My best efforts to get away a little early were foiled. I had hoped to avoid as much traffic as I could by departing before 8:00 am even though this leg was only about 2.5 hours of walking. Suffice to say I did a complete unpack and repack of my backpack before departing. There were magnificent views across the Medstugusjön to the mountains on the border. My guidebook suggests the taller peak is in Norway, and without any way of confirming this on a map, I accepted that. Later I found a good topographic map in the hallway where I stayed, and confirmed that all the mountains on the horizon were in Norway. It was interesting to see that there were still a fair number of lakeside cottages. I'm not sure that i was expecting that. ... read more

I was starting to get into a nice walking cadence when it occurred to me that it had been a little while since I had last seen a marker. The little while that is the spacing between markers can vary considerably. In some places there were markers on every power pole along a stretch of road which offered no option but to keep going in any case. More often there were prominant markers at road and track junctions to confirm to keep going, or to turn onto a new path or road. In any case, I turned to check, and spotted a road a few hundred metres back that I hadn't paid any attention to as I passed it. Sure enough, I had missed a turn onto a delightfully shaded section of road and track. The ... read more

Revsunds prästgärd is run by Rueben, a Dutchman who was involved in creating the S:t Olavsleden route from the many individual routes that came together and linked up. The signage alone is clearly a massive undertaking, with everything from small 20mm or so square tiles on stakes, through 50mm or so signs on a variety of square and oblong red painted timber boards and hung, nailed, screwed and strapped to posts, trees etc, and finally big welcome signs at various county and local government boundaries. Revsunds is also a meeting place where several of the St Olav routes meet in Sweden before heading off again in different ways to Trondheim. So I put in a pretty big day to get here from Mordviken (Murder Bay). Most of the morning was spent on quiet roads and forest ... read more

There were no bears Just before i left, Miriam, who helps run Täljegården, warned me that if I should meet a bear today, I should sing to it. While I was prepared to treat this as a practical joke, it was said so seriously that it made me wonder what I might choose to sing. At which point I realized that I barely knew snippets of anything but the Australian National Anthem, and I didn't quite know how 'whose lands are girt by sea' would work on a bear intent on girting me. Sometimes, things like that can stay with you the whole day! Avoiding the Main Road There are times when staying off the E14, the highway the St Olavsleden generally follows in Sweden, isn't a walk by the river, but rather a long, continuous ... read more

Fellow Pilgrims There was a mother and daughter with their two dogs in an adjacent cabin, and the mother came over to see if I was walking to Trondheim. She told me they had been, but the older of the dogs was not coping with the distances required each day. Her choices seemed to turn on getting the dog to a vet, and finding a cheap car so they could continue together in that. I wasn't sure what to think about their predicament, or even whether my thinking about it would add any value, so I put it out of my mind. Ruins, Roads and not much Path The breeze was up enough as I was getting ready to set out to give the vest another try just to keep the wind off my upper body. ... read more