You can camp everywhere outside the cities, and in lots of places you'll find these shelters. We were glad we found this shelter because we had been paddling the canoes all day, and it had been raining for hours. We had a hard time finding dry wood for the fire, but after a while, we managed to find some that was dry enough to make a small campfire.

After three days of rain, it was nice to find a suitable place to sleep so we didn't have to put up our tents. Just before we reached the shelters, it stopped raining, so it was a nice opportunity to get our clothes dry.

The only bad thing about the forest is all the mosquitoes. Luckily, we had brought a mosquito net and put it in front of one of the shelters (the one on the left). Now we could sleep peacefully during the night without worrying about being bitten by the nasty bugs.

The day looked to be very good, so we decided to stay for an extra day. Not all our clothes had dried the day before, so now we had a chance. The shelters were placed close to the river, at a spot where it passed a small lake. We just sailed on the lake during the day and met some scouts who were building a raft.

When we came back to the shelters, the clothes had dried. The only problem was that we could hardly find any dry wood. Finally, we decided to burn a piece of timber from an old shelter nearby. The shelter had collapsed some years earlier, so we figured that no one would mind if we burned some of it.

Unfortunately, we hadn't brought a saw or axe, so we had to put one end of the timber into the fire and just drag it into the fireplace when some of it had burned off (see picture).

The water in the Swedish rivers is so clean that you can drink it without purifying it first. This is very convenient when traveling there, so you don't have to worry about fresh water. It's also good for swimming, even though it's quite cold, even during summertime. But if you find a lake like we did, it's not that bad.

Here we are between to showers.

It was a very rainy season that year (2000), and all rivers were full of water.

Often we just drifted for an hour, looking at the magnificent surroundings or talked to some of the people we met, who were sailing a rented raft. 

The last day it rained like most of the others. When we got to our final destination, we looked for a dry place to sleep. Close to the river, there were some farm buildings, and we asked a farmer if it would be all right to sleep in his barn. He agreed and told lots of stories from his moose hunts.

If you look at Frans, you can see that he only wore a rainproof jacket that day.

Nets and traps in Ã…stolen are drying and being cleaned before use again.

Cable ferries are used a lot in Sweden, always in this special kind of yellow. This cable ferry travels only 200 meters at Malö Strömmar. I think it's free to use most of them, but I'm not sure.

 When sailing along the Swedish coast, there are lots of small islands and many places where space is very limited. This creates very beautiful scenery, but also some excitement, as you have to be careful to read the map correctly. Luckily, there are lots of buoys to guide the way where there is shallow water. 

The large church in Lysekil stands as a prominent landmark and a useful navigation point, visible from far out at sea. Built in 1906, it replaced the town's older church, which was moved to Bohus Malmön.

A journey through the beautiful Sotenkanalen offers a trip of scenic contrasts. The experience includes sailing past pastoral fields where cattle graze at the water's edge and navigating narrow passages so close to the cliffs that you can reach out and touch them.

The harbor seen from the viewpoint behind the city. This also shows the beautiful coastline with all the small islands. In Swedish, the coastline and islands are called "Skärgården".

A Midsummer pole is an integral part of the Midsummer tradition in Sweden. Swedes celebrate midsummer by making this pole on the Friday closest to the longest day of the year. The most traditional festivals are in Dalarna, but all of Sweden celebrates this special day. This picture is from the Koster Islands, on Sweden's western border.