Early in the morning, Johannes picked Flemming and me up from Strömstad, and drove to the flying club, where we had coffee with other pilots:
Johannes asked us, whether we wanted to see more of the surroundings – of course, we did! He first drove us to the Stenskeppet, the stone ship, one of the largest in Sweden:
Stenskeppet was probably built in the late Iron Age around 1,000 BC. At that time the sea level was higher in the west Sweden, and the stone ship would have overlooked a shallow bay.
At the centre of the stone ship, there was a memorial rock with the inscription “Sven Ranck, Anna Bergengren A.C. 1665”. That rock was erected the year after the couple took over the Blomsholm Estate. The Ranck family owned the estate for around 100 years:
Many legends are told about Stenskeppet. One of them says, a Viking chief or a seafaring hero was buried in the ship together with his men. According to another tale from the times of the King Karl XII, the soldiers who died at the war hospital in Blomsholm, were buried in the grave field around the stone ship. Stenskeppet has not been excavated, and very little is known about it.
Johannes recommended to visit another historic place nearby, called Domarring, and we happily agreed. An old mill on the way, along the Blomsholm stream:
Domarring was a stone circle built sometime around 1-400 AD:
The Swedish name for stone circles – Domarring (Judge Circles) – comes from an old belief that they were used as courts in antient times. The stone circles often consist of uneven number of stones, and it was thought that one judge would stand by each stone. Any vote had to result in a decision. No one knows, whether the stone circles were actually used as courts. The historians say, they were built as graves.
We were so grateful to Johannes for taking us around! We told him, when he comes to Denmark – he will get the best VIP service.
Flemming and I said goodbye to the sunny Strömstad, and headed for Höganäs, where we were going to have a break. We also had a box of chocolate from Norway which we were going to give to the flying club in Höganäs – a small thank you gift for their quick response and help, when we were on our way to Norway the other day.
Flying by the west coast, we adored the stunning views:
Do you know how many islands Sweden has? In fact, Sweden has the most islands in the world! And it is around 270,000 where 38 percent of all the islands are situated in the seas.
Lysekil is another place on my wish-list:
It is a small town on the south tip of the Stångenäs peninsula, and has two nature reserves. The landmark of Lyskil is its Notre-Dame-like church, built entirely from granite. Otherwise there is restored old fishing village and great outdoor activities.
We got permission to cross Göteborg TMA, which we were happy about (we didn’t get it when we flew up north):
There was headwind and lots of turbulence on our way, and when after 3 hours we reached Höganäs, both Flemming and I were very tired.
We spent a couple of hours in the Höganäs flying club, sitting on the terrasse, having a meal, and watching a vintage Harvard doing training flights:
After having a good rest, Flemming and I continued our flight home. Meanwhile, the wind changed 180 degrees. We landed on the runway 14, and were taking off from 32:
Flying near Roskilde, we accidentally spotted a stone ship:
It was the Viking Age (1,000 years AD) burial place in Gammel Lejre.
Soon we were landing in my flying club in Holbæk:
Michael was tracking his very special KZ into the hangar:
Boye’s new car was parked near our club house. I myself considered buying that car when I saw a picture. But you cannot have a car like that, living in central Copenhagen… I tried to seat in it, it would be a great fun driving such beauty:
It took at least an hour to clean my Aeroprakt of all those insects we collected on the way from Strömstad.
And what a great trip we had!