England and Wales (27 Oct - 2nd Nov 24) Day 1 - Flight and Rugby

 When we went to England in 2017 we visited a theme park called Alton Towers, which I had visited in 1996.  There was a specific ride, there that was my first ever proper thrill ride, called the Nemesis (Link to previous Alton Towers visit). When we went in 2017, Cameron, Alana, Kristine and I rode the Nemesis, but Tomas was an inch too short to be able to. We promised that we would take him back some day.

At the start of this Sweden trip, the Nemesis was closed for "refurbishment and retracking" and it opened again in March 2024 as "Nemesis Reborn". With the end of our contract nearing, we were running out of time to make good on our promise, so we looked at booking a trip to the UK.

The first plan was Alton Towers, but I was interested in returning to Warhammer World and Cameron was keen to check out some of the Premier League Football stadiums. We also managed to align with a Aston Villa game at Villa Park, where our family friend, Joe, would be playing as goalkeeper in a Carabao Cup match. He managed to get us tickets to the game, so we now had a full plan.

We flew out at 9am on Sunday, meaning that we had an early start to make sure we made it to the airport on time. The original plan was to drive to Cameron's favourite side - Chelsea's stadium, Stamford Park, but rescheduling (around the Carabao cup) had meant that a game was now being played at that time and so we wouldn't be able to get close to the stadium. Instead, we drove up to Rugby, the birthplace of our favourite game.

There was a Diwali festival on, so the town was packed.

Rugby is a town in Warwickshire and home to Rugby School, which was initially a Grammar (private) School. The school is known as the birthplace of the game of Rugby. The legend is that William Webb Ellis was playing football in 1823 and picked up the ball and ran with it, which led to the creation of the game of rugby. The World Cup trophy is the Webb Ellis trophy, named after William. While this has pretty much been disproven as an origin myth, it is true that the rules of rugby with codified at Rugby School and the first Rugby Football Union was created in 1871.

The town's name is believed to have come from either the ancient Celtic Droche-brig meaning Wild Hilltop or a phonetic translation of the Old English Hrocaberg (h being silent and berg being pronounced similar to beree). The name became Rokeby and changed to the modern Rugby in the 1700s.

We parked in a shopping center, and headed out, past the Diwali celebrations towards Rugby School Unfortunately the museum was closed for Sunday, but we did get to see the school and Webb Ellis Statue.

Rugby School

William Webb Ellis Statue

Rugby World Cup Sculpture.

Rugby Clocktower

The Diwali celebrations were starting to ramp up and a parade was about to start, so we decided to leave before we risked being blocked in. The rest of the drive to Stoke-on-Trent was uneventful, but parking was a nightmare, as it always seems to be in the UK. The narrow streets were filled with cars parked on both sides of the road and we ended up parking about a 5min walk from the apartment.

View from our window

We arrived at the apartment about 4pm and were pretty tired. The combination of the start of daylight savings and the timezone difference meant that our bodies were still feeling that it was two hours later than it was.  Almost every shop was closed at 4 on a Sunday, so Kris and I left the boys at the apartment and drove to a small store about 10min away to pick up supplies for dinner and breakfast - again fighting with parking at both the shop and back at the apartment.

October 2024

 October has been a pretty quiet month for us, a bit of rugby and lots of packing

On the 2nd of October, Kris went in for shoulder surgery to try to help reduce the pain and increase the movement in her shoulder from a previous work injury. Originally we were told she would be able to continue as normal within a day or two, but afterwards we were told that she needed to take it easy for a month or two.

That weekend, Cameron played his first International game, with MRC taking on the Danish National Team. Kris and I watched the live stream and the boys took the win 32-10 - a very impressive result for one town's team against the national team.

On the 12th, the boys played a rugby tournament in Frederiksberg. Kris had just had her shoulder surgery so we wasn't able to attend, but I caught the train across to Denmark with the boys.

The boys both played two games against combined Danish teams:

P16s (Tomas):
MRC vs FRK, Gentofte, Aarhus, Dragor (Loss 10-12)
MRC vs Speed, CSR, Hundested (Win 24-0)

P18s (Cameron):
MRC vs Denmark West (Win 52-5)
MRC vs Denmark East (Win 59-12)

We also had a quick visit to Migrationsverket to get our new residency cards and then started packing our freight back to Australia.

We have three ways to take things back - by sea freight, air freight or luggage.

For sea freight we get 6 cubic meters plus whatever we didn't use on the way over (a total of 9 cubic meters). Air freight is 1 cubic meter, and luggage is 25kg per person.

We had a company come and assess what we had for sea freight and they estimated that we had about 15 cubic meters, however it was a pretty rough estimate. Kristine took this as a challenge and packed down everything as small as she could. In the end we have managed to compact everything down into what seems to be 9 cubic meters. In doing so, we have lost most of our lounge room, but everything is due to be picked up 6th November, so it will make things easier then.

We opted to have the sea freight sent early so we dont have too long a wait for it in Australia. While air freight generally takes 2 weeks or so, sea freight can take up to 3 months so we wanted to make sure we got it as close to when we arrive in Australia as possible.

September - Rugby, More Rugby (USM) and the Northern Lights

 As we start to wind down the assignment in Sweden, we have slowed the travel a little. We still have plans to go to England at the end of October and we're planning for our end of assignment holidays. So we need to save money now to make sure we can afford it all, and we can afford everything we need when we get back to Australia.

On top of all of this, September was pretty filled up with rugby games and tournaments, which saw us travelling all over Sweden.

On the home front, we have started the momentous task of sorting out our Lego. We brought over a huge amount of our bricks so we could complete some sets over here and we've also purchased quite a bit in Sweden. Our first step was to check the sets we currently had assembled to make sure they had all their bits - some had been hit with soccer balls, or been knocked over a few times - so we needed to make sure nothing was missing. Then we started to pack down all of our bricks. We'd taken about 4 big plastic boxes full over to Sweden and we're already panicking about how much space we will have to take things back. By sorting the bricks out, we have been able to stack bricks of the same type which has reduced the overall space needed.  A random jumble of bricks has a lot of space between each brick, while a neat stack of bricks has no airgaps.

We've also been enjoying the solar activity lately, we've been getting some Northern Lights visible from the shore just near our place. They are not really visible with the naked eye, but the cameras can pick up some of the colours:

No Northern Lights here - but a nice shot of the Turning Torso

In rugby news, I played my first Semi-Final against Erikslund on the 31st of August and we took the win 33-32.

Since the finals were an aggregate of two - we needed to play Erikslund in Stockholm for the final leg on the 7th Sep. We had a led of one point, so we needed to win or draw in order to move to the grandfinal.  Lund defeated Stockholm Exiles, so the winner would play Lund for Grand Final, and we had beaten Lund previously.

The drive to Stockholm was about 6-7hours, so rather than take a very early start, Kris and I decided to make a weekend of it. Tomas decided to stay at home, so Kris, Cameron and I headed off to Stockholm on Friday morning. We stopped in at the EBricks Lego store on the way up and then the Mall of Scandinavia - Sweden's biggest mall. We had dinner in the mall and checked out their large Lego store also. By then it was getting late, so we retired to our hotel, with plans of seeing Stockholm the next morning.

By the time we were all awake on Saturday it was time to start getting ready for the rugby, so we had a slow morning and then headed out to Erikslund. We played a good game in warm conditions, and were dominant around most of the field, but unfortunately we had three intercepted passes that were taken by a competitive sprinter, who scored each time, and we lost 28-14. This meant that we missed out on the grand final (Lund went on to beat Erikslund).

After the game we needed to drop some friends off at the Stockholm Train Station and by then it was starting to get late and we were tired from the game, so we decided to have an early night. We did briefly consider a quick trip into Stockholm Old Town, but there was a marathon on and the area was flooded with police and runners. So instead we headed back to the hotel, had some dinner and got an early night.

Sunday morning we were awake and packed fairly early, but knowing we had a 7 hour drive made us reconsider spending too long in Stockholm and instead we got an early start home.  We hadn't seen any of Stockholm, but we had been there before and the aim of the trip was rugby.

The next big rugby event was the Youth Swedish Masters (USM), which was a Sweden-wide tournament. Cameron was playing in the P18s and Tom in the P16s. The games were played in Vänersborg, which was about a 4-5 hour drive away, so the boys headed up on Friday afternoon on a team bus. Kris and I stayed home as we had an important event - a Smash Into Pieces concert at Slagthuset.

First I have to comment about how cool it is going to a concert at a place called "The Slaughter House" (Slagthuset was originally Malmö's slaughterhouse and the name translates directly to that). Kris and I debated driving to Vänersborg after the concert, but it started at 8pm, so we probably wouldn't arrive at Vänersborg until 2am. So, we decided the quickest and easiest way to get to the concert was to ride (it was only 2.5km)

The concert was awesome, and well worth staying in Malmö for. The concert hall was quite small and we were fairly close to the stage:

After the concert we rode home and had an early night. The next morning we woke at 4am and were on the road by 5.  We arrived at Vänersborg just in time for Cameron's warm up for this first game.

The tournament was structured in a pool for each age group, with the top two teams playing off for a grand final and the third and fourth playing off for bronze. The P16s games were two 12minute halves and the P18s were two 15minutes.

Last year Cameron had played for a combined Skåne Team which won the P18s and Tomas played for MRC who came second behind Stockholm Exiles. This year both teams were MRC teams.

The P16s pool was:

Stockholm Exiles,
Malmö Rugby Club,
Erikslund Rugby,
Uppsala Rugby Football Club, and
Borås Rugby FC.

The P18s was:
Malmö Rugby Club,
Stockholm Exiles,
Uppsala Rugby Football Club,
Enköping Rugbyklubb Ungdom,
STHLM United (EKF-HIF-ARG-SHA) - Stockholm United (Erikslund, Hammarby, Attila, Stockholm Sharks)
Vänersborg RK

Day 1 was a fairly sunny and warm day and we were split between two grounds for the two teams.

The first game of the day for us was 9:35, P18s Malmö vs the home club, Vänersborg. The results for the first day were:

P16s:

MRC vs Erikslund (Win 7-3)
MRC vs Stockholm Exiles (Loss 5-0)
MRC vs Uppsala (Win 31-0)

The P16s finished the day with 1 win and 2 losses, second on the ladder behind Stockholm, but looking good with percentage. The game against Exiles had been a close one, with Exiles scoring right at the end.

P18s

MRC vs Vänersborg (Win 10-0) - Cameron scored one of the tries in this game off a rolling maul
MRC vs Uppsala (Win 0-17)
MRC vs Enköping (Loss 14-19)

The P18s came out of Day 1 with 2 wins and a loss. Enköping had been the silver medalists the previous year, so were always going to be a tough team. The game was also played 13-a-side as Enköping had a series of injuries so requested the game be played as 13s. This was the only game Cameron missed as he was playing flanker and the flank position was dropped for the game. The P18s finished top of the ladder at the end of day 1.

Day 2 started very foggy and cold, but the sun came out by the end of the day.

The day started at 8:25 with Camerons P18s vs Stockholm United.

The pool game results:

P16s:

MRC vs Borås (Win 22-0)

The P16s locked in second place with a good percentage, and would face Stockholm Exiles in the Grand Final.

P18s:
MRC vs Stockholm United (Win 10-0)
MRC vs Stockholm Exiles (Win 12-10)

The P18s finished top of the table with a tight win over Stockholm Exiles (this game was also played with 13 players at Exile's request).

P16s Pool

P18s Pool

The first final was Tomas' P16s vs the Stockholm Exiles. The game was a close one with Malmö starting the scoring with a penalty goal - this made them the only team to score over Exiles for the whole tournament. The Exiles then scored two unconverted tries. The end of the game see-sawed with Malmö on the attack and close to the try-line several times but small mistakes stopped them from being able to score and the game ended with a 3-10 loss. Tomas took out the Silver Medal.

The next game was Cameron's P18s vs Stockholm Exiles, this was a nail biting game that saw Malmö win 10-5 with some amazing defensive plays.

Repeating the results from last year, Cameron took out the gold for P18s and Tomas took silver for P16s - very impressive when you consider that it is the entire Swedish championships and the MRC teams get a lot less game time than those from Stockholm.

The rest of September was fairly quiet, as we all recovered from a few hard weeks of rugby.  My season has now finished up, so I have started my preseason with some interval run training and the boys have a couple of games in Denmark in the first few weeks of October.

Rugby (23-Aug), Kivik and Haväng Dolmen (24 Aug)

The weekend of the 23rd-24th Aug 2024 started with a tough day of rugby.  Kris and the boys travelled to Copenhagen to take part in a rugby tournament at Speed Rugby Club. They both came out successful:

P16s:
MRC vs Gentofte & Frederiksberg (Win 14-0)
MRC vs Speed, Christianshavn & Hundested (Win 29-5)

P18s:
MRC vs CrossBorder Ost (Loss 8-17)
MRC vs CrossBorder Vest (Win 22-0)

I headed up to Gothenburg to play the last game of our regular season. We won 61-26 which had us finish top of the ladder and move into finals.

There is more rugby coming up - the finals for the men's comp and the juniors Swedish Masters (USM).

The men's rugby is split into two pools - east and west coast. We finished top of our pool, so we play the second in the east coast pool for the semi-final (Erikslund). The 2nd in our pool (Lund) plays against the top of the east coast (Stockholm Exiles B). The games are played in two stages - a home and away game with the scores aggregated for both games to find a winner.

The winning two team then play off in a home and away game for the Grand Final.

After recovering from the game, Kristine and I decided to head out to Kivik to try to actually visit Kivikgraven  when it was open.  We had previously gone there in Feburary (Here) and on our previous trip in April 2016 (Here). Both times the grave was closed and we weren't able to see more than the outside. On the second trip we had also tried to find the Haväng Dolmen, but missed it an ended up taking a long hike instead.

This trip, we started at the grave - here's some history details from my previous post:

Kungsgraven, The Kings Grave, is believed to have been built in the early Bronze Age (around 1700-1000BC) and is a burial mound containing a large coffin. The inside of the grave contains many rock paintings representing animals and ships (which we couldn't see as we couldn't enter).

In the 1700s, the site was used as a quarry until the workers reached the cairn and the central coffin. The site has since been restored.

It is believed that at least four people, mostly teenagers, were buried in the coffin at various times throughout the Bronze Ages.

The stones that formed the outside of the coffin are painted with symbols.

The headstone (the one that would have been at the top of the above photo is missing. It is believed to have disappeared in the 1790s and is said to have shown an illustration of two axes, two spearheads, a conic figure and a ship.

Moving anticlockwise there is a blank stone and then a large faded stone:

The pattern on this stone is still not fully agreed upon, but it is believed to be axes in a ship.

Next around is this one:

This stone shows four horses. When the grave was built, horses were not common in Scandinavia, so it is believed that these horses were imported from the continent. Once of the oldest horse remains in Skåne was found in this grave.

The next stone shows the sun wheel split into four pieces - possibly depicting the seasons. The wavy pattern could be the sea or possibly a snake, which plays a big part in the mythology.

Moving around the bottom of the grave, the next stone (the bottom right corner) has been significantly damaged by weather and it's pictures are unclear:

The next stone shows two more sun wheels and two axes:

The next stone shows the ceremony for the first burial. It shows horses dragging a wagon with two sun wheels. In front of the wagon are men with weapons. The bottom shows fish and some mythological animals. The very bottom has women in long dresses and possibly bird masks. The leader has their hands in the air, but is ungendered.

The final stone:

This stone shows women in front of a bowl shape with figures inside. There are two theories on this - either they are standing by a bowl of sacrifice or the bowl represents a grave. Underneath as two Omega-like symbols with people in front of this. This represents femininity and fertility. The top shows musicians with instruments such as horns and another theory is that the 'bowl' could be a double gong. 

Reproductions in the entrance

After finishing up at the grave we decided to check out Haväng Dolmen, an old burial site nearby. The last time we had headed south from the carpark and missed the site completely - it was instead only about 5minutes walk north.

The site is a 5000 year old grave, which was discovered after a heavy storm in the 1800s. It is a stone chamber grave, or megalithic grave. The word Dolmen means a burial chamber built of stone with a stone slab on top. They usually contained a single body with burial gifts: