LostInTheWoods

We live not too far away from two rather interesting hills, called 'Halleberg' and 'Hunneberg'. They are 110m above ground level and are large plateaus, and their unusual shape was caused by a diabase sheet that covered the plateaus and protected them from weathering and erosion. These hills have the highest density of elk (moose, plural of moose is.... meeses??) in Sweden, and the King comes here in October to bag a few.

A visiting friend of mine and I decided to visit “The Elk Museum” which is situated on Hunneberg (the larger of the two hills) a couple of years ago. We learned as much as is humanly possible about elk. In fact we got elk overload. We learnt about their habitat, their young, behaviour at different times of the year, their eye-sight, insulating properties of their hair ... and on the second floor, how they have been tracked, stalked, killed, gutted, and carried home over the years. Lovely.

At this time of year there are many foreign visitors to my little part of Sweden, mainly Germans and Dutch attracted to these hills. They seem to mainly arrive in camper vans, of amazing proportions and attract a measure of controversy. Which is, that this kind of visitor will stock up their camper with all the luxuries of home: food, wine, toilet roll (you know the essentials) at home and basically spend very little of their money here in Sweden apart from what they pay in petrol, and the occasional camp site fee. A lot of what these visitors come for is free. The nature, the peace and quiet, the elk spotting opportunities and the fresh air are all free, and they themselves add nothing to the local economy.

Also, for quite a while these road signs used to go missing from the side of the road, and (allegedly) finding their way to Germany:

Now they occasionally pepper these signs with drill holes to make the signs less appealing.

Yesterday I cycled around the “Ringvägen” (“The Ring Road”) on Hunneberg two times. It is a beautiful ride and was only ruined when I ran out of drinking water. I am very lucky to live near such lovely countryside, with so few people in it. This makes a stark contrast to where I lived in the UK, which is a crowded corner of the island.

The elk count was zero, but I am not too keen on running into one of these massive beasts thank you very much. I nearly did once. To my British eyes, I first thought the elk standing in the middle of the track was a horse. A horse with, er... antlers. So it's not a horse is it? Getting closer now, what do I do, turn and run, or try and blast past it? I decided to cycle past as fast as I could, and do you know what? I don't think the elk could be bothered with me at all. Didn't move an inch. So not a really exciting outcome to the tale, but my heart was really pumping for a while afterwards.

That is all.

LostInTheWoods