From Svalboviken (ish) in the beginning of stage 24, to Myr-Gryten in the middle of stage 25. 20 km.

Birdsong woke me at five, but with earplugs I could get another hour or two of sleep. I get pretty decent sleep in my tent these days: maybe not a full night of deep sleep, because I wake up every time I want to change position, but I feel rested in the morning.

If the challenge for day 1 is to get my mind into proper hiking mode, then the challenge for day 2 is accepting and overcoming bodily hurts. My muscles are sore. I’ve got bruises on my hips from the rucksack’s hip belt, to the point where it hurts to pull the waistband of my trousers over them. There’s nothing for it other than gritting my teeth and putting the pack on and getting going.

The sky started threatening rain shortly after breakfast. I stopped to take this photo, and a minute later, it was raining. It was a rather pleasant rain, with sparse drops, not the kind of drizzle that gets everywhere. I could even stop to take photos without worrying about the camera.

It’s not always easy to find a suitable place to stop for a snack. This part of Sörmlandsleden mostly goes through rocky forest, and often there’s not enough flat ground next to the path to put down my pack. I like to be able to not just put my pack down, but also sit down myself and stretch my legs.

The trail keeps passing clear-cut areas. They’re so depressing to look at. Churned-up ground, rocks sticking up every which way, trees thrown down criss-cross. It looks like a battleground. Destroyed. I still can’t understand how this can be an acceptable way of doing forestry.

The forest today was less dominated by pine and spruce than yesterday. Deciduous forests in their most beautiful fresh leaf buds, and flowering anemones.

The afternoon was sunny but windy. I stopped in a woodland pasture, thinking I could lie down and read and enjoy the sun for a while. The sun was hot, but the air was cold, and I couldn’t manage to find a way to balance these. So I walked onwards.

I met a slow worm on the path. It was just laying there, looking like a pine root and being equally motionless. I thought that maybe it is named “slow worm” because it is slow, but apparently that is not the case.

It did the tongue-flicking thing that snakes and lizards do in the movies, but I didn’t manage to capture that in a photo.

I’ve been sharing the trail with a young guy who started stage 23 at the same time with me, and has been walking roughly the same distance as me both days. I walked past him during his lunch break; then half an hour later he walked past me on mine.

I’m an asocial hiker. I’m not out there to meet people and share stories. I’d rather not share my camping site with others, if possible. There are only so many places where you can stop for the night, though – even with a tent you do need some flat ground at least. He didn’t have one, as far as I could see, so I could guess where he’d end up for the night, and made sure to stop some ways away from the hut (yesterday) and shelter (today) where he was staying.