DryStoneGarden

Another lovely Swedish hiking trail is on Dyron in the archipelago a little north of Gothenburg. Dyron’s a lovely island and the trail is laid out with a lot of style. Steps and boardwalks and handrails, beautiful views of the water. Rocky crags, ferns, and heather. It’s about 5 km to circumnavigate the entire little island.

This section of boardwalk leads to the waterside sauna, considered one of Sweden’s best and definitely one of the best I’ve ever used. Oddly, the island also has a small herd of introduced Mouflon Sheep living wild on the tiny island. The sauna I expected, the sheep I did not.

And the boardwalks are more extensive than I expected, built and maintained by volunteer retirees who call themself the Blue Men, though, regrettably, they do not dress like the Vegas lounge act. Boardwalks are a resource and labor intensive type of trail — 50 tons of wood provided by the European Union, countless hours of labor by the blue men — and I really appreciate the effort.

A wonderful little island and trail.

I am a total sucker for a boardwalk trail through a bog expanse, so I routed my Sweden trip to pass through the Great Bog National Park. I felt a little self-conscious on my way there, like I should head to Norway’s fjordlands instead of a bog, but I had no regrets once I got there. It’s great, a pocket of laplands in southern Sweden, a wide chartreuse plain beneath a beautiful sky, and I particularly loved the boardwalk trail. Loved it so much I hiked it twice.

There are straight lines in the section of bog near the train tracks, scars from peat mining in the past. Pink Heather grows on the raised seams between the plots where peat was harvested. There’s a long-term restoration project to heal the scars, but long-term is an understatement when you’re talking about peat which regrows at an average rate of 1 mm per year.

Some scraggly pines make it into the area that was heavily harvested.

But the true bog is almost treeless.

The bog has long skinny ridges like sand dunes, with pine and heath growing on them. Science isn’t sure how they formed.

The park has a lake and what feels like more of a wetlands than a bog, and the boardwalk is a luxurious three boards wide. It’s awkward but possible to let people pass.

A lot of Bilberries in the park.

A couple sections of corduroy but the park has lots and lots of boardwalk.

Beautiful boardwalk.