Saturday, December 16, 2006

Riding Along to Långasjön

The next trip was meant to be to a lake named Nässjön. Unfortunately I didn't make it that far. You'll see why later in this post.
I travelled along Härstorpsvägen until I reached the T-junction north of Harstorpssjön. This is the view to the north. Guess who's in the lower right corner? This is the view south to Harstorpssjön.
I followed the winding trail for quite a while. There were a couple of streetsigns but I don't remember the names. Here is a tree that looks like a Christmas Tree to me. I'm not sure what type it actually is.
This area of Ronneby is still mainly forest. Here is another large pile of logs, ready to be transported somewhere. Coming to another T-junction and taking the left branch to its conclusion, I reached Långasjön (Long Lake). It's named for obvious reasons. It's very long and thin. There was another one of those wooden structures with a ladder, although this one was slightly different as there was plastic with two holes in it covering one side. This is Långasjön as seen from its northern tip.

From there, the plan was to reach Nässjön, which is north of the E22. According to my map, the only way to get there was to basically ride back to the northeast corner of town and head further north and west. From my map, it appeared that some of the roads passed under the E22, just like at Skärsjön. Upon reaching those locations in person however, I realised that they did not. Instead, they ran along the southern edge of the E22. I was stuck. All I could do was make it to Karlshamnsvägen. I stopped in at the ÖoB and purchased a couple of items. I still had a small amount of time left before sunset, so I made the short ride north to Kallinge. Here is a view of some of the industrial area.

And in this photo you can just make out the spire at Kallinge Kyrka.

Friday, December 15, 2006

Centrum Sights

Here are a few images from Ronneby. A few odds and ends left over from various photo journeys. Here's the new water tower as seen from up on the hill at Hjorthöjden. This is the pond complete with statues on the corner of Strandgatan and Gångbrogatan. It's full of dried leaves rather than water. This is the town square, looking up towards the churchHere's the church itself. In this photo it's having some work done on it. However it is finished now at time of writing and the scaffolding is gone.

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Skär am I going now?

There was a place I had been wanting to get to for many weeks. It was a big blue area on the map between Ronneby and Kallinge. Its name was Skärsjön. I am translating this as Rocky Lake. This is another of the incredible powers of the letter S in Swedish. To give you an idea of how this is pronounced, it's something like Where-whurn, hence the title of this post.
Anyway, I had been to Kallinge and other areas a few times, but had never made it to this lake. I decided to fix that by going there especially. There were no paths or roads around it, so I decided to go on foot. I headed north from the centrum along Kallingevägen for a bit. I remember hearing a different sound from the cars as they zoomed by. This was because people were changing over to their winter tyres, which make a slightly more metallic sound on the road.
Here is a photo of some of the industrial area of Ronneby taken from Kallingevägen under a mix of cloud and sun.The only road to Skärsjön is the one under the E22. This is reached from the suburb of Kalleberga Hallar. This is a photo of the underpass.The lake is actually a public fishing area. Here is the noticeboard there. I think it talks about needing a fishing license to fish there and when you can fish.
This is the main jetty at the lake. I tried to put together a panorama shot, but it didn't quite work, due to the flat gate structure being photographed from different angles.
Yes the water was blue, but a lot of the surroundings of the lake were brown and orange, due to all of the fallen leaves. There was some green though, like these mosses.

And here is a wider shot of a large log by the edge of the lake.

My aim was to circumnavigate the lake. There were bits of trail here and there, but in some places it was difficult to get through. Most of the northern end had a fairly visible path though, and some great places to get a nice photo. Here are some examples. Note particularly the reflections of the sky in the surface of the water.

Traversing the eastern side of the lake was much more difficult. There were lots of pokey branches everywhere and I could not find a clear path. Here's a view from that side.

This is a broken old jetty.

And another one in slightly better condition.

The sun was starting to set already, so I had to hurry. Here is a small bridge located in the southeast part of the lake surroundings. The existence of the bridge made me realise that there probably was a walking track somewhere around the lake.

And here it was. I had seen red markings on some of the trees as I went around, just like this one.


This was to guide people safely all the way around the lake. A shame I only realised this almost at the end of the journey. The path actually goes up along the barrier of the E22. I followed it along and then back down to the underpass, and then back home to Hjorthöjden.

Monday, December 11, 2006

Treechange

Here's another example of the changing conditions here. In late October, I took a photo of this tree on Esplanaden. Although there were some leaves on the ground, there are still many left in the tree.

I came back to the same tree just two weeks later, and it was completely bare.

This is the inescapable march towards winter.

Saturday, December 09, 2006

Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

On the 1st of November, I am proud to report that we had snow! Although it didn't really count - it was just a few snowflakes. Here are a couple of photos I took from my office window.
Look for the little white dots mainly visible near the top of this photo.

Here, you can see the flakes that have piled up at the bottom of this row of trees.

We have not as yet had snow since then. The temperature has been a fairly constant 8 degrees or so. It's becoming doubtful as to whether any more will fall by the time I leave.

More Autumn Pics

Here are some more photos of trees in Autumn taken around BTH.
This is BTH and the Soft Center with its big red Octagon as seen from Angelskogsvägen.

This is a view out of the kitchen at BTH towards the river and Brunnsparken. Again note the orange, yellow and brown colours. This is basically the same view, except seen from outside on the ground. This is a photo of Ronnebyån itself, with many branches still full of leaves hanging over the water. By contrast, at time of writing, these trees are completely bare. And finally, here are some trees in Brunnsparken.

Friday, December 08, 2006

Höst on the way to BTH

One of my first posts was about cycling to BTH during summer. At that time, I indicated I hoped to remake the journey with my camera later in the year. Well, here are the results - some images of autumn, or höst as it is known here.
The western end of Utmarksvägen. Note the orange and yellow of the leaves.

The eastern end, looking down towards Vidablick.

The path through Brunnsparken. Note the leaves that have fallen, collecting on the path.

The T-junction in Brunnsparken. Plenty more fallen leaves.

This one is taken just near the duckponds and Wiener Caféet, just west of BTH. There are many different leaf colours visible.

Monday, December 04, 2006

A Little More Than A Stone's Throw Away

The next journey was probably the longest of my time here. I had read online that there was an ancient ruin located in Blekinge called the Björketorp (which I'm translating as Birchcroft) stone. I was hooked and made it my mission to find it. The details I could find online were sketchy at best. One source said it was near Yxnarum and Listerby. I had been to both of those towns a few weeks before, but I had not seen any big stones. It seemed that people writing on the internet wanted to keep its location a secret. I even downloaded a runestones database in an attempt to gain more clues. I could find a picture of the ruin, but no directions as to how to find it. Eventually I found one page saying that it was about 500m along a road heading to Tving (I love that name!) from the E22 highway. Well that was close enough for me. Armed with that information, I set out to find it.
To get there, I was going to have to go back to the place where I went the wrong way along Gärestads Bygata a few weeks before.
Here are some of the trees which had turned bare with Autumn in full swing at the Hamnvägen crossing in eastern Ronneby. Here are the trees viewed from Pilfinksvägen. I had taken a similar photo on the Yxnarum journey. You may be able to see that the trees are barer and less green in this photo. Upon reaching the spot where I had turned around the previous time, this time I pressed on. I followed Gärestads Bygata around, and then turned at Hamrabacksvägen. Just before this road passed under the E22, I passed a man with a large rifle. He was out shooting something. First rifle I'd seen in Sweden. Just on the other side of the underpass, there was a guy in a tractor doing some major work on this field.
From there, I took Edestadsvägen on my journey northeast. The roads up here were quite deserted in comparison to Gärestadsvägen, which I was thankful for. Here are some of the green fields
and here is a whole lot of hay.
Eventually I reached the western entrance of Edestad, complete with a familiar blue sign.
A few internet sites had mentioned the church at Edestad. Well, this is it. The cemetery is off to the right. The thing which most caught my eye, however, was this structure on the other side of the road, opposite the church. It only seemed to have one small entrance, and although it was quite tall, it didn't look like it could hold very much. If anyone has information on what it is, I would be most grateful.
Here is another view of it, from further back.
Eventually, I reached Tvingvägen, but quite a distance north of where the Björketorp stone would be. Turning left, and heading north, I came across this brilliant specimen on the side of the road. It almost looks like one from the Smurfs.
A little further on, I saw this information booth. It says Hjortsberga gravfält (something like Deer's Rock gravefield). It's part of something called Johannishusåsen (Johannishus Ridge), a huge nature reserve. This was one of its many attractions.
Strangely enough, there was another of those pointed wooden structures nearby.
Here it is from a different angle. It's quite near to the railway crossing.
Here are some of the very sparsely placed trees. And here is Hjortsberga church, again just opposite the pointy wooden structure.
Continuing along, I came to the town of Johannishus. It would be in the list of the ten largest towns in Ronneby Kommun, but it is much smaller than Kallinge. It was fairly quiet, but I did meet some horses along the side of Listerbyvägen. One at the front even has a cute blanky on. Unfortunately, I think I caught the one at the back at an inconvenient moment.
Johannishus is large enough to qualify for its own ICA store. I sat at the bus stop outside of it and ate my pre-packed lunch. Well, I had seen Johannishus. It was time to find the Björketorp stone. And I needed to hurry, as it was the first day of non-daylight savings, so I had an hour less of afternoon sun.
Here's the "you are now leaving Johannishus" sign, and the sign for the almost nonexistent village of Djurtorp (Animal Croft) in the background. Animal is right. Here is a cat, chasing something just by the side of Johannishusvägen. I tried to reach Tvingvägen again from the E22. However, there is no bike lane on the north side of the road, so I had to find another way. The road I ended up taking is not named on Google or Eniro maps, so I can't give you a name. It was more of a trail than a road, running behind a few barns. I did however see yet another one of these structures. They resemble an umpire's chair in a tennis match. I've seen a few around in different places, but I don't know what their purpose is. Again, if anyone has info, please let me know as it has been puzzling me. Eventually I made it to Tvingvägen, but I believed I was still too far north. So I headed south towards the E22. I found a sign pointing to Björketorp, so I knew I was close to the target. I however made the stupid move of following the sign. It points to the town, not the stone.After riding around on the bumpy roads there for a while, seeing sights such as this one of something being covered by a huge sheet weighted down by tyres, I realised I was in the wrong place. So, I yet again returned to Tvingvägen and headed further south. Eventually, success! Here's the information booth for the Björketorp stone, with a handy box full of brochures.
Here's an information sign about the stone and the surrounding ruins.
And now, ROCKS!
The main attraction is a set of three menhirs. Only one of them is marked with writings, from around 700AD. There are numerous translations of its meaning, but most say it is a curse. There are legends of a man who tried to move the stones as they were preventing him from farming that area. He was apparently subsequently stuck dead by lightning. Believe it...or not.
Thisis the one with writing, on the side which has the most writing. And a closeup of the writing.
Here is the only writing on the other side of that stone. Here are all three stones.
Here's me in front of the one with writing. Just near the set of three, there is this line of smaller stones.
A view of the area from a distance.
Another one of me.
In addition, there is this set of seven stones arranged neatly in a circle formation just to the east of the other stones.
And here you may just be able to make out the three menhirs in the distance, as seen from the circle of seven.
My last stop before heading home again back the same way I had come was the "Ishällen" or Ice Slab. However I'm not sure why it's called that. It's about 100m north of the Björketorp stone, and is a huge, fairly flat rock in the middle of the forest. Here is a closeup of some of the plant life growing in the puddles on the slab.
And finally, this is one side of the slab, looking back toward Tvingvägen.