Easter “Camping”

Graham grilling up some haloomi while the local “Easter bunnies” look on

Picturing a BC sort of spring, I sort of imagined going camping for my birthday. Or perhaps, since local park Lida has some nice options for roofs/indoors, taking that luxurious option and still get some nature time and a change of scenery. Things have been pretty busy for me teaching new courses and working on some grants, so there were several weekends spent at the computer this spring. Easter long-weekend is 4 days long here, and seemed like the right time. As lovely as Gripens Väg is, we were both ready for a change of scenery.

Lida doesn’t have online booking, so using beginner Swedish I sent an email requesting a cabin for two nights. A bit of back-and-forth, and we were booked! This ended up being a pretty climate-smart and pandemic-smart vacation: we packed up backpacks and hiked over to Lida, stayed in a mini-cabin on our own, dropped off the keys at the end of our stay, and spent most of our time outdoors saying “hej” to other folks on the trails

Lots of people visiting Lida on the long weekend! It seemed like most folks were looking for a local fun spot, and in the afternoons all the grilling spots were filled with families cooking up hotdogs and enjoying the outdoors. Kids climbed up on the roofs of the windshelters, dogs wagged their tails, people chomped snacks with toques and parkas on. We saw all this activity, and also the quiet mornings and evenings when only the ‘residents’ were there. We had some museli and tea looking out at the lake, had some picnics, and did some grilling of our own (haloomi and falafel).

We also did some orienteering, which will be part of another post. However, there is lots to see even without a map, and spending a few days there we got to explore the structures and the landscape. The café was serving lentil soup, pancakes with jam and cream, and a variety of baking… but we will probably wait to visit until we’ve been vaccinated. We had great weather, sunny and dry and as warm as can be expected in early spring… right up until our last morning, when we woke up to windy snow. Time to go home!

Graham had been toasting up some hot cross buns here only a few hours before…

Camping lessons for next time:

  • I need some warmer pants for sitting around outdoors!
  • Wool blankets are a wonderful luxury with a terrible weight penalty. These will only be coming on short trips.
  • Ikea plastic bins with snap on lids are great! Light, water-tight, and the lid can be a plate.
  • Extra ziplocks should be in every camping kit, but we forgot this time.
  • Graham is keen on a packet of wet wipes – this seems like a standard bit of kit we’ve been sleeping on since we are not parents.
  • A bigger roll-up plastic cutting board would be great, as would a silicon potholder, metal cooking/serving spoon, dishwashing basin, and a bigger knife with a blade cover.
  • Food:
    • Cinnamon stick-bannock was a good idea, but execution needs work… it has to be rolled very skinny before snaking around a stick, and it needs very hot coals (or maybe some tin foil?) to cook properly
    • Next time we’ll try some home-dried veggies. Maybe some store-bought fried onions would be good?
    • Oriental Supermarket (I know I know, but that is the name) has many types of dried soy and wheat protein nuggets; we’ll have to try some of those.
    • Couscous with creamy soup packet was a salty but tasty, would benefit from some veggies.
Heading home in the snow