Bohusleden Walk #11: Store-Väktor-Broan (Wednesday 27/09-17)

After one day's break I returned to the Bohusleden walks. This time I traveled by car to Ekehålan south of the lake Store-Väktor, actually as part of practice driving (I started practice driving a bit more than one month before this walk). Well, there was no way to drive any further and therefore I started the walk at Ekehålan and walked to the place where Bohusleden splits near Store-Väktor (a distance of approximately 1.3km) (I've mentioned this split in the blog post for Bohusleden Walk #8 between Glimmingen and Backamo) and rather than walking north towards Vassbovik, I took the southern route to Hasteröd (a distance of 7km). After that I walked 12.3km of Bohusleden stage 10 between Hasteröd and Lysevatten. Then finally I also walked 0.5km to reach the Broan bus stop. The walk was thus approximately 21.6km in total. The total duration for the walk was 7h32mins, which means that my average speed was approximately 2.87km/h. There are several reasons for my slow speed, the primary one being that I took a large number of photos. The two secondary reasons are that the trail goes mostly on footpaths (and mostly through forests) and maybe more importantly: It was wet and hard to walk past certain points without getting wet shoes (or more wet shoes). In fact I changed my socks three times (and as I often do I put plastic bags on my socks to prevent them from getting too wet)).
In either case, the travel back was with regular public transport. I first took bus 333 to Lilla Edet and there I changed to bus 424 and traveled to Trollhättan. In Trollhättan I took the train to Göteborg. The travel back home took 2h37mins in total. By contrast the travel time by car in the morning was 1h24mins.
Overall it was an interesting and enjoyable walk going almost entirely through forests (the main exception being near Hasteröd and Myrtuvan where the trail goes through small scale farm land). The walk can roughly be divided into the part before Hasteröd and the part after Hasteröd. The part before Hasteröd feels goes through forests which remind me of the forests during the Bohusleden walk #10 between Glimmingen and Bovik or Bohusleden walk #8 between Backamo and Glimmingen and although interesting the forests are more dominated by forestry. After Hasteröd the walk goes through a marsh and lake rich terrain that feels more wild compared to the first part of the walk before Hasteröd. The autumn atmosphere certainly made things more interesting. Walks in the autumn are great although the two main issues for autumn walks are the deer flies and the shorter days. The colder weather and wetter terrain doesn't necessarily worsen the situation, in fact these things might give a more interesting atmosphere.
Returning to the topic of deer flies it can be noted that there were even more deer flies than usual and it was really annoying. Maybe they get more aggressive in the mid part of the autumn or I just happened to stumble upon places that had many of them. And speaking of wildlife: I saw one squirrel this time. It can also be noted that the weather started off as cloudy but that the sky got clearer during the day. Finally it can be noted that I got a bit lost near the lake Hällsvattnet. I was probably lost for about 20 minutes.
Enjoy the photos!

1.

Old barn from the 1800s (or built in the style that was common here in the 1800s, not sure). Increased the contrast slightly using the brightness-contrast tool. Rotated the photo slightly and cropped it.

2.

Store-Väktor

3.

Källevattnet. Sharpened the photo slightly using unsharp mask.

4.

Sharpened the photo slightly using unsharp mask.

5.

Darkened the sky slightly using the levels tool.

6.

Brightened the non-sky parts slightly using the levels tool. Then I increased the contrast slightly using the brightness-contrast tool. Finally I increased the contrast slightly for the sky using the levels tool.

7.

An old milestone. Rotated the photo slightly and cropped. Increased the contrast slightly using the brightness-contrast tool.

8.

9.

Hasteröd

10.

The trail goes through a primeval forest between Myrtuvan and Stora Gunnarsvattnet. Sharpened the photo slightly using unsharp mask.

11.

Stora Gunnarsvattnet. Increased the contrast for the sky slightly using the levels tool. Also increased the contrast slightly for the non-sky parts using the brightness-contrast tool. Finally I brightened the non-sky parts slightly using the levels tool.

12.

Djupevatten. Rotated the photo slightly and cropped it. Also darkened the sky slightly using the levels tool.

13.

Medjolingen. Darkened the non-sky parts slightly using the levels tool. Then I increased the contrast for the non-sky parts slightly using the brightness-contrast tool.

14.

Mörtevatten. Rotated the photo slightly and cropped it. I also sharpened the photo slightly using unsharp mask.

15.

16.

Brurevatten Rotated the photo slightly and cropped it. Also sharpened the photo slightly using unsharp mask.

17.

Sharpened the photo slightly using unsharp mask.

18.

Increased the contrast slightly using the brightness-contrast tool.

19.

Stora Hällbovatten. Sharpened the photo slightly using unsharp mask.

20.

21.

Västersjön. Sharpened the photo slightly using unsharp mask. Also increased the contrast slightly using the brightness-contrast tool.

22.

23.

Hällsvatten. Used the hue restorer plug-in to reduce the cyan-ish sky color. Also darkened the sky slightly using the levels tool.

24.

Rödvatten. Rotated the photo slightly and cropped it. Increased the brightness and contrast slightly for the non-sky parts using the levels tool. Also used the levels tool to slightly increase the contrast and brightness for the non-sky parts.

25.

Broan