Seby to Kastlösa, around 17 km. Flat and straight.

Stage 4 of Mörbylångaleden crosses the Great Alvar along the embankment of an old railway line. Up from Seby to Skärlöv in a straight line for about 9 km, turn a corner, and across the island to Kastlösa in another straight line. As straight as a bunch of engineers with rulers and theodolites could make it.

The railroad was opened in 1909 and kept going until 1961, despite economic problems. Mostly it transported beets and other agricultural produce, with only little passenger traffic. Now it’s all gone, except for small traces: the embankment, some pieces of railway sleepers left in the ground, old station buildings converted to private residences. These pillars in a square arrangement I assume are signs of an old railway crossing.

First things first, though: I needed to top up my water supply. The trail passed close to the village of Övra Segerstad, so I left my pack by a cow stile and went off door-knocking. A Wednesday morning in September isn’t the best time, but I was hoping to find retired people. Instead I ran across some kind of AirBnB or some other kind of holiday rental place, where the host was cleaning up after the season.

After that point, there was no more water to be had along the trail all day. And it was a very good thing I filled up, because the day was hot as anything. It must have been 27–28°C, and of course no shade again.

There are no streams here, unlike the Fells, and no lakes, unlike in Sörmland. There are streambeds where there have been seasonal streams, but at this time of the year, they’re dry as dust. Here’s me camped for brunch and tent-drying, literally in the middle of a dry streambed (because it was conveniently flat) – note the openings at the bottom of the wall to let the water run through.

A section of the trail south of Skärlöv had been turned into a sculpture path, with sculptures in steel, bronze, and local limestone. Nothing mind-blowing, but each one was a brief, welcome break in the otherwise very uniform path.

Have I mentioned that it was very hot? It was. I was not enjoying the summer heat at all. It was rather exhausting. And there was no point in stopping because there was no shade, and it wouldn’t have been the least bit restful. As soon as I found a tree that provided some semblance of shade, I aimed straight for it to rest my legs and drink lots of water, even though I had to force my way through a minor thicket of sloe bushes to get there.

South of Skärlöv, the embankment had been partly overgrown and clearly didn’t get much traffic. The section west of Skärlöv, on the other hand, has been converted into a gravel road, and though it’s closed for through traffic, clearly it gets enough usage to remain open and drivable.

The heat was still exhausting. When I got to a shelter a kilometre after Skärlöv (at the ruins of an old railway attendant’s hut) with proper shade from large trees, I stopped for a long lunch break underneath an old, wild apple tree.

Fed and watered and rested, I set off again along with renewed energy. It could have been boring: the road straight as an arrow, the alvar flat as a pancake, and mostly featureless. Not even cows, mostly – I guess there wasn’t enough for them to drink here. But after lunch I got into the proper frame of mind for it, and found it very meditative. Like listening to minimalist music. Lots of time for thinking my own thoughts.

This may look like a boring hike, but for me it was perfect. Meditative and calming, exactly the kind of break I needed from the turbulence at work. And beautiful! Photos can’t do it justice, because a big part of the beauty of the landscape is the feeling of wide open space, of an endless sky, of being a small speck of a human in a timeless space.

Much of the alvar looks like grassland, but in places there were signs of what were probably seasonal wetlands. At this time of the year, though, they were all dry. Some places were nothing more than bare rock and gravel, with tiny succulents holding on to nothing.

Whiteworm lichens, Thamnolia vermicularis.

And then, in a random spot, kilometres from everything, with nothing in particular to look at – a bench and a faded information plaque.

Closer to Kastlösa the landscape got more ordinary again. The alvar was interrupted by small copses of trees.

The last bit was paved road. It may look convenient but isn’t. I find that walking on asphalt with a heavy pack, especially after a full day of walking, is painful and uncomfortable. It especially makes my feet hurt.

There was no shelter and no camping site in Kastlösa, but I think the meadow where I put up my tent must have been a camping site for camper vans in the past. There were flat, even grassy fields, and lamp posts, and what looked like charging posts. And a path that was very popular with local dog walkers.

From Ottenby to Seby, around 18 km. Sun and sea birds and the sound of the sea. And cattle.

I paid for my stay as soon as the camping reception opened, filled up my water bottles, and was on my way shortly after eight in the morning.

The trail first followed the asphalt road through Näsby village, a medieval-style “row village” with all the dwelling houses arranged ribbon-like along the two sides of the road.

On the edge of Näsby lies “the wall of Karl X Gustav”, built by a 17th-century king to keep the deer herd on one side and the peasants on the other. Originally supposed to be “tall enough that a man on a horse couldn’t see over it”, these days it’s about shoulder-height for me. It wouldn’t stop any deer (and those are kept in place with electric fences instead, anyway) but it’s a pretty impressive sight. Five kilometres long, straight as a ruler, interrupted only in two places by the road (as it goes south on one side of the island and loops back up north on the other).

Soon after Näsby the trail left the main road for paved cycle paths.

I could still hear the road all the time – except after a while I realized that it wasn’t the road but the sea. The road did not have enough traffic to make that constant rushing noise. It was the sea, with the wind from the east making waves crash against the rocky shore all the time, just out of sight but not out of hearing range.

The trail continued gradually onto smaller and smaller footpaths between fields and meadows and cow pastures.

The cow pastures were all bordered by limestone walls, mostly somewhat crumbled. They seemed mostly decorative and symbolic, because the electric fences are doing the actual job of keeping the cows where they’re supposed to be. But I guess the stone walls are much more visible than thin electric wires, and might get more respect from cows. And humans.

Roughly halfway along, the trail passes Eketorp, a reconstructed Iron Age ring fort. It was technically not open yet for the day (low season again, and the ticket office wouldn’t open until 11) but it also wasn’t closed or locked, so I went wandering around anyway. I probably missed out on some booklets and what not, but it was rather interesting even with just the info plaques that were out there.

The fort had been put to different uses over centuries of time. The reconstructed version shows several side by side. One part has been left as it was found, with just ground-level traces of stone walls. Another part has been built up as it probably was during the Iron Age, with small densely-packed stone huts. On the other side, timber houses have been rebuilt to mimic the fort in its reincarnation as a medieval garrison.

A few days ago at home I was swapping out my summer dresses for an autumn wardrobe and starting the sock season, and today it was at least 25°C. Judging from the state of the vegetation, uninterrupted sunshine seems to be the standard here.

And there was not much shade to be had along the trail. There were plenty of large trees in the villages, but nothing out among the meadows and fields. When I finally spotted a lone tree – scraggly and sparse – I knew I had found my lunch spot.

The sea birds were never far away. Large flocks of geese flew noisily overhead every now and again, often 70 or 80 heads strong. Gulls congregated en masse around tractors ploughing the fields. They remained on the ground until (it looked to me) the tractor was a finger’s width away from crushing them, before taking flight, and then immediately landing behind the tractor to get at all juicy the worms.

In the late afternoon the trail turned back to the seashore.

The beach could not in any way be described as pretty. Weeds, churned-up mud, cow pats, bird droppings. And hundreds and hundreds of sea birds, making the sea look like bird soup just fifty metres out.

There were cattle everywhere, all the way to the water’s edge. Southern Öland is cattle country, and they roam free and wide.

There are numerous info signs along the hiking trails and at other tourist spots, informing people how to behave around cattle. Keep your distance, close all gates, don’t get between a cow and its calf, don’t feed them, don’t bring any dogs.

The cattle – mostly young ones, by their looks – were curious and nosy. As long as I walked past them, they didn’t pay me any attention, but whenever I stopped for a while, they noticed me and all decided to come have a look. Poked at my backpack where I had put it down while photographing; nosed at me and my clothes.

This stage of the trail officially ended at Seby boat harbour, where there is a parking lot, but that spot was clearly picked for ease of access and not with tenting in mind. There was, however, a shelter a few kilometres further along the trail, so that’s where I headed for the night. It was in a small copse in the middle of cattle pastures. And of course fully surrounded by electric fencing, because otherwise it would immediately be overrun by cattle.

It was a beautiful evening. I went out to take photos in the golden sunset.

And of course I got accosted by cattle. I stayed away from them, but they did not stay away from me. I think this herd hadn’t seen many people recently and were extra curious. Or something. In any case, they first got rather uncomfortably close, and then kind of started rushing me. Not actually aggressively, I believe – they pulled up a metre or two away from me every time – but enough to make me move away very carefully and slowly, without turning my back to them. They are very much bigger and stronger than me, after all. I breathed out in relief when I was back at the shelter, on the other side of the fence again.

The evening sky was clear, and the forecast for the night was the same. I set an alarm for 1 o’clock in the morning and got up to look at the stars. The view was pretty good, but not the best I’ve ever seen. Villages on the west coast of Öland spread hazy light in the west, and a slowly pulsating light in the south must have been Långe Jan, a good 20 km away.

The Milky Way was distinguishable if you knew what to look for, but not bright. As a bonus, I saw three meteors.

I’m all set to leave for my by now habitual autumn hike tomorrow. A bit earlier this year, and at somewhat short notice, because of all sorts of things turning up in the calendar for the coming weeks and weekends.

For years already I’ve been wanting to hike the Mörbylångaleden trail through southern Öland. I’ve seen plenty of Sörmland, and I’ve been to the Swedish fells a few times. This would be something entirely different, and all reports say it’s unique and beautiful.

It’s a five-day hike, and transport there and back is a bit tricky, too, so the whole project takes a week, which has been the sticking point for me in the past. But this year things lined up nicely at the client and I could take a week off. So the Mörbylångaleden is a go!

Due to the above-mentioned transport issues, I’ll be hiking the trail backwards compared to how it’s normally described. The officially suggested route is to start in Färjestaden, where the bridge from the mainland reaches Öland, and walk from there towards Ottenby near the southernmost tip of the island.

It does make a nice “story” this way. But getting back from Ottenby at the other end is tricky, to say the least. There is a bus, but twice a day only, and it doesn’t go on weekends at all (outside of the summer high season, which is over by now). So if I did the trail in that direction, I’d end up in Ottenby with no way home until after the weekend. But! I can take the bus there tomorrow and start walking back up the trail on Tuesday morning. By Saturday evening I’ll be back in Färjestaden with all its multitude of buses to take me home.

Maybe the experience will be less of a dramatic crescendo this way, but I’m perfectly fine with that. Plus this way I will get to walk with the sun at my back instead of in my face – an often underappreciated aspect of hike planning.

Mushrooms, from today’s Sörmlandsleden hike.

Hälleforsnäs to Hagtorp. Yesterday this stage was 16.5 km but today it took me 18.5 to walk.

First I got an extra kilometre by starting walking without checking the updated weather forecast. Yesterday, the forecast promised rain for today, but only from late morning. When I was packed up and ready to go at around 7:40, I saw the clouds but didn’t think that rain would be imminent. It started raining before I had even walked ten minutes. I started thinking about where I could find shelter, but quickly realised that the best and closest shelter was back at the camping site. So I walked back, through the rain. Gained absolutely nothing but getting thoroughly wet.

It rained for almost two hours. Luckily I had my Kindle.

Afterwards the woods were, of course, very very wet. Not so much the ground, because the soil hereabouts drains quickly, but the bushes and grasses can hold on to a lot of water. Walking through wet forest is like I’m trying to use my trousers to wipe dry all the bilberry bushes. The trousers at least dry quickly, but the water also wicks into my socks and boots, and those keep all the water inside. Yes, I could wear waterproof trousers, but I don’t like the way they feel. Unless it’s cold outside, I’d rather be a bit wet.

Today I learned that lingonberry bushes dry out first, with their waxy-leathery leaves. Bilberry bushes come in quick-drying and slow-drying varieties, because some were clearly drier than others. Bog bilberries were the slowest to dry and seemed to actively hold on to drops of water. And heather almost doesn’t get wet to begin with.

There is a locally famous “rocking boulder” a few kilometres in. Why they didn’t seize the obvious opportunity to call it a “rocking rock”, I have no idea.

I went to see it, of course, but to my disappointment, it did not rock at all, no matter how hard I pushed. Either it needs more weight, or it’s gotten jammed.

The rest of the day was pleasant, unexciting walking. More mindfulness, like yesterday. It went easier today, after all my practise.

Here’s me having bread and butter and a boiled egg for lunch. It took a good while to find a spot where I could sit down for a meal – wherever I looked, it was just wet bushes.

In the afternoon there was another surprise burst of rain. And I had again just passed a shelter, so this time I didn’t even hesitate – turned back as soon as I felt the first drop and ran back, and had my second lunch at the shelter instead of the exposed lakeside cliff I had been aiming for. Another extra kilometre gained.

Sörmlandsleden stage 22, from Hagtorp to Hälleforsnäs, 16.5 km.

This stage has been blocking me for weeks and weeks. No way to get there by public transport, of course, and 16.5 is too much for a one-day out-and-back hike. 33 km would take me ten hours at least, plus driving there and back. Not doable. But now I had a whole free weekend, so I can walk one way today and back tomorrow. (I am again reminded that I should look into the car plus bike solution, so I can get these kinds of longer stages done in a single day.)

Hagtorp is barely a place, even: googling for Hagtorp brings up two kinds of hits only. There is the eponymous transport/shipping company, and there is Sörmlandsleden. I’m not sure what shipping activities the company actually does – there are no trucks or anything visible at their site – but they do have plenty of open gravel surface which makes for a great parking lot for hikers.

I had a leisurely start with a proper weekend breakfast and only started driving at 10:30, hoping to be hiking by 12. But there had been some kind of accident on the E4, which caused major traffic jams, and my drive took forever. When I finally got started on the trail, past one o’clock, I was very happy to be let out of the car and have a chance to stretch my legs.

This stage had proper woods and wild nature, unlike the previous one. There was some mixed forest, and a lot of the typical pine and spruce forest with heather and blueberry bushes. And the occasional lake for beautiful views, and the occasional clear-cut area for contrasting ugliness.

I found my thoughts spinning back to the tretton37 drama all the time, and from there to code problems I left behind at Sortera yesterday afternoon, and then on private worries, and then around again. I ended up turning this into an intense mindfulness walk. Whenever I found myself ruminating again, I made myself focus on what was around me.

Sound. On a large scale: silence. Apart from the start and end, this stage was far from noisy roads, and truly very quiet. This time of the year, there’s very little bird sounds, either. But I myself was making noise all the time: there was the crunch of my boots on debris, and the swish of grass against my legs, and the slosh of water in my water bottle.

Sight. I wish I could have looked around while walking, but much of the path was really rough and uneven, with rocks and roots and tussocks, so it took constant concentration. I would have tripped or twisted an ankle quite quickly. But I could pay attention to the rocks themselves, and all the pine cones on the ground, and the various plants and bushes around me.

Smell. Not much. Books sometimes have people walking on “fragrant pine needles” but in reality any needles on the ground are dead and have no scent at all. Perhaps pine trees in other parts of the world are different, who knows.

Touch. One the one hand, plenty to experience, but on the other hand, most of what I can feel while hiking tends towards the unpleasant. The pressure of the pack on my hips. A wrinkle in my t-shirt under the straps of the pack. The sharp scratch of a juniper bush. But I liked catching the seed heads of tall grasses and letting them slip through my fingers.

Taste. It’s berry season! Lingonberries and bilberries and bog bilberries are all ripe and plentiful. I was extra happy when I found bog bilberries, not only because I like their flavour but also because the bushes are taller and the berries thus easier to pick without bending down (which can be awkward with a heavy pack).

Most lingonberries were mostly ripe, and some were all the way ripe, but I’d say they needed another week or so to reach perfection. Which didn’t stop me from eating them, of course.

Bog bilberries look less appealing. The bushes are sparse and have an air of scragglyness. The berries hang singly or by twos at most, and the colour is muted, so they look underwhelming on the whole. It takes effort to make them look good in a photo.

Bilberries I don’t care much about at all, while I’m out walking. They’re good in pies and muffins and yoghurt and all that, but on their own, they’re too bland for my taste.

Due to my late start, and my slow pace because of the uneven path, I was worried about getting to the end at a reasonable hour. It was seven in the evening by the time I reached the camping area. I had been keeping my eyes open for the last kilometre or two of walking, for alternative camping spots in case the end of the stage was underwhelming (because the other end was literally a gravel parking lot!) but the area around Bruksdammen was beautiful. I put off all thoughts about cooking dinner and getting my tent set up, and instead admired and photographed the area. It was a wetland area with pink water-lilies in deep dark ponds.

Then there was dinner, after which I read for a while, but then went to bed at ten o’clock already, quite tired. The night was very windy – I half-woke a few times and thought at first that it was rain I heard, but it was just the wind being very loud.

Progress on Sörmlandsleden is still blocked by a long stage that requires a whole weekend, and I wanted to be at home most of this weekend to see Adrian between his travels, so I walked the “adventure trail” at Lida. 9km.

Stigen är på vissa ställen tekniskt utmanande med kuperade passager, glest markerad och inte röjd.

The trail is technically challenging in places with hilly sections, sparsely marked and not cleared.

Sounded like fun! (Except… how hard would it be to actually paint some more blue markers on a few trees here and there? Especially since the Lida activity centre suggests you buy a map of the trail from them for 30 kr.)

Parts of the trail were indeed just as the website described.

But there were also many stretches of pretty boring gravel road, and the last section was a particularly dull one. Yes, we’re technically in nature, but it didn’t feel like it.

The trail is a circular one and goes around a small lake, and I had hoped for nice views of the lake, but those were few and far between. Overall this trail did not impress me much and won’t be on any kind of list of favourites.

It started raining towards the end of my walk. It had been rather hot before, so I didn’t mind, and found the cooling effect quite pleasant.

It rained a bit more and then a bit less, and then, during my drive home, it rained more and more and then even more. At times I was driving at half the speed limit. And then I’d drive through a dip in the road and it was like running into mud. And then some idiot in a giant SUV would overtake me in the left lane and spray me with so much water that it was like being in a car wash. I could literally see nothing but a sheet of water. I wished I could stop at that point but there were cars behind me so I just carefully continued straight at an even pace for the 5 seconds it took for the water to flow down and some visibility to be restored. The 40-minute drive home was more exhausting than the three-hour walk.

The latest issue of Utemagasinet (“Outdoors magazine”) had a section where various contributors described their outdoor memories, based on a series of prompts. It made me think, and then I decided to do the same.

And I realize again just how bad my long-term memory is at storing experiences. Eric and I went to all sorts of places before we had children – Wales, Lake District, Scotland – but since I haven’t looked at photos of those trips in many years, I only have rather hazy mental images of them. I am very grateful for this blog.

Anyway, here goes.

Day trip: The last day of our trip to Mercantour. This was our first outdoorsy trip with the kids, and on the last day we went up to a mountain pass where we got our first taste of high alpine landscape. Dramatic views, everybody super impressed, until the afternoon thunderstorm with heavy hail. We all still have strong memories of that day.

Week trip: Padjelanta on skis. My own hikes are usually long weekends so they don’t quite qualify. All my ski tours have been lovely but this one was wilder and more fun than most. In the middle of the Padjelanta national park, we were sometimes the only group in a hut.

Of the weekend trips, I still have very fond memories of the Kinnekulle hike. Most of my hikes have been to mountainous areas, or in various pine forests, but this was a beautiful lowland hike in a completely different landscape. I’ve been thinking of going back there during a different season.

Accommodation: The cave house on Gran Canaria, or perhaps the yurt in Mercantour, which I unfortunately have no photos of.

Highest peak: In 2005 Eric and I climbed the Kilimanjaro. That was BTB, Before The Blog, so I have no post to link to, but here’s a photo from my archives:

Worst weather: Actually not the day with hail and thunder, but a gale in Skarvheimen. High wind, wet snow. The only time I’ve felt truly miserable due to the weather. No visibility, exhausting skiing. By the end of it I was numb with exhaustion and chilled all the way through.

Camp site: Nothing immediately stands out as “the greatest”, because many of the sites near Stockholm are rather similar to each other. The camping site at Trehörningen in Paradiset nature reserve is beautiful, and so is the one by Finnsjön on Sörmlandsleden stage 18. Especially when I am the only one there.

View: Actually not Kilimanjaro. It was a high peak and the views were expansive, but not the most interesting ones. The land around the peak is quite flat and barren. And at the very top I was feeling pretty awful with altitude sickness. No, the best views I can remember were from Viševnik. Only 2000 metres compared to Kilimanjaro’s 5900, but with rather more scenic views. Or perhaps the Centenario SAT via ferrata route, which is right above Riva del Garda.

Here’s Eric’s photo of a very young-looking me on that route, with Riva del Garda far below us, in 2004:

A time when I was afraid: The gale in Skarvheimen. I remember having the realization that this is how people die in the mountains. It doesn’t even take any extreme temperatures – just a bad combination of them, and a long day, and a lack of visibility.

Swim: Many of the swims in the lakes near Stockholm have been pleasant, but the dip in a bog lake in Soomaa felt unlike everything else. The top layer was warm, but beneath it the water was very cold, so I had the strong sense how large the invisible waters were that the tiny little pool connected to.

Food: The outdoor food above all other outdoor foods is porridge, especially with newly picked lingonberries.

Last week of vacation, great weather, no plans – I’m going for a nice long walk. The next stage of Sörmlandsleden is 16 km so it would be an overnight there-and-back hike, which I can’t fit in this week. Instead I went to Tyresta. The best hiking I’ve done near Stockholm is in Tyresta, and that was a while ago.

Tyrestarundan combined with Fornborgsrundan for a total of 19 km.

The initial kilometre or two went through farmland, complete with cackling hens and baa-ing sheep. After that, it was the usual granite and bilberry bushes and pine and spruce.

The trail network in Tyresta has been upgraded to the new marking standard that I’ve seen used in other national parks, coloured hexagons with different numbers of dots.

One of the draws of this hiking trail for me was that it goes through a wide swathe of forest that burned down in 1999. It’s clearly marked in the national park maps and rather distinct in real life as well: the forest is evenly young there, like a lake of lighter green amidst the otherwise darker, older trees.

The reasons for the youth of the forest are barely detectable now, twenty-five years on. I remember a brief visit maybe ten years ago, and I think I recall seeing actual dead, burnt skeletons of trees still sticking up. Now there is none of that. If you look really carefully, you can find a carbonized root or stump somewhere.

And perhaps some rocks are darker than normal? Or maybe that’s just lichens.

The shorter trail that I added to my walk took me all the way around Stensjön. I love lakes – and rivers and waterfalls and all other kinds of water.

As an unexpected benefit, that side of the park was very empty. I don’t think I saw or heard a single person on the east side of the lake, not even at a distance.

I therefore took the chance and went for a naked swim. Wonderful feeling, especially on a hot and sweaty day like today. (Last time was on Husarö five years ago.)

I decided to swim around the two little islets that I could see nearby (in the middle at the back in the photo). At first just around the larger, closer one, but the water between the islets was full of large, slippery rocks hiding just below the surface, barely tall enough to eddy the water when I looked carefully. I gave up on trying to find a way through and swam around both, only to find more rocks on the other side of them, so my circle kept growing. The lake deserves its name (“stone lake”).

Of wildlife, nothing but a few small frogs, and the calls of crows and finches. Most birds have stopped their singing for this season. Some insects, but luckily no mosquitoes.

Repeating a favourite activity from last year – canoe rafting from Taevaskoja to Kiidjärve.

We were slightly fewer people (and dogs) this year, so we fit on a single raft. Which made things simpler and somewhat easier, because not everybody had to paddle all the time. On the other hand I had fewer photo opportunities, because I was right on top of people all the time.

Except when we made a stop to walk the dog!

The paddling itself is not much of a challenge these days, with lots of young, strong people who’ve all done this before. It got more exciting the further upriver we came, as the river narrowed and the fallen trees grew more numerous.