagine mecha, enormous anthropoidal robots like in Battletech, Transformers, and numerous other sci fi creations.
When surfing, my favourite thing is not so much the rush of catching a wave (I hardly ever do anyway), but sitting out there amongst the near silence, just feeling the motion of the water beneath me. Waves slide by like silent beasts on their inexorable way to the shore... a gentle swell that yet contains bone-crushing power. Standing by a large beast, like an elephant or whale, likewise gives you a sense of scale... you feel dwarfed by the power of it. So it is with these vehicles. Each truck costs several million dollar, and is designed for the one task of moving rocks from one place to another.
I'm hoping to get a chance to ride in one around for a bit, and get some footage of it.
Today didn't lead to any particular adventures... I dozed until 6am, had a teleconference at 7am then was straight into work. The rain did stop in the evening though, which is something. Hopefully I'll get to see the sky tomorrow! Apparently this non-stop rain is something of an anomaly, and the Swedes are getting sick of it. It's good to know it's not the norm for the area, it gives me hope for some proper adventures.
When surfing, my favourite thing is not so much the rush of catching a wave (I hardly ever do anyway), but sitting out there amongst the near silence, just feeling the motion of the water beneath me. Waves slide by like silent beasts on their inexorable way to the shore... a gentle swell that yet contains bone-crushing power. Standing by a large beast, like an elephant or whale, likewise gives you a sense of scale... you feel dwarfed by the power of it. So it is with these vehicles. Each truck costs several million dollar, and is designed for the one task of moving rocks from one place to another.
I'm hoping to get a chance to ride in one around for a bit, and get some footage of it.
Today didn't lead to any particular adventures... I dozed until 6am, had a teleconference at 7am then was straight into work. The rain did stop in the evening though, which is something. Hopefully I'll get to see the sky tomorrow! Apparently this non-stop rain is something of an anomaly, and the Swedes are getting sick of it. It's good to know it's not the norm for the area, it gives me hope for some proper adventures.
Monday, 17 September 2007
I reached the mine site
This morning I managed to sleep in until 4am, and roll out of bed at 5am. It's almost the time I want to be getting up at, another day or so and I'll have adjusted I think. Now it is 7pm and I'm feeling pretty tired already, but I've got a fair few things to get done before I can go to sleep, this post and some work-related activities, and trying to get my camcorder to take photos.
After waking and getting ready, having breakfast, then the 7am team conference call, I headed out to the mine site. It's about 15 minutes from Gallivare, so nice and close to get to. The sun was actually out yesterday evening... by this morning though it was back to the drizzling rain. I drove out to the mine site, and got let in through the turnstile and waylaid people until I found the building containing the person I was after. Inside, I walked into peoples offices until someone took me to the one I was after... and she wasn't in yet. I wandered around saying hi to everyone until one person stopped and stared, then I knew I'd found my mark. "Strange man in building, must be the foreigner". Everyone has been very friendly and approachable, lots of smiles and greetings from strangers, it's been pleasant.
Only a couple of funny phrases I heard.. one was "hold your thumbs", which had the same meaning as "cross your fingers", and the other was where the term "floaters", being used to describe everyone who wasn't fixed to a crew which works a specific shift, was translated as meaning "transvestites". Well, you know those truckies...
After some hours of discussions and initial reviews of the new software, I had lunch at the site's cafeteria. Uninspiring Sausage was on the menu! After ducking into town to get some DVDs for my camcorder, I got taken on a tour of the site, in a truck down into the pit. Down, down and down, into the deep pit through the rain and mud. There was little activity, an enormous rope-shovel was spinning back and forth on the spot, it wasn't clear what it was doing... but this machine had a shovel big enough to scoop the vehicle we were in right up. We went near another inactive shovel, but there were active rockfalls happening around it so we didn't chance going near it to climb aboard. On the other side of the mine we finally saw some of the trucks in action... enormous things, the wheels are literally two storeys high, and each truck has 8 wheels. They carry 50-100 tons per load, and I got to see some of them being loaded up and dumping their loads into the crushers.
When I was young, and we were living in North Luffenham in England, my father took my brother and I out to an abandoned dragline. It was the biggest machine I'd ever seen. I still remember it vividly. It was so big it didn't have wheels... instead it had legs, two on either side and a pedestal in the middle. The whole thing moved by walking, one enormous step at a time. This particular machine was sitting abandoned on one side of a valley, near a roman aqueduct. Several times we went out to visit it, and managed to break into it. We explored around the inside of the machine... I remember bats flying overhead in the engine chamber, and the crackle of mica insulation under our sneakers. I remember climbing up to both of the pilot cabins... one on either side, they kept in touch with each other through radio, because there was no one vantage point which could allow a single operator to pilot the machine effectively. The boom out the front of the machine seemed to be a hundred metres long, and a cut-off power cable that trailed from the machine like a tail was as thick as my thigh.
Now, over 20 years later, I'm seeing these machines again, alive this time, instead of decaying in a field. There's something about standing next to a bulldozer that's so big it could literally tip a suburban house over. The "Big Iron", as they call it in Cat. I've not yet fully grasped what it is that impresses me about these machines, but I do get a sense of awe and excitement being around them. The people I'm working with seem to be surprised when I express anything regarding it... I think they've been exposed to the huge machinery for so long they're no longer awestruck. Perhaps it will pass in time... I hope not though.
After waking and getting ready, having breakfast, then the 7am team conference call, I headed out to the mine site. It's about 15 minutes from Gallivare, so nice and close to get to. The sun was actually out yesterday evening... by this morning though it was back to the drizzling rain. I drove out to the mine site, and got let in through the turnstile and waylaid people until I found the building containing the person I was after. Inside, I walked into peoples offices until someone took me to the one I was after... and she wasn't in yet. I wandered around saying hi to everyone until one person stopped and stared, then I knew I'd found my mark. "Strange man in building, must be the foreigner". Everyone has been very friendly and approachable, lots of smiles and greetings from strangers, it's been pleasant.
Only a couple of funny phrases I heard.. one was "hold your thumbs", which had the same meaning as "cross your fingers", and the other was where the term "floaters", being used to describe everyone who wasn't fixed to a crew which works a specific shift, was translated as meaning "transvestites". Well, you know those truckies...
After some hours of discussions and initial reviews of the new software, I had lunch at the site's cafeteria. Uninspiring Sausage was on the menu! After ducking into town to get some DVDs for my camcorder, I got taken on a tour of the site, in a truck down into the pit. Down, down and down, into the deep pit through the rain and mud. There was little activity, an enormous rope-shovel was spinning back and forth on the spot, it wasn't clear what it was doing... but this machine had a shovel big enough to scoop the vehicle we were in right up. We went near another inactive shovel, but there were active rockfalls happening around it so we didn't chance going near it to climb aboard. On the other side of the mine we finally saw some of the trucks in action... enormous things, the wheels are literally two storeys high, and each truck has 8 wheels. They carry 50-100 tons per load, and I got to see some of them being loaded up and dumping their loads into the crushers.
When I was young, and we were living in North Luffenham in England, my father took my brother and I out to an abandoned dragline. It was the biggest machine I'd ever seen. I still remember it vividly. It was so big it didn't have wheels... instead it had legs, two on either side and a pedestal in the middle. The whole thing moved by walking, one enormous step at a time. This particular machine was sitting abandoned on one side of a valley, near a roman aqueduct. Several times we went out to visit it, and managed to break into it. We explored around the inside of the machine... I remember bats flying overhead in the engine chamber, and the crackle of mica insulation under our sneakers. I remember climbing up to both of the pilot cabins... one on either side, they kept in touch with each other through radio, because there was no one vantage point which could allow a single operator to pilot the machine effectively. The boom out the front of the machine seemed to be a hundred metres long, and a cut-off power cable that trailed from the machine like a tail was as thick as my thigh.
Now, over 20 years later, I'm seeing these machines again, alive this time, instead of decaying in a field. There's something about standing next to a bulldozer that's so big it could literally tip a suburban house over. The "Big Iron", as they call it in Cat. I've not yet fully grasped what it is that impresses me about these machines, but I do get a sense of awe and excitement being around them. The people I'm working with seem to be surprised when I express anything regarding it... I think they've been exposed to the huge machinery for so long they're no longer awestruck. Perhaps it will pass in time... I hope not though.
Sunday, 16 September 2007
An introduction
Now that I've let people know this exists, I thought I should probably post what it's all about, to give some reference point for other pots. I'm trying to document my experiences when travelling, as I find that I quickly move from registering just how odd my environment is to accepting it as the way it is. Then I can no longer recall what I found odd about it, or the sensations I had at that time.
By documenting it, I hope to be able to communicate some adventures to my friends and family, and entertain you in the process. So please let me know if there's anything that you enjoyed hearing about, so I get some feedback and can improve the quality of posts.
In a nutshell, that's the two reasons for the existence of this blog: recording experiences and entertaining. When I'm not travelling, it may well lie fallow. We'll see how things develop I guess.
By documenting it, I hope to be able to communicate some adventures to my friends and family, and entertain you in the process. So please let me know if there's anything that you enjoyed hearing about, so I get some feedback and can improve the quality of posts.
In a nutshell, that's the two reasons for the existence of this blog: recording experiences and entertaining. When I'm not travelling, it may well lie fallow. We'll see how things develop I guess.
First full day in Sweden
It's only 1pm, but since I've been awake (after a fashion) since 02:30, and at home it's around 10pm, I feel sleepy. I can't sleep until 21:00 at the earliest though, or I'm not going to adjust to the new timezone.
So I've retreated to my hotel room, after a morning out. I woke at 2:30am, as I mentioned, after going to sleep at around 19:00. I perhaps should have stayed up a bit later, but didn't want to push myself to the point of exhaustion. I was still tired after waking though, so dozed in and out of sleep until 04:00, at which point I rolled out of bed, unable to get any more sleep. It was still pitch black outside, but the town was lit up quite brightly.
By breakfast time, 06:00, I was quite hungry, and though I was one of the first people there I probably ate half the available food. Made up for my caffeine-withdrawal headache too, with a couple of decent coffees.
I checked email and chatted after breakfast until 9am, at which point I headed out to the shops. The one I was after is called "Expert", and is the source for anything technological in town apparently. As of this morning, I had 10 minutes of recording time left on my DVD camcorder, and needed new discs for it. And a memory stick so I can take photos with it. The store wasn't going to open until 10am though, so I went for a drive out of town.
Very quickly I was on a deserted country road, with minutes between seeing any other cars. I stopped frequently in the little parking spaces along the road to get videos of the countryside... the woods, the swamps, the hills and the clouds. The roads here all seem to have been build up along channels cut out of the ground, so there are ditches on either side, everywhere. The roads outside of town are all very well kept, though inside town they're working on all of the major intersections simultaneously, and have left the road as gravel and mud!
I think the ditches are twofold. One is that it gives an uphill path for animals bolting, slowing them down from running in front of traffic. The other, and main, reason is the water. As I've said, there's water everywhere here, sitting in pools as well as falling from the sky. This way the water doesn't sit too deeply on the roads, or run over it. There's pipes under the road at intervals so water can pass under it without building up to the road level and running over it in sheets. Works well for consistent rain falls, though I expect problems if they get torrential downpours.
I didn't have a map, or any idea where I was going... I'd just chosen a road at random. I saw a hill off to one side and decided to climb it, so kept an eye out for roads leading towards it. I didn't see any, and afer about half an hour without much scenery change, I turn around and drove back.
On the way back I stopped by an open field... it seemed strange for there to be open fields in the middle of the woods, but I'd seen several. A closer inspection explained why... it wasn't an open field, it was a swamp with surface water hidden by grasses. There goes my plan to go tromping through the field... I'd be up to my knees in mud and stuck within a metre.
I hopped in the car and drove back.
On the way back I saw the first animal I've seen... a squirrel hopped its way over the road. It was longer and skinnier than the American squirrels I saw in Texas, but still cute.
Most of the way back to Gallivare, I saw a sign saying "i", which I took to be the symbol for "information", as in, touristy stuff. Turned out to be closed up, but there was a road leading up behind it, and a notice board mentioning a national park, if my understanding of the Swedish was correct. Score! I jumped into my trusty 4wd and took off up the road, towards my hill!
A one lane road wound its way up the hillside, with thickenings every 100 metres or so, so people can pull over and allow others to pass. I passed a couple of stopped vehicles on the way up, until one point where I was in a saddle between two hills, and a track went off the road. I pulled over, put my gloves and jacket on, and went to the track.
It was a series of wooden planks leading from the roadside over a small stream and up over the swampy ground. I stuck to the planks, the ground was essentially mud and a wrongly placed foot would sink straight in. The planks were slippery, as it was raining, and I could see the clouds overhead, obscuring the top of the hill. After about 50 metres the planks stopped, and I was on terra firma again, stepping from rock to rock as I made my way up the hill.
The ground was covered with low-lying heather, which was covered in berries. It must be the season for it or something. The path was marked with 2 metre high posts driven into the ground. I followed it until I was near the top of the hill... the path continued down the other side and up another hill. It was cold and wet, and I wanted to get to the top of my hill, rather than follow the trail, so I made diverted from the path and headed to the outcrop of rocks that crowned the hill.
The ground was covered in heather, as I've mentioned, but up close I saw all sorts of strange growths. Mushrooms grew unprotected, so the climate must be damp constantly up there, or at least lately, rather than it just having been raining these past two days. There was also something that looked like free-standing lichen.. it had the same colour and shape as lichen, but stood by itself instead of growing on rocks. I don't know what it is... and closer inspection turned up several other alien growths. The rocks were chunks of basalt, I think the entire hillsides are big blocks of basalt. It'll be interesting to see the geology of the Aitik mine when I get there.
After using the last remaining minutes on my camcorder to record the view (clouds obscured seeing far unfortunately), I headed back down, hopped in the car then drove back into town. And drove, and drove...
I was lost.
I had no idea how to get back onto a road I recognised. It was fun! I drove around, into factory grounds, down residential streets, over roadworks... eventually though I spotted a shop I thought I'd seen yesterday, when searching for the supermarket. Sure enough, I was soon back into the parts of Gallivare I knew. Awww. I found the "Expert" shop, but soon discovered that although the shopping complex it is in opened at 10am, Expert does not open on Sundays. So I'll have to find some way to get there during work hours to get some discs, as they're only open until 6pm. Fortunately Aitik isn't far from my hotel, 15 minutes I'm told, so I may be able to drop back here during lunch tomorrow.
I got some lunch from a fast food store called "Sybilla"... it tasted exactly the same as Wendys. Grabbed some tourist information from the tourist centre across the road from the hotel, and retired to my hotel room. Now it's 2:44pm, and with everything shut and the rain coming down I may have a nap... so tired, the jet lag is hitting me.
So I've retreated to my hotel room, after a morning out. I woke at 2:30am, as I mentioned, after going to sleep at around 19:00. I perhaps should have stayed up a bit later, but didn't want to push myself to the point of exhaustion. I was still tired after waking though, so dozed in and out of sleep until 04:00, at which point I rolled out of bed, unable to get any more sleep. It was still pitch black outside, but the town was lit up quite brightly.
By breakfast time, 06:00, I was quite hungry, and though I was one of the first people there I probably ate half the available food. Made up for my caffeine-withdrawal headache too, with a couple of decent coffees.
I checked email and chatted after breakfast until 9am, at which point I headed out to the shops. The one I was after is called "Expert", and is the source for anything technological in town apparently. As of this morning, I had 10 minutes of recording time left on my DVD camcorder, and needed new discs for it. And a memory stick so I can take photos with it. The store wasn't going to open until 10am though, so I went for a drive out of town.
Very quickly I was on a deserted country road, with minutes between seeing any other cars. I stopped frequently in the little parking spaces along the road to get videos of the countryside... the woods, the swamps, the hills and the clouds. The roads here all seem to have been build up along channels cut out of the ground, so there are ditches on either side, everywhere. The roads outside of town are all very well kept, though inside town they're working on all of the major intersections simultaneously, and have left the road as gravel and mud!
I think the ditches are twofold. One is that it gives an uphill path for animals bolting, slowing them down from running in front of traffic. The other, and main, reason is the water. As I've said, there's water everywhere here, sitting in pools as well as falling from the sky. This way the water doesn't sit too deeply on the roads, or run over it. There's pipes under the road at intervals so water can pass under it without building up to the road level and running over it in sheets. Works well for consistent rain falls, though I expect problems if they get torrential downpours.
I didn't have a map, or any idea where I was going... I'd just chosen a road at random. I saw a hill off to one side and decided to climb it, so kept an eye out for roads leading towards it. I didn't see any, and afer about half an hour without much scenery change, I turn around and drove back.
On the way back I stopped by an open field... it seemed strange for there to be open fields in the middle of the woods, but I'd seen several. A closer inspection explained why... it wasn't an open field, it was a swamp with surface water hidden by grasses. There goes my plan to go tromping through the field... I'd be up to my knees in mud and stuck within a metre.
I hopped in the car and drove back.
On the way back I saw the first animal I've seen... a squirrel hopped its way over the road. It was longer and skinnier than the American squirrels I saw in Texas, but still cute.
Most of the way back to Gallivare, I saw a sign saying "i", which I took to be the symbol for "information", as in, touristy stuff. Turned out to be closed up, but there was a road leading up behind it, and a notice board mentioning a national park, if my understanding of the Swedish was correct. Score! I jumped into my trusty 4wd and took off up the road, towards my hill!
A one lane road wound its way up the hillside, with thickenings every 100 metres or so, so people can pull over and allow others to pass. I passed a couple of stopped vehicles on the way up, until one point where I was in a saddle between two hills, and a track went off the road. I pulled over, put my gloves and jacket on, and went to the track.
It was a series of wooden planks leading from the roadside over a small stream and up over the swampy ground. I stuck to the planks, the ground was essentially mud and a wrongly placed foot would sink straight in. The planks were slippery, as it was raining, and I could see the clouds overhead, obscuring the top of the hill. After about 50 metres the planks stopped, and I was on terra firma again, stepping from rock to rock as I made my way up the hill.
The ground was covered with low-lying heather, which was covered in berries. It must be the season for it or something. The path was marked with 2 metre high posts driven into the ground. I followed it until I was near the top of the hill... the path continued down the other side and up another hill. It was cold and wet, and I wanted to get to the top of my hill, rather than follow the trail, so I made diverted from the path and headed to the outcrop of rocks that crowned the hill.
The ground was covered in heather, as I've mentioned, but up close I saw all sorts of strange growths. Mushrooms grew unprotected, so the climate must be damp constantly up there, or at least lately, rather than it just having been raining these past two days. There was also something that looked like free-standing lichen.. it had the same colour and shape as lichen, but stood by itself instead of growing on rocks. I don't know what it is... and closer inspection turned up several other alien growths. The rocks were chunks of basalt, I think the entire hillsides are big blocks of basalt. It'll be interesting to see the geology of the Aitik mine when I get there.
After using the last remaining minutes on my camcorder to record the view (clouds obscured seeing far unfortunately), I headed back down, hopped in the car then drove back into town. And drove, and drove...
I was lost.
I had no idea how to get back onto a road I recognised. It was fun! I drove around, into factory grounds, down residential streets, over roadworks... eventually though I spotted a shop I thought I'd seen yesterday, when searching for the supermarket. Sure enough, I was soon back into the parts of Gallivare I knew. Awww. I found the "Expert" shop, but soon discovered that although the shopping complex it is in opened at 10am, Expert does not open on Sundays. So I'll have to find some way to get there during work hours to get some discs, as they're only open until 6pm. Fortunately Aitik isn't far from my hotel, 15 minutes I'm told, so I may be able to drop back here during lunch tomorrow.
I got some lunch from a fast food store called "Sybilla"... it tasted exactly the same as Wendys. Grabbed some tourist information from the tourist centre across the road from the hotel, and retired to my hotel room. Now it's 2:44pm, and with everything shut and the rain coming down I may have a nap... so tired, the jet lag is hitting me.
Arrival in Sweden
The trip over to Gallivare, pronounced "Yollivairi", was one of the longer ones I've undertaken. 36 hours from leaving Brisbane to arriving in Kiruna, then a 90 minute drive (on the wrong side of the road, in the rain) to Gallivare. Fatigue is only starting to hit me now, but I wanted to get these notes down before I fall asleep. It's 18:27, local time... must be about 03:27, back home.
It's the little things that jar you from your expectations when travelling, I find. I walked into the men's bathroom in Stockholm. The urinals there were odd. Unlike the wall-mounted bowls I'm used to, these were pedestal-mounted bowls, facing straight up. Odd. There was also a fold-down tray for changing a baby's nappy... in Australia there's a separate "parents room" for that... either that or it gets relegated to the women's bathroom (cringe-worthy in this day and age).
The flight over Sweden from Stockholm to Kiruna was clouded. We quickly ascended into and above the clouds, and only got to see the ground again upon descent. That was a shame, as I was looking forward to getting an idea of the lay of the land as I flew from one end of the country to the other, but maybe I'll get to see it on the return flight.
As I descended from the clouds, the first impression I had was of landing in Russia. The land around Moscow is very similar to the land near Kiruna. Arriving at the same time of the year also added to the effect... the land is a froth of green pines and golden deciduous trees. It's quite spectacular, but a bit monotonous in how constant the colours are.
The next thing to strike me, as we got lower, was the red wooden buildings with doors and windows outlined in white paint. The first thought I had was of Canadian and American farm buildings. I wonder if the similarities are due to Swedish settlers? Perhaps a topic for research.
Very tired now. I only had one caffeinated coffee on the flight, as I was approaching London, as I wanted to be alert for that. London was a pain... there were huge queues due to the security checks. It's not that they were being thorough or doing more checks, they were just taking a long time to process each person... that or they were horribly understaffed. Possibly a combination of the two... a go-slow in protest to the understaffing? Whatever the cause, it took a long time. But I got through, and with my baggage, so I can't complain too much. I was only in England a couple of hours, after all.
I wandered around Gallivare airport until I found the car rental booth, all of the companies squeezed into one booth with 3 guys sitting with huge grins at everyone walking by. I got my keys and headed out to the car park.
The car was cold when I got in it. It was also missing a steering wheel, a brake and an accelerator. There was the automatic gearstick though. What's the steering wheel doing on the passenger's side? Oh, right.
Climate control made sure the temperature wasn't a problem. It was raining though, just a light sprinkle but the roads were soaked, often with pools of water sitting on them. I started to drive, very carefully. Then someone was travelling 20 kilometres per hour below the (70) speed limit, so after a time I overtook them, and as I did so I noticed the speed limit change and the speed camera. Oops. There seemed to be about 4 or 5 zones where they drop the speed limit by 40 kilometres per hour, have a speed camera, then put the speed limit back up. A truly effective means of controlling speed or a revenue generating device? I reserve judgement at this point.
The water is everywhere. Every flat piece of ground seems to have a pond in it. I don't know if it's just the rain when I arrived or if it's always like that. But coming from a drought-ridden city to this is quite a contrast.
Driving on the right (wrong) side of the road hasn't proven as difficult as I thought it would be. I'm instinctively giving way to the left on roundabouts, and as long as I stay focused I'm not turning into the wrong lanes. I expect I'll always feel a bit nervous and pay extra attention to traffic when I'm on the right side of the road, but the months in Texas seem to have not gone completely as I thought they had. It's coming back to me, and I'm not nervous when driving.
Except for those mooses. Sneaky things, I haven't seen one yet, but I fully expect that at the moment when I least expect it, one will jump out from behind a tree to headbutt my car. I'm keeping an eye out for him.
I've managed to locate a supermarket and get some toothpaste and shampoo... the hotel doesn't supply them, which took me by surprise. I just had dinner at the hotel's restaurant/pub: Reindeer Steak, with some kind of berry compote (is that the right word for it?) and potato cakes. Tasted nice, much like venison perhaps... or almost like well-cooked kangaroo steak.
That's all I can write for today. No huge adventures yet, nor too many oddities of Swedish culture. Once I'm not so tired I'll be more observant of them perhaps.
It's the little things that jar you from your expectations when travelling, I find. I walked into the men's bathroom in Stockholm. The urinals there were odd. Unlike the wall-mounted bowls I'm used to, these were pedestal-mounted bowls, facing straight up. Odd. There was also a fold-down tray for changing a baby's nappy... in Australia there's a separate "parents room" for that... either that or it gets relegated to the women's bathroom (cringe-worthy in this day and age).
The flight over Sweden from Stockholm to Kiruna was clouded. We quickly ascended into and above the clouds, and only got to see the ground again upon descent. That was a shame, as I was looking forward to getting an idea of the lay of the land as I flew from one end of the country to the other, but maybe I'll get to see it on the return flight.
As I descended from the clouds, the first impression I had was of landing in Russia. The land around Moscow is very similar to the land near Kiruna. Arriving at the same time of the year also added to the effect... the land is a froth of green pines and golden deciduous trees. It's quite spectacular, but a bit monotonous in how constant the colours are.
The next thing to strike me, as we got lower, was the red wooden buildings with doors and windows outlined in white paint. The first thought I had was of Canadian and American farm buildings. I wonder if the similarities are due to Swedish settlers? Perhaps a topic for research.
Very tired now. I only had one caffeinated coffee on the flight, as I was approaching London, as I wanted to be alert for that. London was a pain... there were huge queues due to the security checks. It's not that they were being thorough or doing more checks, they were just taking a long time to process each person... that or they were horribly understaffed. Possibly a combination of the two... a go-slow in protest to the understaffing? Whatever the cause, it took a long time. But I got through, and with my baggage, so I can't complain too much. I was only in England a couple of hours, after all.
I wandered around Gallivare airport until I found the car rental booth, all of the companies squeezed into one booth with 3 guys sitting with huge grins at everyone walking by. I got my keys and headed out to the car park.
The car was cold when I got in it. It was also missing a steering wheel, a brake and an accelerator. There was the automatic gearstick though. What's the steering wheel doing on the passenger's side? Oh, right.
Climate control made sure the temperature wasn't a problem. It was raining though, just a light sprinkle but the roads were soaked, often with pools of water sitting on them. I started to drive, very carefully. Then someone was travelling 20 kilometres per hour below the (70) speed limit, so after a time I overtook them, and as I did so I noticed the speed limit change and the speed camera. Oops. There seemed to be about 4 or 5 zones where they drop the speed limit by 40 kilometres per hour, have a speed camera, then put the speed limit back up. A truly effective means of controlling speed or a revenue generating device? I reserve judgement at this point.
The water is everywhere. Every flat piece of ground seems to have a pond in it. I don't know if it's just the rain when I arrived or if it's always like that. But coming from a drought-ridden city to this is quite a contrast.
Driving on the right (wrong) side of the road hasn't proven as difficult as I thought it would be. I'm instinctively giving way to the left on roundabouts, and as long as I stay focused I'm not turning into the wrong lanes. I expect I'll always feel a bit nervous and pay extra attention to traffic when I'm on the right side of the road, but the months in Texas seem to have not gone completely as I thought they had. It's coming back to me, and I'm not nervous when driving.
Except for those mooses. Sneaky things, I haven't seen one yet, but I fully expect that at the moment when I least expect it, one will jump out from behind a tree to headbutt my car. I'm keeping an eye out for him.
I've managed to locate a supermarket and get some toothpaste and shampoo... the hotel doesn't supply them, which took me by surprise. I just had dinner at the hotel's restaurant/pub: Reindeer Steak, with some kind of berry compote (is that the right word for it?) and potato cakes. Tasted nice, much like venison perhaps... or almost like well-cooked kangaroo steak.
That's all I can write for today. No huge adventures yet, nor too many oddities of Swedish culture. Once I'm not so tired I'll be more observant of them perhaps.
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