Journey: Karlstad – Garphyttans Nature Reserve – Kvarntorpshögen – Ruda Gärd – Siguard Inscription
It generally works out that I organise the route…but this doesn’t always make for the most logical journey as I do love going into the wilds and can be easily led by a pretty Google picture/reviews. When we left Karlstad we were 3hrs 16min from Stockholm and Mark told me not to bomb straight over but go in that general direction…sounds easy enough…. except I’ve somehow tallied 4hrs 7min of driving and am still an hour from Stockholm 😂🙈
Karlstad was a bit of a non starter as the dry stone circle I’d planned wasn’t accessable due to road works and sat navs version of the city centre was a huge shopping mall. As we had stayed so late at the campsite we decided to push on an hour’s drive to Garphyttans Nature Reserve. Here Mabel and I were on high alert in the woods looking for moose, and we struggled up the mountain path despite our little legs and my poor footwear choice of flip flops (sure the moose could hear me).
From there we were meant to go to a food market but it was another hour’s drive and would be closed so I randomly picked a sculpture park an hour away. Mark was less than pleased when I opted to take the van up an 18% incline single way gravel road, but I’ve got good faith and the van was fine. The view from the top was amazing but I’m not sure what smelly gas was coming up through the soil as there were steam vents and caution hot spots. The sculpture themselves were a nice mix but it only took us 20mins to do the circuit…it wasn’t really worth the drive.
Still I thought I’d make it up to him by way of an idyllic red hut on the shore of a beautiful lake…only an hour away. Again it was in the back and beyonds down little gravel roads. We arrived at a big farm with a path leading to the hut…Mark looked confused and said is this it? Trying to picture it on a bright sunny day, we walked down to find it had a hot tub on a jetty on the lake…truely idyllic. Except the hut was locked, the hot tub empty and looked like it hadn’t been used in a while, and the garden hugely overgrown. I had to laugh because we had driven so far for a run down hut. Still the lake was pretty and as it was obvious we couldn’t camp there it meant driving on in early evening with more chance of spotting moose (I really want to see moose can you tell? 😂).
Going back to my original plan of visiting the Siguard inscription, I told Mark it would be fine and there was sure to be camping and it wasn’t too far from Stockholm. Cue another 1.5hours of me driving and pointing at cows, horses a deer, a couple of cranes…but no moose. I think the road signs are lying there are no moose crossing the roads.
We made it, have parked up with the place to ourselves. Mark made a yummy dinner and we will rouse the pups from their slumber to do the bedtime walk to see the stone carving. All ended well and they did warn us Sweden involves a lot of driving 🙂
SofaWolves 