Rickard Dahl's Blog: Västra Vätterleden Walk #7: Forsvik-Undenäs (Wednesday 12/04-17)

The next walk took place once again after a day's break. This time I went to Skövde by train and then from there to Karlsborg by bus. Once again I booked local traffic, this time from Karlsborg to Forsvik. In total the travel in the morning took 4h37min. The walk itself was about 21.4km but in order to cover all parts of Västra Vätterleden I walked the 4.4km segment from Kalvöåsen to 1km northwest of Stora Kalven and then walked back to Kalvöåsen (see page 4 here, basically the walk went on the western side from Forsvik to Undenäs, during Västra Vätterleden walk #9 between Undenäs and Stora Djäknasjön I walked the eastern part from Undenäs). Thus in a sense I walked 4.4km extra. In any case the walk took me 5h49min and my average speed was therefore 3.68km/h. Once I reached the bus station Stråhlevägen in Undenäs I took the bus to Karlsborg and traveled the usual way home. The travel time home was actually slightly longer: 4h42min. The main reason for this was because I had to wait 1h7mins for the train in Skövde.
In any case I went on this walk despite the rainy weather. It didn't rain a lot but enough to make the terrain wet and I managed to get my shoes wet but I changed my socks twice to remedy the situation. Speaking of the terrain, the walk went mostly through mixed forests and through forestry regions. However, it goes through the Tiveden forest region which includes many nature reserves and even a national park. I also walked through Tiveden during Bergslagsleden walks #1 and #2 and during the final Västra Vätterleden walk between Undenäs and Stora Djäknasjön. In any case to my surprise I saw two hares, one deer and possibly an elk during the walk. There was also rich bird life. However, I didn't manage to photograph the hares, the deer or the elk since they quickly escaped (they noticed me before I noticed them). Once again I came across signs after boars but I didn't see any boar (nor have I to this day ever seen a boar in the wild). The walk went for the most part on footpaths rather than gravel roads which is usually good but considering the wet ground (especially in the semi deforested parts) it was to my disadvantage. Nonetheless it was still a pretty interesting walk and hopefully the photos below are also interesting. Enjoy!

Bottensjön. Rotated and cropped the photo.

Forsvik bruk
"Forsvik is one of the oldest industrial sites in the country. For nearly 600 years people have milled flour, sawn wood and smithed iron here.
Bar iron and farming tools, lamp-posts, wood pulp for making paper, large industrial machines, grave crosses of iron, boats and water-pipes have been made here - in other words, everything from ploughs to frying pans!"
Rotated the photo slightly and then cropped it.