Bohusleden: Day 2

Route: Bohus to Romesjöns Badplats

Our day started with a terrible hotel breakfast, in a dining room that looked like it hadn’t been decorated since the 80’s. And I suspect that some of the food they laid out had also been in the fridge since the 80’s. Needless to say, we were keen to get away from Hotell Arse Hat (our new nickname for the place).

I started the day in shorts and a t-shirt, and had to put my waterproof layers on just 10 minutes later.

We reached Fontins naturreservat within 40 minutes and even though we hadn’t been walking for long, we couldn’t resist stopping for fika at the Motionscentralen Kotten café. Fika is the Swedish way, afterall! Stopping also gave us a chance to dry off our waterproof layers a little.

The ground was already waterlogged and we saw lots of baby frogs jumping around.

We got lucky with a brief dry spell around lunchtime…

Rain hammered down most of the afternoon. Trails pooled and walking without getting sucked into the mud became harder and harder. We ended up hiding in an open faced barn (which was also filling up with water) and waiting for it to pass.

We made a dash for it when the rain stopped, only to find ourselves sheltering under a tree just 5 minutes later. We were very close to Romesjöns Badplats at that point, and already soaked, so we decided to push on and try to find shelter at our stop for the night. We found a wind shelter in the nick of time!

As you can see, the ground at Romesjöns Badplats was totally sodden. We pitched our tent inside one half of the shelter — the idea being we could assemble it in dry conditions, pick up up and carry it outside later on. The next person to arrive did the same thing in the other half.

As you can see, the shelter had a few leaks but it was still better than outside.

We got talking to our neighbour once the rain stopped (we’d been divided by a wooden wall until then) and realised we’d worked at the same company, a few years apart! A cyclist arrived later on and the four of us spent the evening chatting by the lake, and filtering our water.

I took a dip when there was a break in the rain but I didn’t manage an actual swim before the rain got heavier again — I didn’t fancy going to bed in a tent with wet hair, on a damp evening.

This jetty started on land before the rain came!

Our 12.2 kilometers were a piece of cake overall, and arriving at Romesjön around 3pm gave us plenty of time for a chilled evening (just the way we like it).

We watched the sunset and then zipped ourselves inside our sleeping bags, wondering how much more water Romesjön would accumulate overnight. Just as everything fell silent, an army of geese swam to the shore in an arrow formation. That was the last of the peace. Read day 3