Skåne's wild waters

Tricky maze

While Jean-Luc expertly manoeuvres himself in his canoe around the spruce lingering in the horizontal, Justin and I, sharing a canoe, get stuck on an overhanging branch. Trying to free ourselves, we are almost catapulted out of our craft and, after the struggle, end up with a flat spot in the riverbed embankment, overlooking various spider webs.

The next bend also turns out to be a tricky skill course. We have to manoeuvre our boats around various stones. Persistently, the Holjeån meanders on, revealing a magical fairytale world with new challenges in every loop.

Traces of the past

After the next bend, the glittering Ivösjön, Skåne's largest lake, opens up and the second discipline of our exploration tour with the paddle begins. The area around Lake Ivösjön is one of the richest in fossils in the world. Sweden's oldest woman, Barumskvinna, who was 9 000 years old when she was found, was also discovered at Lake Ivösjön. During her lifetime, Lake Ivösjön was still part of the sea. We glide over the dark shimmering surface of the lake that holds such a long history.

"Come on, let's look further," says Jean-Luc. "After all, we can have an island all to ourselves today." Then our eyes fall on an island with a wide sandy beach to the west and an enchanted fairytale forest to the east. This is where we want to spend the night. The tents are pitched right next to the water. We eat our sandwiches and enjoy the golden sunset over this surreal backdrop.

Equipped with our headlamps, we take a short hike through our tiny island forest. Later, we sit outside on the shore with a view of the clear starry sky.

Battle on a rough sea

The dramatic silhouette of Kullaberg appears before us as we arrive in Mölle. Here we start on the last discipline of our waterway triathlon.

Starting from the small fishing village, we want to paddle around the peninsula and past Kullaberg's lighthouse to the grottoes of Josefinelust on the north side.

A stiff breeze is blowing towards us and further out to sea small white whitecaps are dancing. "When you get near the lighthouse, the sea gets very rough again, but it gets better to the northeast," says Matt from Kulla Kajak, where we borrow our sea kayaks for today.

At the end of the day, the sea is very rough.

As we leave the protective harbour, the waves get higher and higher. We fight our way forward bit by bit. After a few minutes, however, we make it. We reach the wind-protected north side of the peninsula. Suddenly it is quiet and all dangers are forgotten.