söndag 9 juni 2013

Adventure #5 - Kayaking in the Stockholm archipelago

Our family adventure for May took us to one of our favourite places in the world - the nature reserve at Östra Lagnö on the island Ljusterö. We left early on Friday and took the car-ferry to Ljusterö. Our first stop was at an old and forgotten military fort. Since CJ is very interested in military history, we often end up visiting bunkers and forts on our adventures... But actually the whole family usually enjoys these excursions, which often involves "urban exploration", exploring abandoned buildings. This fort was in the middle of the woods and it has been sealed off by the authorities so you can't go inside. But there was plenty of things to discover anyway. And of course there was a geocache there!

Underneath this articificial rock (concrete) is the fort of Lagnö
After lunch at the fort, we drove to Östra Lagnö. This nature reserve is very well maintained, it's also accessible with wheel chairs. Nice paths, informative signs and plenty of picnic tables. There is only a short walk from the parking place to Brännholmen, which is where we wanted to stay the night. So, this time we didn't really pay much attention to packing light.

Map from Skärgårdsstiftelsen
The weather was great, finally the summer has arrived to Stockholm after a really long winter this year. So, we spent the afternoon bathing in the ocean, relaxing on the cliffs and just enjoying the amazing views of the archipelago.

For dinner, we made Spagetti Bolognese on our Primus kitchen, this time in two versions since we have a vegetarian in the family. Maybe this cooking is a bit too advanced if you go on a longer hike, but this time we had the time and we didn't have to worry about carrying too much weight. Not only did we enjoy a nice main course, we also had Gino for dessert! (Gino = warm fruit covered with white chocolate)






When we went to bed in our two tents at eleven, it was still warm and light outside. The Swedish evenings in June are really amazing! After a good night's sleep we got up early and had breakfast out in the sun. When you live in a country where you spend 8 months freezing you really appreciate having breakfast outside in the sun wearing sunglasses!

Preparing lunch
Then the main attraction for this adventure was to try kayaking for the first time. We met our instructor Joel from Hemviken Kajak in the morning. It turned out that Joel actually went to the same schools when he was young as our kids go to now, what a coincidence!

We spent a couple of hours on the ocean with Joel, getting to learn the basics. Since we haven't tried kayaing before, we really wanted to get a good start so that everyone felt safe and wanted to try this again. And we had such a good time, this was a perfect first time for us. Joel took great care of us! After our introduction we had lunch and then spent some more time paddling by ourselves on the ocean.




This was our first time kayaking, but definitely not the last. There are plenty of places around Stockholm where you can rent kayaks, so we well try to do this again a couple of times this summer. We really need some more practice before really feeling confident out on the ocean. For example, Joel demonstrated how to do a kayak roll, but that seemed a bit too advanced for us beginners... We'll be back for his advanced training session!

1 kommentar:

  1. Det där lät som en jättemysig utflykt. Kul att ni gillade att paddla kajak. Vi har hyrt kajaker i några somrar vid flera tillfällen. Förra året beslöt vi att köpa så nu äger vi två stycken. Mycket mysig att paddla.

    Hoppas att det kan bli en del paddlande i sommar. Funderingar inför sommaren är att paddla på östkusten, inte bara i insjöar som vi gjort hittills. Dessutom skulle vi vilja paddla i Stockholms innerstad. Det skulle vara kul att se huvudstaden från vattnet.

    SvaraRadera