3000 kilometre road trip with map, compass and fridge

Navigating Scandinavian back roads for eight days in an old car by map and compass takes you to some unexpected places. Both physically and mentally.

Life in the slow lane can be refreshing yet challenging.

Friends, Ferry, Jacco and Jurg, who live in Vlissingen in the Dutch province of Zeeland, were excited to undertake the 3000km Viking Sun Rally challenge – providing they could celebrate the end of each day’s adventure with cold beer straight from the fridge …no matter how far they strayed from the nearest bar.

Setting off from Hamburg in a twenty year old Volvo V70XC which already had 370,000km on the clock, the team known as Walcheren Warriors followed their philosophy: Sometimes you just feel like doing something crazy.

With limited weight and room available – and realising that success for their long and arduous journey depended on making careful choices about what to bring and what to leave behind, they installed four solar panels, a Sun Inverter, an AGM battery, a fridge, and a crate of beer.

Leaving nothing to chance they also installed a SmartShunt so they could monitor the battery’s state of charge straight from the phone. Fridges sometimes draw a lot of power – failure to monitor the charge/discharge rate of their battery only invites the risk of having to drink warm beer.

The Sun Inverter – as its name suggests – is a combined DC to AC inverter, and solar charge controller. Ideal for a road trip such as this, there is no installation – you simply attach your solar panel(s) and your battery with +ive and -ive leads …and you’re done. Instant, renewable AC power. The PWM solar charge controller harvests solar energy and optimises battery charge with a programmable algorithm. Up to 375W of solar panels can be attached – 500W for the 24V Sun Inverter Model. A toroidal transformer in the inverter continuously provides up to 250VA, and up to 400W for peak power surges. The SmartShunt acts as a battery monitor and is connected inline to the battery -ive cable.

Participants in the Viking Sun Adventure Rally choose which charity they would like to support. There is a mandatory donation at the time of registration and teams are encouraged to continue to raise funds before and during their journey. The Walcheren Warriors chose to support Stichting Dromen voor Duchenne. a charity which provides adventure days for people with the condition known as Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. Ferry says: We thought: if we can make a difference for the charity with our road trip, then we’ll go for it. We started with €250 from our own pockets, but donations soon came in from friends, family, colleagues — even from people we didn’t know until we reached a total amount of €5,330!

Their journey took them as far north as Trondheim, Norway – close to the Arctic Circle.

In Sweden, there’s a good chance of spotting a moose in the wild! We were very keen to actually experience this – so much so that we stopped the car when we thought we’d seen our first moose – but it turned out to be just a tree stump… luckily we were rewarded and 30 minutes later when a moose walked right in front of our car! Story:  Something we will never forget.

We drove through forests, over mountains, along fjords — really breathtaking. We slept in tents, cooked on a gas burner, and drove on back roads.  We met other teams along the way and yes, we got lost. Often. But that was part of it. Every detour brought us something new!