Day 7 - Visiting Fulufjället - 90m waterfall near the Norway/Sweden border

am being lazy - just adding photos and then you can read on afterwards - my little computer is pretty slow!

my home for 2 night - window looks out into forest at the back

rather charming room don't you think?

Cloudberry paddock

a rock pool

info panel on the way the falls are formed

The Falls

memories of NT

curious little rock formation - I suspect man-made
there were several groups in this area, so I added a couple of loose rocks to one pile
It must be a way of collecting karma....  my bank is low!

Proves Archie's theory is correct
Trees twist anti-clockwise like water draining out of a plug in Northern Hemisphere

Yep - definitely anti-clockwise

moss and lichen living in harmony

This pine was already growing when Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492

Cloudberries - not ripe yet

undisturbed ant's nest - so no bears around here lately - phew!

Woodpecker wuz here - but not today

back to the Info Centre again

are these blue berries?

Here rests Maggie, ready for the big haul out of here tomorrow - I hope

a typical tasty Swedish breakfast awaited me in the morning - muesli with runny yoghurt, followed by bread, cheese, hard-boiled egg, tomator, cucumber and capsicum, washed down with 2 cups of strong coffee.  Oh, there was a toaster too, so in goes a slice and dang there's no vegemite, so I put a small amount of appelsin marmelade and also jordgubbe sylt (orange marmalade and strawberry jam - yeah I know jordgubbe doesn't look quite right for strawberry!).

so with my binocs in my backpack and a bottle of water - plus camera of course, I head off up the climb to the National Park where the Falls are situated.  Up it was, just on and on for about 3km.  I took one walk and a couple of "catch-ya-breath" stops, but dang, now we're going down hill - how long will this be, but bing!!  Here we are!

At the info centre, I asked the young ranger directions on where to lock Maggie up and where to start walking.  We had a little chat and I also asked why the lichen here isn't eaten by reindeer, I had seen so many on my way to Idre, which is only about 30-crow-km away.  He confirmed that all the reindeer are managed by the Sami people, but that Idre is their most southern range (dang, should have tried harder to get photos!)  There is a natural barrier, he didn't say what, but a rushing river in a deep gorge would probably stop them.  An occasional one turns up in the Park, then they call the Sami to come and rescue it.  Fair enough, so I locked Maggie to their railings and away I went towards the Falls.

before I headed off, there was a chattering in the tree and I look up and see the cutest little squirrel - its one of the native red squirrels and he was on his way down the tree to eat at the feeder - but I was in his way.  quickly I grapped gopro - hope I at least managed to catch at least one critter on that camera...

http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulufj%C3%A4llets_nationalpark - I had to click on this link and get it translated, but in Aus it might just come up in English - anyways this will give you a clue where I am heading.

the walk was really well signposted and there were info panels along the way.  in some places it was a little steep, up steps and loose gravel, other places there were board walks over boggy ground.  here there were heaps of cloud berries (hjortron) and plenty of fruit, but it was still bright red and hard.  they go yellow and soft when ready to eat.  along the pathway there were heaps of blue berries and I did have a couple of them to keep me going.  they are still quite small but sweet enough to eat.  Yes, the sign said it was OK to eat them, not pick in large quantities.

after a little ways you come to a hut and then there are steep wooden steps to go down to the bottom of the Falls.  from the top of the steps you can see the water cutting through the ridge and tumbling down to a pool (I guess- that is unseen) before trickling away in a small stream past the boardwalk.  The rocky cliff reminded me of cliffs in the NT, not quite so red, but similar shapes - but only birch is clinging to these rocks!  The water was gushing over very nicely, splashing down over various rocky ledges for the first 20m then bouncing off for its 70m unbroken fall to the bottom.

I wasn't the first one there, but I found a corner seat and had a snack of nuts and watched the water fall.  very peaceful really.  A couple of young girls then decided to walk closer to the bottom of the falls, finding some comfy boulders to pose on, thus getting in the viewfinder of my camera. so I thought it time to move on along the forest walk back to the Info centre.  it was a really pleasant walk, through the old pines, covered with lichen as were the birch trees.  the ground was covered by blue berry bushes, lichen and various other low shrubbery.  There were pretty purple flowers with big bumble bees buzzing around as well as the mossies, so out came the Rid and solved that problem.

at one point in a really marshy area I heard some strange noises.  Now I am sure it was some bird - but I had read earlier today that bears snort to clear their airways so that they can get a clear smell of what's around and sometimes it sounds like they are whistling....  well!  I didn't panic, but that fizz of concern was happening.  i continued walking at the same pace and the noise stopped and on I went... yeah, it was probably some bird but when in bear country ya just never know :)

it was actually pretty quiet in the forest - an occasional twitter from the Great Tit (stop giggling) and my little guardian angel - the white wagtail - Särdesärla flipped around as usual.  I did also see its cousin, the yellow wagtail, so that was a bonus!  Am pretty sure I saw a Siberian Jay, which is common up here and is the Park's emblem...  But again, storm clouds were gathering and the temperature was dropping, and guess who didn't bring a jacket.  so I upped the pace a bit and got back to the centre with no rain drops yet.

there's a cafe up there, so had a big cheese and egg salad, plus ordered a cheese and salad sandwich to take away.  also bought 2 cinnamon scrolls as there is nowhere to buy any food here until I get back to the main road at Sarna.

Then, release Maggie and thinking we have a bit of climb ahead of ourselves we headed off up the road.  But soon we were flying down the hill - that's right there was a small climb into the park, but this is really going down hill.  At one stage, the front wheel started to wobble, so I gently applied brakes to slow us down.  About 5mins later I see the sign for the hostel....  Can it have been that quick!  yes!!  I checked the bike computer and it said max speed 59!!!  now that is a tad too fast for me, but I survived to tell the tale!

so I really enjoyed the visit to the Fulufjället National Park and am glad I detoured in.  Might be cursing again in the morning, when I have to ride out again!  but that's tomorrow - after a good breakfast, who knows how hard it will be :)

it was only 2:30 when I arrived back in my room, so I downloaded my photos, gopro and the gps.  my calculations for today were totally out as it was 6km to the actual falls, including the walk - so the gps records 12km as it was tied to my backpack, but Maggie only had to do 9km - 17 mins up and 5 mins down....  woohoo!

I went for a little walk around the place, taking photos of this place.  But once I got back to my room a granny-nap seemed like a good idea and I laid my head on the pillow and woke up 90mins later!!  now I am all fired up for tomorrow...  maybe!