A cool experience in Lysvik

"You should always test the safety valves" says Karlsson on the roof and that is something that is also close at hand for Rendahls. So we went on a little test camping trip before this summer's trip to Österlen. There are plenty of campsites in the immediate area, but this time we chose Lysviks Camping. The campsite is of a slightly simpler cut but at the same time located in a beautiful location with views and Fryken. Extra bonus is also their nice restaurant, The Pearl of Fryken, and walking distance to Grandma's ice cream parlour.

On the way to the campsite we took a hike on Askerudsberget. If you have the roads past, the easiest thing to do is to start from Ingmårs bygdegård. At the farm there is both parking and maps of the area. It is a beautiful and quite hilly area with several different trails. The shortest is a couple of kilometres long and the longest is about thirteen. I can also mention that the village association has put a lot of work into documenting old settlements in the area.

After a few hours of hiking, lunch and coffee, we continued towards Lysvik. The sensible camper would probably have started by checking in, setting up tents, chopping firewood, etc. but in Rendahl's head there was only ice cream.

Grandma's ice cream parlour is about 500 metres from the campsite and has a wide range of Sia ice cream. While you can order a regular cone with scoops, it might be their own creations that stand out.

Once back at the campsite, we quickly realised that we were the only ones who had chosen to camp that day, but we did not let this discourage us and instead started to build our new nice "Indian tent". The tent is an old proven model from Helsport that has been around for half a century and it really shows in all the little smart details. As always with a new tent, it's a bit of a puzzle before you realise how everything fits together, but in the end it worked out. We celebrated a job well done with some bubbly.

It was now time for dinner and we trudged over to The Pearl of Fryken. As the season had not really started, they had a rather limited menu which made the choice easy: Sourdough pizza!

What pizzas! They looked so good that we almost forgot to take pictures of them. By the way, that's why it's a half-eaten pizza in the picture above. I myself took a salame cipolla rossa. Believe it or not, we were so full that we skipped dessert...

When we got back to the campsite, we started prepping for the night. Chopping wood, lighting the stove, pumping up mattresses and everything else that still makes the tent trip a pleasant experience rather than a test of manhood. In this case, it was probably lucky that we put a little extra energy into the preparation as it was an unusually cold night for the end of May. Of course, you can see it as an excellent opportunity to test the stuff, but I would probably still have preferred a little more than two degrees, not least as it was my wife's second night in a tent.

Mrs's comment:

So what's the deal with tents, you ask? Yes, I thought the same thing before I met Henrik. I hadn't camped since I was a kid and I'm an inveterate hotel fanatic. But when Henrik spent a fortune on tent stuff, I thought that I should at least give it a chance.

After trying a few different strategies around sleeping bags, mattresses, pads and pillows, I have realised that I am a comfortable camper. The sleeping pad was replaced with a thick mattress and the inflatable pillow was replaced with a real pillow. But once tucked into a cosy sleeping bag, listening to the pattering rain, I think that this tent thing is probably not so bad after all. To light a fire in the stove in the morning, make coffee and bake bread and then have breakfast overlooking a beautiful lake. Well, why not?

It was a bit chilly in the morning but after we started the fire in the stove it quickly became warm again.

To summarise, it was a very pleasant trip with both elements of good food and nature. That is, everything that Rendahls like.

A comment to the campsite: As you have now placed all seasonal pitches along the water, the other pitches no longer have a view of the water. In practice, this means that the beautiful view has now been replaced by a compact plastic wall. One tip might be to organise the spots on the second row with a little space between them so that the spots behind them also have a view.