Såten shelter to a glade north of Sandtorp, 17 km.

I woke with the sun shortly after seven in the morning. This was an unexpected benefit of hiking late in the season: I can sleep without earplugs and eye mask, and still not be woken by birdsong or sunlight at an ungodly hour.

The tent was cold and nearly dripping with condensation. I tried to not touch the walls as I crawled out and pulled out my gear.

Outside was also cold. The sun was well hidden behind trees, far from reaching down into the small clearing around me. So I did as is becoming a habit for me: packed everything up and started walking straight away. It was much nicer to eat breakfast on a sun-warmed slope an hour later.

My surroundings today were very varied. The Såten nature reserve, in the morning, had grassland on limestone. After a while the path crossed the railway and entered a sparse, light oak forest. But mostly it was a mixture of pastures and deciduous forests.

Hiking in this kind of landscape feels quite different from e.g. Sörmlandsleden. Sörmland forests – both pine and spruce – are relatively close. You can’t see very far and the nature along the path is mostly unchanging. There is not much to look at and walking becomes a meditative activity. After the first few hundred pines, they meld into a kind of a peaceful curtain.

Along the Kinnekulle path the landscape is more open and more varied. The eye reaches farther and there is always something new to catch the eye. I was much more alert and present when walking here.

There is a sort of a cave house, Lasse i bergets grotta in the forest near Sandtorp, built in the late 19th century. A man and his wife lived there for thirty years. It has been abandoned and vandalized and then built up again roughly in its original shape.

A municipal water pipe passes here, and I was very glad to find the tap that the water company has kindly installed next to the picnic tables here. I was close to running out of water by now. This is the one and only potable water source along the entire Kinnekulle path.

In the Fells, access to fresh water is never an issue. In the woods in Sörmland, miles away from civilization, I have used lake water for both cooking and dish-washing and occasionally for drinking. Here I’ve seen small springs and brooks, but they’ve all been shallow and muddy. And there are pastures with cows and horses absolutely everywhere so I really don’t trust the water in the springs at all.

On the other hand, the nearness of civilization means that there are plenty of people and houses nearby. If I do run out of water, I can leave the path and make my way to the nearest village and knock on doors.

Lunch was late because I couldn’t find a good spot. I was looking for some open ground where I could set up my stove, and hopefully get some sunshine as well. I haven’t met many other people on the path but lunching right on the path would still feel awkward and uncosy.

I finally came to an empty cow pasture with lots of nice tree stumps for seats. Just as I was in the middle of cooking my food, a whole bunch of cattle arrived from over a ridge I hadn’t investigated. Apparently the pasture was larger than I had thought, and not at all empty. Oops.

I couldn’t easily move out, with the stove burning and my lunch half-cooked. What to do? Cattle are large and heavy and could trample me quite badly if they decided they don’t like me. But on the other hand these cows (and at least one bull) looked more curious than bothered, so I took my chances and stayed. I finished my cooking and eating closely surrounded by seven or eight cows. They were rather nosy and I kept having to shoo them away from my stove to avoid accidents.

The path continued mostly through deciduous forests, interspersed with meadows and pastures, and one manor.


I had hoped to see vibrant autumn colours, maples and aspens in orange and red, but they were almost all yellow here. Perhaps it’s a regional thing, or maybe somehow due to the weather.

Towards the end of the day I passed the Martorp waterfall. This time of the year it’s more a trickle than a waterfall – I can imagine it looks a lot more impressive in early spring. But the rock formations were interesting. The layers of limestone look almost unnatural in their even, smooth arrangement. I found a stump of a man-made wall nearby. I wonder if the rocks have been shaped entirely by nature, or if it might be partly due to quarrying.

Like many of the spots I’ve passed, with traces of past inhabitation and human use, it looks like a fairy tale world. One can almost expect hobbits and dwarves to appear around a corner, or perhaps trolls.