Meeting Angels

Today, we were not so lucky with the weather. We had parked for the night at a rest area by the huge suspension bridge Högakustenbron and the Baltic Sea with some small islands. We decided to go on a small 1.5 km hike with playgrounds before breakfast to wake our girls up and get them hungry.

We had 20 min of enjoyable dry hike. The girls chased up the mountain, hunting for the next pink dot to guide our way.

Then we observed a rain shower approaching us from the sea. We took shelter under a picknick table. Soon the rain slowed down and we walked on. Two minutes later it was pouring. No table or tree could help and there was no other shelter around. We hiked back down to the rest area as fast as we could. We even bumped into another woman who had also got caught in the rain. Good that nobody slipped on the slippery slopes.

We decided to go to the little hotel instead of wetting the car completely. Here is where we met our first group of angels. The hotel staff let us use their dryer and brought us towels – the latter even without asking! Even from our underwear we could squeeze out a puddle of water!

That‘s how the girls got to their first hotel breakfast. With dry clothes on and bear foot they enjoyed sampling through the rich buffet: fruit smoothie, orange, apple juice, pineapple, honey & water melon, pepper, tomatoes, (pickled) cucumber, Knäckebrot, bread, meat, cheese, fish, different kinds of cereal, yoghurt, seeds, nuts, a berry mix, eggs boiled for a different amount of minutes, scrambled eggs, sausages, bacon, pancakes + cream and Nutella… That was some great reward!!!

When we were done with feasting the sun was out but our clothes still rather wet. On a small playground round Wilma found a Barbie-like mermaid that she had to bring everywhere from now on.

Alan had also gotten very knowledgeable tips from the guy at the reception on what to do in this area. So off we went to our next hike. On a rather short drive to Skuleberget, we turned up the heat all the way and within minutes most of our clothes were dry *wow* There was another shower on the way but when we arrived the sun was shining.

It was a lot of fun climbing up a super steep slope over rocks and ladders. Along the way, we picked blueberries and even found an eatable mushroom!

We stopped at a cave that had been carved by sea water. It was hard to imagine that the water level had been som much higher around 8500 years. In the stone age, the cave had been used by hunters and fishermen.

We were happy to find toilets with running water where we could refill our bottle at the top of the mountain. We met Bisco, something like a German shepard dog, petted him, gave him snacks.

The way down was very strenuous for our knees and toes, down a steep gravel road always in stopping mode. However, there were many colourful flowers, bumble bees, and butterflies around. Somehow, we missed the track down that would lead us close to the parking lot and we ended up on the other side of the mountain from where we had to walk a long way along the road.

We decided to send Alan ahead and were surprised to see our car half an hour later, just when Wilma started crying. She had been woken up by her itching mosquito bites too early in the morning and was tired now. Alan had gotten a ride from the owners of Bisco who saw him walking alone by the street – a miracle!

After Wilma’s power nap on the way to the national park of Skuleskogen, we went on our third and longest hike of the day over rocks, roots, bord walks over puddles and swamp land with many blueberry stops. It was amazing to see the girls running.

Up on the mountain, they played detectives hunting for blue dots on the rocks and trees that indicated the right path.

The climb down was pretty challenging. We had to take big, narrow rock steps, hanging on to metal wires.

Finally, we reached the sharp cliffs that the park was famous for. We helped a Geman couple with a picture. The guy said: „Pretend to be afraid in te picture.“ Se: „Pretend to not be afraid in the picture.“ *lol*

For the way back, we accompanied a woman with a dog. She told us that ‚Ronja Räubertochter‘, another Astrid Lindgren story, was filmed here, where a huge boulder was stuck between the cliffs.

The dog and the talkative woman motivated all of us to hike back quickly, just before the rain started. So we could enjoy a warm dinner in our dry car:

We drove on a bit at night. We were wondering what the small white pieces were that frequently protruded from the middle of the road. Many frogs tried to cross the street individually. We also saw a rabbit. Very strangely, it kept running zickzack for some time in front of our car, always following the road and it only escaped when we came to an intersection where it turned in. What kept this rabbit from just hopping into the bushes along the soil road?