22-Apr-2014 -- It was Easter time and we were doing a few days in Southern Sweden. Just north of the charming old town of Kalmar we aimed at 57N16E. The weather was great, sunny and around 16 centigrades and we finally ended up on the banks of a small lake. The area was obviously popular with parking facilities and a small jetty with small boats for going out to the islands and for fishing. But no people to be seen, only a couple of parked cars. From there we walked along the lake for about 650 meters to the point where the actual confluence point was about 50 metres into the lake. On the way we passed the remains of an old flat-bottomed rowboat. The vegetation was quite dense and the going slow. As so often the return was easier and faster. Instead of walking along the lake we walked in the forest about a hundred meters from the lake.

Several places the ground had been roughed up, as if some animal had been looking for something. It reminded me a bit of what boars do, I had seen something like that in Armenia some years ago. But the ground was dry and I could spot no footprints nor droppings. Further on the way back a rotten tree had had its bark ripped off. Was it a bear looking for insects? A local news paper had just had a story of a woman who met a bear and also told its readers what to do if you meet a bear in the forest: Talk to him and walk slowly backwards.....But there were no marks of claws on the trunk, so it was more likely an elk rubbing its horns.