Adventurous Dutchies dare to go off road

Who dares to go off road: camp and make new paths in the beautiful wilderness near Furudal? Hanna and Atse from Holland wanted to hike in Sweden anyway and took up the challenge. Hanna has already some sweet memories of the Swedish forest, but Atse hiked more in the southern mountains like the Pyrenees. Last Saturday we picked them up from the train in Rättvik. They had an interesting trip, because they had landed on Stockholms Skavska airport instead of Stockholm Arlanda and somehow had to catch their train to Rättvik on time. But they concentrated very well on taking all the right busses, ran for it and made it exactly on time. They picked a spot near our forest to camp and we had tea with Dutch stroopwafels (a flat syrup waffle/cookie) before we all went to bed.
Atse made some tea on their cooker the next morning. Unfortunately their pan left black flakes behind in the water, so he was so kind as to filter the water through pants into the cup. Well, it tasted a bit like washed pants, but we didn’t tell them. They bought polarbread and looked at the maps of the area we would love them to explore. After three days of hiking we will bring the canoe to one of the lakes, some fresh food and: a cold beer.

They are hiking through an area of which we know is really wonderful, wild (in the meaning of: you might meet bears, eagles and wolves) and a little mysteriously. There’s a deserted village with a graveyard, remains of Vikings, remains of the last wolveshunter in the area and many lakes which are connected to each other. Since there is no path like the Siljansleden and you easily get lost without a map and compass, our goal is to make this special area more accessible for hiking and camping, in the sense that you don’t have to walk for hours on a gravel road.
Of course we wouldn’t have invited Atse and Hanna if we were not sure it really is a special place. We already love to go there and enjoy it’s wild rivers, lakes, canoeing, berries, the mysterious village, deserted summerfarms and the possibility to see wild animals. Our Dutchies surely find some routes and new things to do. Well, they are writing a blog about their trip, so you’ll soon be able to read their story on our website. The main question will be, will Atse be able to use his Discovery-channel survival skills, we hope to read it in their blog!

A short update: They survived thunder and lightning last night. This morning they started late, because their cooker didn’t work. Willem brought a new one and today they hiked as planned and are camping near a lake. Since they are exploring new paths, we will help them out now and then, because the main goal is that they have a great holiday. The weather? Warm, maybe a little rain tonight. So far so good. So mums and dads no worries!