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Swedish newlyweds enjoy lively honeymoon

Cyclone, floods, bush fires and TWO earthquakes

A pair of Swedish newlyweds enjoyed what must rate as the liveliest honeymoon on record, in the process landing themselves firmly at the bottom of the list of travelling companions of choice.

Stefan and Erika Svanstrom of Stockholm departed their native land on 6 December, with their baby daughter in tow.

The pair, both in their 20s, immediately got stranded in Munich due to a ferocious snowstorm. They battled their way to Cairns in Australia, which was swiftly battered by one of the worst cyclones in the Lucky Country's history.

Cue 24 hours on the concrete floor of a shopping mall with 2,500 other refugees. Mr Svanstrom recounted to Stockholm's Expressen newspaper: "We escaped by the skin of our teeth. Trees were being knocked over and big branches were scattered across the streets."

The Svanstroms then travelled to Brisbane, where they were met with extensive flooding, forcing a cross-country retreat to Perth. Here, they "narrowly escaped" raging bush fires before abandoning Oz altogether for New Zealand.

They arrived in Christchurch to find the city had just been laid waste by the 22 February earthquake. Mr Svanstrom said: "When we got there the whole town was a war zone. We could not visit the city since it was completely blocked off, so instead we travelled around before going to Japan."

Yup, you've guessed it. A couple of days after touching down in Tokyo, the couple experienced what was likely their only earth-moving moment of the entire honeymoon. Mr Svantrom recounted: "The trembling was horrible and we saw roof tiles fly off the buildings. It was like the buildings were swaying back and forth."

The pair returned to Stockholm on 29 March after a visit to China where they rather surprisingly failed to provoke a single natural disaster.

Mr Svanstrom, who apparently survived the Boxing Day 2004 Asian tsunami, concluded: "I know marriages have to endure some trials, but I think we have been through most of them. We've certainly experienced more than our fair share of catastrophes, but the most important thing is that we're together and happy." ®

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