We awoke, very reluctantly, just after six in the morning because of some nutters who thought this was the best time to go out on the lake in a fishing boat. Car engine noise, repeated trips carrying equipment from car to boat, then plenty of rattling with chains and padlocks… it went on for long enough that there was no chance of staying asleep. When we met the nutters afterwards, they said they were from some environmental agency, inspecting the state of the fish population and thereby also the water quality. Great, I’m all for that, but I do not understand why they couldn’t take up their nets a few hours later.

Since we were up anyway, we might as well have breakfast. There were plenty of bilberry bushes everywhere around us, but the berries were few and small. It took quite a while to gather some to have with our porridge.


Afterwards we packed up our stuff and started the walk back. This trail was rougher than most marked hiking trails, with lots of fallen trees to get past. Sometimes over, sometimes under. And some, of course, just at that in-between height where it’s hard to fit under them, especially with a backpack, and hard to get over as well.


Just after halfway we passed a fireplace with nice views of another lake. Walking past this spot yesterday, the kids named this one “the fake lake” because at first glance it looked like it could be our tenting spot, but wasn’t. Since it looked so lovely yesterday, we planned a mid-morning stop here today, with a campfire and bread on a stick.


And whittling. Bread on a stick requires a good, smooth, clean stick, so Ingrid prepared one. Then the fire needed some time to burn, and what better way to pass the time than do some more whittling. When the breads had been eaten, the whittling continued. Adrian has no knife of his own yet so he borrowed mine, which left me with nothing much to do, other than taking photos. Both Ingrid and Adrian could probably have stayed there for much longer, but I got bored of waiting after some time, so we continued walking towards Brakmaren and the car.