Sörmlandsleden from Kolmården to Katrineholm. Today: Eskilstorp to Fagerö. Part of stage 31, all of 30, and a teeny bit of 29; 20 km in total.

The first half felt pleasant but ordinary, while the later parts of the day were more scenic, and I’d say that stage 30 is among my favourites of the ones I’ve walked up until now.

Today was the day that the weather app had originally forecast a full day of pouring rain for, but that got downgraded over time, until all that was left was some rain in the morning. I had reached a lakeside shelter and had my breakfast shortly before the rain was supposed to arrive, and thought that I might sit it out in the shelter. It would be convenient to not have any wet gear to pack.

The sky was an even grey, I couldn’t see any difference in the direction where the rain was supposed to come from, so maybe another layer of clouds higher up was responsible for that?

The rain that finally came was so weak that I was almost disappointed. And instead of stopping, it petered out into a misty almost-drizzle. I didn’t want to sit around any longer, so I ended up getting out the rain cover and rain coat after all. An hour wasted for nothing.

Stage 31 mostly went through the usual pine forests. There was a brief deviation onto a gravel road…

… because the original trail somehow passed through (or at least skirted the edges of) an area badly hit by the spruce bark beetle. That looks both unpleasant and dangerous.

On the gravel road I saw two baby birds. Still partly baby-coloured, but I think they looked like nuthatches. Apparently old enough to leave the nest – but still so young that they were just cluelessly wandering around in the middle of the road and chirping. A dangerous way to start your life.

Stage 30 had a more dramatic nature, with exposed bedrock and the occasional big boulder.

I was happy for my trekking poles – without them, I’d have spent all my time watching my footing, and probably still stumbled. Now I still stared a lot at the ground but could relax a little bit about it.

Lunch was late AGAIN because there was just nowhere to stop, with enough space for me, my pack, and my stove. I didn’t get a proper lunch until two o’clock, and I was starving by then. It feels inconsiderate to spread out my stuff right on the path itself, but I might have to force myself to get over that feeling, because eating does feel rather important.

My current go-to lunch on overnight hikes is instant noodles that I top up with other stuff to make it more filling. For this trip, my noodle toppings are canned sweetcorn and hard-boiled eggs. Half a small can of corn is just right for one portion of noodles, and the other half keeps well enough overnight in a small air-tight container.

My lunch stop was at the top of Vensbrinksberget, the highest point in Sörmland. It has a viewing tower, which I now climbed. I’m impressed by the work that must have gone into this – hauling all the materials up here, and then building the tower. How do you even build a tower like this, in a place like this?

The views from the top of the tower were wide but not very exciting. There were markers for the cardinal directions at the viewing platform at the top, but they didn’t make much of a difference – everywhere I looked, it was just forest. The forest is much better viewed from ground level.

I stopped for the night at a municipal lakeside beach on Fagerö. According to the map there’s a shelter coming up in just over a kilometre, but it’s open towards the west, and that’s where the (strong) winds were coming from, so I chose an east-facing spot instead.

Wildlife: A fox, who ran as soon as it heard me. A small rodent who ran across the path during one of my breaks; I don’t know enough about them to say what kind. Loads of songbirds.

In addition to the baby nuthatches, I also saw a family of Great Crested Grebes (tuttpütt/skäggdopping). When they noticed me, the five babies all scrambled onto the back of their parent who took them into safer waters.

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.

Viburnum in all its pink glory. And the season’s first bee, gathering nectar.

Deer are frequent visitors in our garden, and are totally unbothered by my presence.

A crisp, sunny day, with a dusting of fresh snow on the ground. It’s all bound to be replaced by gray skies and slush soon, I’m sure, so I hurried out.

Literally hurried: we had originally made entirely different plans for today, but Ingrid was feeling quite unwell, so this was a last minute idea, leaving me no time to pack or plan. Järvafältet nature reserve is my go-to place for a quick outing, and that’s where I ended up today as well.

There used to be a bird-watchers’ platform very close Säby gård, but it was torn down years ago. Too costly to repair, maybe. Now the only thing left of it is an odd dead-end stump of a path that goes very near the lake but stops just before, with a marshy wooded area in the way of a proper lake view.

With the ground all frozen firm, I skirted the trees and got all the way to the lake shore. The lake was under a thick layer of ice, and there were tracks going into the distance. Someone had also hacked into the ice in one place and the gouge was a good 7 cm deep, with no sign of getting through. Solid enough for me, so off I went on the ice.

I followed the tracks of two humans with a dog. A little bit away there were tracks of one skater and one skier. And here and there, going off in totally different directions: a hare, a fox, a deer, some unknown small creature. The deer went straight across. The dog followed the tracks of the unknown creature for a little bit, before getting called back.

I swung back along the other side of the long lake. Now there were two humans but no dog. The skater and skier were closer to the middle of the lake.

The circuit around the lake didn’t take me very long, maybe an hour and a half. Had I been walking on an ordinary path, I’d maybe have looked at the clock and decided to continue in some other direction. But this circuit felt so perfectly complete in and of itself that following it with something else would have been wrong, so that was that.

We’ve barely seen any birds at the feeder this year. And it’s not that the birds are there but we’re not, so we just don’t see them. Last time I filled up the feeder was just after New Year’s, and it’s still more than half full.

Too warm, too little snow? First hints of an ecosystem collapse? Better offerings elsewhere?

I didn’t take a photo today, so here’s one from earlier, from when we actually had snow on the ground.

A bright-eyed little squirrel feeding from the bird feeder, using its tail to stay balanced.

The wooden deck outside is frequented by the neighbourhood cats, and the French doors allow us to see them. Probably the cats visit our porch as well, and other houses’ decks and porches and verandas, but if there’s a closed door in between, nobody knows, and no contact occurs.

If a cat visits a deck and nobody sees it, did the visit even happen?

Here, though, we see the cats and the cats see us, and we let them in for a visit. This long-haired beauty is new to the neighbourhood, and very cautious, almost scared. S/he put one paw in through the gap, pulled it back, put it in again, watched, then cautiously entered. Wouldn’t move as long as there was a human within two metres. Fled when there was a slight noise from the kitchen.

S/he has a sibling as well: this one’s fur is a mixture of browns; the other one is very similar in both looks and behaviour but its fur is a mix of grays. And they wear identical GPS trackers around their necks.

Morris, meanwhile, is back to his stand-offish, churlish ways. He comes in; Nysse sees him and approaches with gentle happy chirps. Morris responds by batting at him with his paw. Nysse backs away and sits, looking longingly at his friend.

The first visitor to the bird feeder this season was a lovely woodpecker.

Look who came by and did not leave as soon as he’d checked Nysse’s food bowl! Cuddly Morris is back!

He did start by checking the food bowl, but then walked towards the sofa with a very goal-oriented mien, jumped up, and settled on Adrian’s chest. He stayed upright and alert for a while, but actually relaxed enough to lie down after some time.