Journey: Grenå – Rok Runestone – Naturum Tåkern – Vadstena Castle – Motala Gota Canal – Garphyttans National Park – Lake Mogsjön
It’s a Monday…start of the week and positive habits. I rolled out of bed and while the dogs were still asleep did my exercises. This was a far more productive start to the day than usual and in fairness worked well so hopefully I can keep it up.
Mark loves polar regions and Ernest is named after the explorer Ernest Shackleton so it made sense to go to Grenå Museum & Polarcentre. Here we learnt about the amazing if somewhat crazy expedition to the North Pole by hot air balloon! Not least because you can’t steer it. It was a fascinating story that sadly ended with the death of all three explorers miles from their target but their names live on and no doubt inspired others.
From here it was on to Rok Runestone which is one of the longest most confusing engravings – they believe made by a father in mourning of his son. The first proper dog walk was at Naturum Tåkern which has an amazing looking thatched visitor center. Mabel was in major go slow and waddled way behind…turns out she finds wet lands boring. We had to laugh at Ernest and Mabel when they barked at a fox…a plastic fox on the kids trail. I literally had to go up to it and pat it to prove it wasn’t real 😂 Old habits die hard, they used to go nuts if saw a fox in our garden. The highlight of our walk was watching one herd of cows race across the field to meet another herd who had just arrived, they were evidently so excited 🐄❤️
Next stop was another castle. Vandana castle looks so imposing as you drive up to the town as it dominates the skyline. It’s slightly less impressive up close but it’s a nice place to have a potter…I rather wish I’d had an ice cream. I’d say unless you love looking at boats you can skip Motala, we watched a boat go along the Gota Canal and through the lock but it’s really quite dull.
Conscious of the large distances to cover I wanted to push on towards tomorrows nature reserve which was 2 hours away and thus found a nice place half way. As we pulled in we both got déjà vu…it was Garphyttans National Park where we had been before 🙈 No worries though we just did a different trail and this time I had proper footwear on. Mabel was like a different dog racing on ahead through the forest. The dogs do much prefer forests and beaches, it’s just such a shame we have to do a major tick scan after every walk (Jasper had 20+!).
While the pups rested I drove on another 40minutes to our campspot near Lake Mogsjön, it’s been a long but lovely day.
SofaWolves 