Bohusleden: Day 6

Route: Trollhättan to Bjursjön (Uddevalla), via Glimmingen

Waking up to a fresh hotel breakfast was lovely — a traditional Swedish breakfast buffet with eggs, rye, herring, juice shots, yogurt, cheese and some homemade items including granola and jam. A cat made its way into the dining room and it was a funny situation because we were all excited to see it and the hotel staff were in a hurry to scoop it up and take it away.

I had trouble waking up after sleeping so well the night before!

Due to needing to cut the trip short, we followed a new plan that would get us back to civilisation sooner and enable us to hike to a train station the following morning.

We took an early bus from Trollhättan, to a remote stop at Glimmingen. The wooden ladder into the forest was only a few metres away and just like that, we were back in the wilderness.

We met a man picking chanterelle in the forest. This is his basket of goodies — I wish we’d found this many! We chatted about what he picks from the forest and he was surprised when we found out how far we’d walked.

It was a hot day and our clothes were drenched in sweat pretty quickly. Back sweat, stomach sweat, strap sweat. I’m surprised we had any liquid left in us at all.

Thunder rumbled over our heads as we edged closer to Skalbanksmuseet (Bräcke). The air turned cold and dark clouds loomed behind the trees. We kept walking in the hope of out-pacing the storm — we’d already been rained on enough during the last few days.

Just as the thunder really started to boom, we reached Skalbanksmuseet.

Skalbanksmuseet is situated on the world’s largest shell bank — formed around 10,000 years ago when the ice sheet melted. The nature reserve itself was full of wild flowers. I would have loved to have spent longer exploring the museum and shell bank but we were trying to get ahead of the storm and avoid getting soaked again. If you are reading this because you’re hiking in the area, they have a toilet (with drinkable tap water) 🙂

It was another hot and humid day so we called in at a petrol station (just beyond the museum) for chilled water and ice cream. We were lucky to have the option because many are just fuel pumps. The air conditioning was absolute bliss, especially for Scott who was trying to fight off the beginning of a migraine.

Some cold liquid and aircon gave us the oomph needed to push on to Bjursjön. Thankfully, it was only a few kilometers from the petrol station.

Bjursjön was the tamest camping spot of the week — there were a couple of mowed grass areas, a fair amount of day trippers, group accommodation at the opposite end to us, and two portaloos. We chose a spot on the quieter side of the lake, next to a wooden jetty.

A shorter day compared to the others meant we had more time to chill out in the evening. We put the tent up and Scott created a washing line with our trekking poles and some cord. We swam in the lake, laid in the sun for a while, watched the fish and ate dinner on the jetty.

Dinner wasn’t so good. Scott’s chicken fajita meal smelt like cat food. And my Macaroni Greens wasn’t actually the macaroni cheese I imagined — it was macaroni in a broth with kale. We decided to end on a high with strawberry rice pudding.

This being our last night of adventure was bittersweet. However a combination of bad weather moving in and being back in a busier spot, made the idea of going home a little easier. Ready day 7.