It was hot by this time. I was nearing the Norwegian, Swedish border and had plenty of time. I had the widows down and the music on, the Balinese sounds relaxation C.D. Reflected sunlight flashed in my eyes through the pine trees. I took a side road down towards the lake and found myself in a hamlet of holiday cabins. They were spread out along the shore, each one flying the Swedish flag. No-one seemed to be around so I left the car and walked down onto some ones private pontoon. I had a perfect low view of the lake looking into the sun. I set up all my cameras and stayed for a while. Only on returning to the car did I see that I had been watched from one of the log cabins. I waved at the man and got a nod in return

As I climbed higher into more mountainous country the farmland gave over to logging country. I took a lot of pictures, not just of the views across the lakes but also of the log piles that lined the road. They created a strange perspective with the bright, flat circles where the trunks had been cut and the long dark cylinders falling back towards a vanishing point. I also photographed the farm buildings. They are often painted bright red or yellow with white around the windows and the outer frames. I recognised that my appetite for looking and recording had returned

I managed to get up early and had a bad hotel breakfast in the huge ball room of the hotel. I studied the other guests around me. Since this did not seem to be a tourist town I reckoned that they were on business or visiting relatives. I paid my bill and took the road North West only stopping at T-junctions, wanting to leave this low farmland. I had to find a map as the one I had from the car rental company only covered Sweden. The Norwegian part was just white as if no one knew what happened beyond the border. The villages here followed a different pattern from those in England. They were more spread out, like small American towns. There were big wooden farm houses and barns as one approached the village, then a series of neighbourhoods laid out suburban style and lastly a shopping strip ending in a big petrol station with a mini market attached. I stopped in one of these and asked the only other driver how to use the petrol pumps. The mini market seemed to sell everything including quite major farm machinery and outboard engines. I bought some supplies for the road and asked the woman at the cash register if they sold maps. They didn't but there were free ones near the exit. At least that was what I though she said. I left with the map fearing that I was stealing it but there was now a long queue at the till

It took quite a while to reach Koenigsberg and I was worried that I might not find a hotel that was open. Probably due to the public holiday the streets were full of reelers. I picked the grandest looking hotel but inside it proved to be rather grim and the room was awful. I walked around the town for a while looking for something to eat but though all the bars were packed nothing looked inviting. I decided to try the hotel and ended up pushing my way to the counter of the Irish pub off the lobby and ordering a bottle of beer which I took to my room

I sat on a fallen tree by the shore and photographed the far side of the lake. The pizza was cold by now. The forest was scrubby and the road quite close by but I felt quite relaxed. I hadn't really found the landscapes that I wanted but I had enjoyed looking at things and the journey seemed well under way. It was getting cold so I set off

Now that I had a destination I felt more relaxed. I still hoped for a little country inn but decided to take the next thing that turned up even if it meant take away pizza. The place was run by two Turkish guys who seemed to be brothers. They weren't friendly but they were helpful. The building was large but very grim and I was the only customer so I took the Pizza and coke out to the car. I drove on keeping an eye out for a nice place beside a lake. The towns were separated by long stretches of pine forest and there was usually a lake every few miles but now it was just forest. By the time I found somewhere nice to stop it was nearly dark

I wasn't worried but I now checked each small town, somehow you wouldn't call them villages, for a restaurant and a hotel. There were no obvious town centres and the mini malls looked closed down. There were occasional take away pizza joints surrounded by gangs of teenagers but I kept driving. Although I was quite close to the Norwegian border the land had flattened out and I decided I might as well drive all the way down to the nearest large town, Koenigsberg

The land began to rise and dip more dramatically as I pushed North. The road followed a valley sparsely populated by tough looking villages. I was listening to Led Zeppelin now, as loud as the system would take. I started to look out for a hotel or at least a restaurant. I saw one hotel on the lake shore that looked nice, a series of large wooden buildings in it's own grounds on the lake shore. As I left the car I heard a distant brass band playing. I joined a stream of people approaching the main building. The people didn't enter the building but went around the back where there was a marquee, a barbecue and the band. I remembered someone saying that today was a national celebration. I went back round to the entrance but there was a note on the door that seemed to indicate that the hotel was closed. It was still quite early so I pushed on

The day was dragging on. It began to look as if I would not find anything better until I'd moved to a completely different part of the country. The rhythm of lake, village, forest was unchanging. This was certainly not wilderness. With the sunny weather and the lakes it was pretty enough but it was not what I was hoping for. Still I tried to make use of what was there. I pulled off onto a slip road that lead down to the lake. There was a playground and signs of camp fires on the beach. Two groups of teenagers were hanging out by the lake. One group, the wilder looking one was dominated by a flamboyant Mohicaned punk. I wandered closer to the other group and tried to look indifferent as I took some photos. I felt their eyes on me as I returned to the car but they were trying to look indifferent too

Once you have looked down from a plane you realize that our normal vantage point is much too low to get a clear idea of anything. If one can see anything at all most of the information, the mid ground, is stacked into a thin band. The foreground and the sky take up most of ones vision