Rickard Dahl's Blog: Västra Vätterleden Walk #8: Hjo-Tibro (Tuesday 18/04-17)

Since I got busy with school it took almost one week before I returned to the next Västra Vätterleden walk. It was the last Västra Vätterleden walk during which my 30 day bus card for the Västra Götaland region was valid and it ended up taking a while before I returned to finish Västra Vätterleden. The main reason for this is that after Undenäs there are several segments which are difficult to travel to using public transport (it isn't available or it's quite complicated), I will go into more details about that in later blog posts. In any case as usual I traveled first to Skövde. And from here my intention was to travel to Tibro and then order local traffic to Stora Älgarås (which lies on the road between Tibro and Brevik, near where I ended Västra Vätterleden Walk #3 between Mölltorp and Mohemmet). However, when I tried ordering local traffic they required a specific address and I got the name wrong apparently (apparently the correct address was Stora Elgarås, which lies in Stora Älgarås, not Stora Älgarås itself). Long story short, I instead took a risk and traveled to the end point of the walk according to my initial plans, i.e. to Hjo. From there I walked 22.4km to Mohemmet (the first 0.4km were needed to get from the bus station in Hjo to the trail) and further walked 0.8km to reach the road which goes between Tibro and Brevik. Unlike how it went during Västra Vätterleden Walk #3 I did not get enough luck to hitchhike. The problem in general with this road is that there are very few cars going there. In fact only 4 or 5 cars passed by when it still was relevant to hitchhike (i.e. when I was far enough from Tibro). Hitchhiking relies to a large extent on the kindness of strangers and that is a quality which is lacking nowadays (for various reasons). In any case I walked 10.3km extra to reach the bus station in Tibro. Thus in total the walk was 33.5km and it took me 6h36min in total (I walked the last 10.3km in 1h35min (i.e. an average of 6.5km/h)). My average speed overall was 5.08km/h. Not only did I walk the last 10.3km extra fast but I walked quite fast in general (above 4km/h for many of the segments)).
In general this was a quite easy walk since most of it goes on gravel roads (the last 10.3km only on asphalt) and the terrain is quite flat for the most part. The walk went mostly through coniferous forests with instances of other trees such as birches. There were also some places with fine sand forests (moskog/tallmo). Other than the first 4.2km until Mullsjön (which I've already walked once during Västra Vätterleden Walk #2 between Hjo and Baståsen) there is not much interesting happening since the walk goes through mostly desolate regions (between Mullsjön and Mohemmet) and there aren't even any lakes (with the exception of Mullsjön) on the path. It was thus probably the least interesting Västra Vätterleden walk (not necessarily bad, just not as interesting as the others). The temperature was pretty low once again (a few degrees above zero) and in fact it started snowing a bit once I had almost reached Tibro. Either way, there are still plenty of photos to choose from and hopefully the selection below will show some of the more interesting parts. Enjoy!

Certainly much greener than during Västra Vätterleden Walk #2 between Hjo and Baståsen. Rotated the photo slightly and cropped it.

Mallards

Mullsjön. Used the hue restorer plug-in to get rid of the cyan-ish sky color. Also brightened the non-sky parts slightly using the levels tool. Finally I rotated the photo slightly and cropped it.

Mullsjödal

Rotated the photo slightly and cropped it.

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Used the hue restorer plug-in to get rid of the cyan-ish sky color. Also brightened the non-sky parts slightly using the levels tool.

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Whooper swans. Rotated the photo slightly and cropped it.

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Skarpås
In the 1800s a saw dam was built here. The water reservoir and the flow in the stream turned out to be insufficient to make the business profitable. Next to the dam there was dwelling house built around the 1950s. It was burned down in 1962 in an insurance scam.
Used the hue restorer plug-in to reduce the cyan-ish sky color. Rotated the photo slightly and cropped it.

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The farm Lofallet was inhabited until the 1930s. At the remains of the old farm there is a stream and older deciduous trees, which give an oasis character to the area. Grazing ox were used to keep the landscape open at first but later forestry took over.
Darkened the photo slightly using the levels tool. Also rotated the photo slightly and cropped it.

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Bergamossen
The simplest dwelling in the 1800s was the den. Johannes Jonsson lived here with his wife and four kids around 1838. Anders Petter, who lived in the den 1860-1891, made a living through daywork now and then. He lived on what nature gave him, for instance potatoes and cooked squirrel.

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Used the hue restorer plug-in to get rid of the cyan-ish sky color. Also rotated the photo slightly and cropped it.

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The desolated Bisshult farm was first mentioned in the real estate register of 1611. Despite the rocky terrain the land gave rich harvests. One notices the presence of stones when observing the unusually well-built and long stone fences which go across the pine-clad landscape (see the next photo). The farm was abandoned in the 1950s but the signs of settlement are still clearly visible.
Removed the cyan-ish sky color using the hue restorer plug-in. Then I rotated the photo slightly and cropped it.

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