Blogging at 22:15 on Wednesday 31st July from intended overnighting spot N 65.34615°, E 13.57012° / http://maps.google.com/maps?q=loc:65.34615%2C13.57012
It was a good camp last night and I went for a run from it first thing this morning. It was pleasant enough and still quite 'birdy' but the weather had changed dramatically overnight. Rather than clear and balmy I had mizzle and nippy. No complaints, though!
Today's mainly been about moving north so we had to use the E6 for most of the day. It's not too bad, but because the truck is about as far from an autobahn-muncher as you can get, we did keep making it our place to pull over to save slowing up commercial truckers too much. I'm sure it was equally tedious for us all.
As predicted, there are hundreds of motorcaravans moving north and south on this road with Norwegians being the most prolific followed by Germans and Dutch. Swedes are also prevalent and thereafter was mainly a smattering of Czechs, Polish, and Belgians; with a doff of the cap to a lone Portuguese crew.
Casual wildlife sightings today have included mountain hare, fallow deer, a (roadkill) red squirrel, common cranes, redpolls and goldcrests.
As we move further north we're encountering more and more living-green-roofed houses and buildings generally (pic). Basically, the logic seems to be to embrace the benefits that a layer of vegetation affords. It's a thing of wonder. Not only do houses / buildings seemingly benefit thermally but they fit into the landscapes so much more unobtrusively and undoubtedly provide superb micro-habitat to boot. Some of the roofs are so richly vegetated they even support saplings. I guess there's a Bonsai effect at work.
Tonight's overnighting spot is on a lakeside shingle beach with huge views. It was ferreted out by Emma during a late-afternoon bike session. It's been pretty idyllic all evening and will hopefully look after us overnight. Best sightings from here have been common sandpipers and the distinct possibility of a gyrfalcon. The raptor flashed through really quickly but I got enough of a view to be reasonably confident.
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