Kungsleden Day 3 – sodden feet

I managed to get some sleep last night but my feet didn’t quite dry out…. I have realised that they haven’t actually been dry since the start, 3 days ago.   During the day, even yesterday when it was sunny all day, they almost start to dry out and then plop you walk through a bog and they are wet again…. And as my feet get cold in the night I keep my (wet) socks on, hoping that the socks will dry, and keeping my feet warm.  With good wool socks, my feet aren’t cold, but you do get to a point where you are worried your toes might start growing webbing.   Between the wet feet and the decidedly honking smell emanating from my underarms I figured it made sense to aim for adolfstrom this evening to wash the clothes I had been wearing since the start and also wash myself.  (Btw – I appreciate in theory I could have washed myself and my clothes in all those lovely rivers I have passed, but it is quite cold here and those rivers are icy, so I decided to stay warm and smell)

 
I was hopeful for another sunny day, but woke up to gray skys.  Another breakfastin bed, and I had almost finished packing my bag inside the tent when it started bucketing down.   It is a bit of a challenge to leave a tent in the rain (even a tiny tent like mine) so I gave it 20 minutes to see if it would relent – which it did a little bit.   

I headed up the hill through a herd of stunning reindeer, sadly my phone decided to play dead so no photos.   

And then it was a long walk across the moors and through various lakes.   I saw a tent after about an hour so presumably there were some people in there, but another four hours went past until I actually saw a human being…. He startled me!   He was followed swiftly by 7 more, and these were the only 8 people I saw all day up to Baverholm.    It appears to be a Swedish tradition to head to the bush and fish, and these guys even had a bbq strapped to their packs.  

My fingers were numb until about 1pm and it drizzled steadily all day.   I genuinely believe that if you don’t like hiking in the rain, you should never go hiking as odds are (in most places I hike) it will rain at least half the time.   But even for me, today was a bit much for my sodden feet. The STF helpfully do put nice wooden planks on the worst of the boggy bits, and when I see the planks I give thanks to the STF gods and their benevolence.  However they probably only cover about 1/3 of the bog, so the rest of the time I am cursing them

  I arrived at Baverholm around 2pm where there were 20 people in a lovely restaurant so I procured coffee, three pieces of cake and half a kilo of chocolate in case the store in town was closed.

 And then onwards to Adolfstrom, where fortunately the store was not closed and they have a lovely hut for me to stay in.  It oddly has a fridge and microwave and electricity but no running water so you have to haul it from the laundry.  But for £35, my own little Swedish house!  And I had a wonderful shower.  Oh, and I bought another half kilo of chocolate, two pieces of cake
and three sugar buns for breakfast tomorrow.

There is no restaurant in town, so am eating mac n cheese from the packet with cake to follow!  And am toasty warm with all the radiators on full drying my clothes!  Very exciting 🙂
Distance travelled= 41 km from Davta bavnna bridge to adolfstrom