I finished a jigsaw puzzle, only to find that I am missing a piece. Annoying. And it’s most probably my own fault, for not covering up the puzzle while the room was used for packing, unpacking and drying hiking equipment.

Apparently pétanque is the go-to solution for corporate team activities in Stockholm.

This time we were at Boulebar Rådhuset, and we got the craziest pétanque court I’ve ever played on. The gravel layer was thin, and there was a hill in the middle of the court. So all our balls rolled off the hill in crazy, unpredictable directions. And when a ball landed on the hill, it was not with a thud but with a sharp crack, sometimes accompanied by sparks, and flew off in a random direction – as if it hit a large rock instead of gravel.

It was frustrating at first, but then we gave up all pretensions to skill and serious play, rechristened our activity to chaos pétanque and just went with the flow.

Spånga scout group has an “education week” every October, with nightly sessions on a variety of topics. I’ve never participated in the past, but this year – starved for experiences outside the home – I signed up for three sessions. (Hence also the slower pace of posting here.)

Two of the sessions were about wood carving. On Monday we went through the basics and practised a few techniques. Today we were handed fresh birch logs, axes and knives and let loose to carve anything we wanted.

You can’t do much in two hours, but it’s enough for a basic wooden spoon, which is what several other participants made. Or a butter knife, which is what I chose. A butter knife is a perfect first project because you can do it with just a simple carving knife, without any special tools.

The entire process was a lot of fun. Splitting the log again and again until I was left with thin enough pieces; picking a piece that fit the image in my head; using the axe to cut it roughly to shape. But the best part was the finest, slowest carving, carefully guiding the back of the knife with my thumb to cut off a small sliver to make the shape just so. I haven’t carved any actual object before, but I grew up with sharpening pencils “by hand”, using a knife rather than a sharpener. Having done that for decades, that basic carving grip is very familiar to my hands.

The timing was perfect, because I had just been thinking that we could do with one or two new butter knives in our kitchen. Butter knives actually wear out with time. One thinks of wood as a durable material, especially if it is only used on such soft things as butter and bread. But the blades do get smaller and smaller until the knives come to resemble sticks more than butter knives.

I’ll leave this one in its rustic state, with all the cuts visible, rather than sanding and polishing it. I like seeing the traces of my work.

My old phone – which I got many years of use from – is finally dying and I had to buy a new one. There are costs and benefits, as usual. A crisper screen, more storage space, fresher battery. But also the hassle of reinstalling and reconfiguring and relearning.

Interestingly, even though all the components grow smaller, phones themselves grow larger. I couldn’t find an Android phone as small as my last one but still with decent battery life and not totally crappy reviews.

Also interestingly, my new phone is super-shiny to the point of ridiculousness. It smudges as soon as I touch it. And it seems so slippery that it would probably be unwise to try and use it wearing gloves. All of which will be cured by a case – but it does make me wonder what the point is. The shiny surface doesn’t even look good for more than those first seconds after unpacking the phone.

Sorry for not posting. I’ve been away on a four-day hike and had some other things to keep me busy in the evenings. I’ll be filling in the gap soon.

This morning as I sat down to work, the temperature in my home office was 16.5°C. I walked around the house and turned up the thermostats, and then sat with a blanket on my legs like an old lady.

A few cold nights + three out of four family members out hiking + the only one at home being a teenager holed up in her own room = cold house.

Gössäter to Råbäck station, 11 km.

Following the familiar pattern: wake shortly after 7 as the sun comes up, pack, walk. Stop for breakfast when the sun is properly up and I am properly hungry.

The morning was sunny but very windy. I could see on the map that the path would take me to the coast of lake Vänern around mid-morning, where I would meet the full force of the westerly wind. Breakfasting in that wind would be cold and unpleasant. I kept looking for a place to stop more and more urgently as I got closer to the lake, but it was all forest everywhere, and the sun was not high enough yet to reach down between the trees.

Finally just half a kilometre short of the lake I came across the perfect place: a large, flat meadow/field thing, wide enough that the sun reached halfway down the trees on the western side. It took a while for the sunlight to get all the way down to me at the bottom of those trees. But I have loads of time today, so I could wait. For planning purposes I counted today as a half-day, but since my train leaves late in the afternoon, I have almost a full day to spend on half a day’s worth of walking.


Onwards to lake Vänern, and here it was windy indeed. In a different season, on a different day, perhaps the beaches would have been inviting. Today I was not at all sad when the path turned away from the lake shore again.

The Kinnekulleleden path then passed through the grounds of another manor, with an impressive manor house, stables, tennis courts and so on. Apparently this place is owned and inhabited by people with serious money – the kind who take a drive on a Sunday morning in what looked to me like a 1960s Rolls Royce.

After some zig-zagging through a hilly forest, I came to a large quarry. Not for the first time I was struck by how well-planned this hiking path is. The path proper carefully avoided the less pretty end of the quarry with abandoned industrial equipment (which I only saw because I was curious about what was being hidden from me) but made sure I got a good view of the picturesque end with its large lake.


Looking at the map, I realized I was about to run out of path before I’d run out of time, so I decided to even things out. It was perhaps a bit early for lunch but I stopped anyway when I came to a suitable open place. I’d rather hang around for a while here in the grass and sit and read in the sun, than hang around at the train station all afternoon. With a two-hour breakfast and two-hour lunch, this was my most leisurely hiking day yet. A real Sunday outing. I’m glad I had my Kindle with plenty of good books to read!

Råbäck station is a small one. The station building is now a residential one, and the part that actually functions as a station looks more like a bus stop than what a train station is supposed to look like in my mind. A platform, a sign on a post, a small shelter. Also a very nice, solid wooden bench, which I dragged into the sun and then gladly used.

Råbäck is a request stop, so the station’s most important feature was a yellow circular sign for flagging down the train. Here I’ve turned the sign to face the train’s direction to request a stop. When the train stopped, I turned it back before boarding.

From the path near Sandtorp to Flyhov and back, 7 km. Then to Gössäter, 14 km.

Last night’s camping spot was very deliberately chosen to be as close as possible to the Bronze Age rock carvings at Flyhov. They are not on the Kinnekulle path but they are close enough that I decided to make a detour to go and see them. So I got up again with the sun this morning, packed my rucksack but left it in the tent, and went off the path, across fields and along lanes.

The first thing I noticed when I got out of the tent was the frost on the ground. I rather suspected it would be there, already before I’d seen it, given how cold the night was. I slept with my fleece jacket as an extra blanket on my upper body and I was still feeling cold much of the time.

But the payoff was incredible. The morning mist and the frost made the world so beautiful. The days have been sunny and warm so the field edges were still full of lush plant life, not just dry grass: daisies, thistles, nettles, dandelion seed heads. And all of it decked out in thick, sparkling crystals of ice.





This early in the morning there were other creatures around than just humans. I scared a hare into flight and saw a fox at the edge of a field. On the way back I saw not just one but two herds of fallow deer. At home I’m used to seeing the occasional red deer or two, or maybe three, but the herds here were twenty or thirty strong at least.

The rock carvings were well worth a visit as well. They’re nicely presented, with a walkway that allows visitors to get quite close, and signs explaining what is what. Ships, wheels, men with swords and axes, mysterious networks of lines.





Most of the carvings are filled in with white paint to make them easier to see, but one section has been left unpainted so you can see what they originally looked like. And the carvings were all in surprisingly good state: I think some may have been uncovered only quite recently. At another site I read that some carvings get covered up for winter, to protect against the weather and especially ice I guess. Perhaps this is done here as well.

My quick packless 7 km walk, which could have taken an hour and a half, took nearly twice as long because I kept stopping for photos. By the time I was back the sun was well up and I was quite starving. I made my usual porridge breakfast and finally started walking on the Kinnekulle path at around 10.

My tent was, of course, dripping again this morning. Condensation on the inside, melting frost on the outside. I’ve started unpacking it every time I make a slightly longer stop. I choose a flat, sunny, dry spot; spread out the tent in the sun and weigh it down with a couple of stones, and rearrange it occasionally to expose new parts to the sun and the wind. By the evening, after several such stops, the tent is more or less dry again, both inside and out.

I take several long breaks every day. Like hobbits: elevenses, lunch, afternoon snack. For lunch I cook a hot meal; the others are cold snacks. I eat and I read, and perhaps make some photos. It’s very pleasant to sit out on a rock in a quiet sunny meadow and just read. I have no reason to hurry, because if I get “there” too early then all I get is a long evening of sitting and reading next my tent. Better to spread out that sitting and reading through the day.


Today’s walking was much like the past two days: interesting and varied. Pastures and limestone meadows and forests of various kinds.

In the afternoon I reached the peak of Kinnekulle plateau mountain, which I’ve been circling since Thursday afternoon. There was a viewing tower, unfortunately closed this late in the season. But even without the tower, just looking out from on top of the hill, the views were wide.


As evening approached, I realized I was running out of water again. So I kept walking for a bit longer than I had perhaps otherwise planned, all the way to the easternmost tip of the circular path, where it gets close to Gössäter. There I left my pack behind a pile of logs, left the path and aimed for civilization. Crossed the main road, knocked on the door of the first house I came to, and got my water bottles filled up again.

I pack as light as possible and my food is all dry and lightweight. I don’t want to undo all that scrimping by carrying too much water. But the drier the food, the more water I need for cooking, of course… On the whole, though, I’d rather carry fewer kilograms but walk more kilometres. This evening’s extra kilometre to get water, walked without any pack, was hardly noticeable – but an extra litre of water, carried all day, would not have been.

By now evening was approaching and it was really time to stop and set up camp. But I was in on a gravel road in a dense, scruffy spruce forest, full of tangled undergrowth, with no room anywhere to put up a tent. Finally I came to a rectangular, flat, cleared patch of ground next to a by-road – probably someone’s parking spot.

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.

Råbäck to Såten, 8 km.

My autumn hike in the Fells was just beginning to turn into a tradition when I had to interrupt my streak. I’ve hiked in Jämtland three autumns in a row now. This year won’t be the fourth. Spending my nights with strangers – first in a sleeper train and then in cramped mountain huts – does not seem like a good idea, given the increasing numbers of people testing positive for covid-19 in Sweden.

So I had to come up with alternative arrangements. And perhaps this is a good thing, pushing me to try new things. I took one step outside my comfort zone with the three-day hike of Sörmlandsleden in September. That worked, so I’m doing a similar thing again: packing my tent and food for a few days, and hiking on my own with no huts or such.

This time I’ll be walking the Kinnekulle path. I’ve seen it mentioned several times as a lovely hike especially in autumn, and it’s reachable by train, and it’s a three-day hike so I can do it in a long weekend – perfect in all ways. Plus it’s in western Sweden, so it’s hopefully going to look rather different from Sörmlandsleden, which is beginning to feel a bit monotonous by now.

The Kinnekulle path totals 45 km according to official stats. At a reasonably leisurely pace, that’s a three-day hike for me. But the train rides there and back add another day. I arrived in Råbäck shortly after two o’clock this afternoon. I’ll do half a day’s worth of walking today, then two full days, and another half-day on Sunday.

Råbäck train station has one of those lovely old station buildings, loudly proclaiming that this station has been more important in the past. Now the station building has been turned into a residential one, and the village mostly consists of summer cottages. You can see some old postcards from the station’s heyday here.


The path first winds along country lanes through the grounds of Råbäck manor to Råbäck harbour. Again a place that clearly has seen more activity in the past. The harbour is large and solid, clearly built for substantial traffic. It was used for shipping out limestone from the local quarries. The old stonemasonry workshop right next to the harbour, closed since the 1970s, is a museum now but was unfortunately closed today.



From the harbour the path goes through deciduous forest, following the tracks of an old tramway, straight like an arrow, to an old limestone quarry.

There are ruined limestone walls here and there in the forest, and various other signs of past habitation: gate posts, cellars, traces of the foundations of buildings, the remains of limestone quarries and kilns.

It felt strange to be walking among so many traces of history. Slightly sad, that all this is now come to nothing. But then again, what else would we do with old buildings that are no longer needed? It’s nice that there are still traces of them, so they aren’t completely gone.



I was really lucky with the weather! Mid-October can bring anything – I could have been walking in freezing rain. But I had bright sunshine most of the afternoon and evening, with only light cloud cover some of the time, and beautiful autumn colours to look at.

I camped for the night next to a shelter near the Såten nature reserve. It wasn’t even twilight when I stopped, but by the time I was done with dinner, it was full dark. I sat and read outside the tent for a while, but moved inside when it got colder, so I could cover my legs with the sleeping bag. It got really cold at night. Every time I turned the other side, I woke of the cold, and had to tuck the sleeping bag closed around my neck again.

The most memorable moment of today was seeing the night sky when I went out for a last trip to the loo. The sky was clear – and so full of stars! I hadn’t realized that Kinnekulle was so far from lit-up cities. I could even see the Milky Way, which I haven’t done since our stay in Mercantour in 2016. Had I not been shivering with cold, I could have watched the stars for a long time.