“Enjoy a mixture of history and horse racing as our walk takes us through the glorious Coverdale countryside to the pretty and interesting Coverham Church. After lunch we will return over the famous High Moor Gallops to Middleham with the opportunity to view the ‘Middleham Jewel’ as we complete our walk.”
This morning I met up with my friend Lynne (dovegreyreader) in Ashburton. It’s our regular annual get-together which some years includes hikes on Dartmoor and others lunch or coffee and a natter at one of our favourite places in Ashburton – Moorish. We sometimes swop a little gift and this time I’d brought a knitting pattern for Lynne; she had kindly brought me a knitting pattern and the yarn to go with it. So, after we’d said our goodbyes I cadged a lift into Bovey Tracey in order to visit Spin-A-Yarn to buy the relevant knitting needles and get started.
Most of our walk along the Österlen Way was along pretty level paths – always looking out for those orange route markers (sometimes just a dash of paint on a post) to confirm we were on the right track – mostly hugging the coastline but as we neared the end we had to pass through Stenshuvud National Park (Stenshuvud Naturrum). Here there were good facilities and plenty of printed information in English.
Day One
The most ‘commercial’ ancient monument along our route was the Ales Stenar preserved stone ship on the cliffs above Kåseberga harbour almost at the end of our first day’s walking. It is the largest preserved stone ship in Sweden and, on this occasion, we were not the only visitors. I say ‘commercial’ as there were probably about 20 other people on the site. There is no charge to view and the stones just sit there as they have for centuries (carbon 14 dating puts it at 500 – 1000 AD).
After a day of orientation in Ystad we began our walk along the Osterlen Way; a footpath along the southern coast of Sweden. Our section, which would take us 4 days of walking to cover the distance from Ystad to Kivik. Kivik is beyond Simrishamn. As with all my previous walking holidays we walked from hotel/B&B to hotel/B&B and our luggage was transported for us. The holiday is part of Macs Adventure‘s huge portfolio. Unlike with ATG we had no manager to meet us at the beginning and end and be at the end of the phone line in case of difficulties. Macs provide you with a local phone number and contact but you never actually meet that person. The walk notes are not as detailed as in the booklet supplied by ATG but were more or less sufficient for our needs. In a couple of places we found incorrect or contradictory advice between the notes and the map supplied but we managed to find the correct route (or at least a route that worked) for ourselves. I should say though that help and advice from the office in Glasgow, by telephone or by email, was very efficient, friendly and helpful. Continue reading
From what I saw on our visit to the southern end of the island of Bornholm it is in total contrast from the north and the dramatic situation of Hammershus. Here are sand dunes and pine woods and sandy beaches and paths. Also, here, for us, the sun shone!
Arriving at Rønne : Bornholm’s capital
It’s about a three hour sailing from the port near Sassnitz on Rügen to the Baltic island of Bornholm which is part of Denmark. I was very intrigued to visit and very pleased when QB suggested we add a stay there to our itinerary.
On our last day we had make the difficult decision as to what we would do and where we would go. We still had several “must-sees” on our list. In the end we settled on heading to the very northern tip of Rügen to visit two famous lighthouses and walk to the picturesque fishing village of Vitt. We would then drive and walk to a Neolithic burial ground (Nobbin). Travelling via the village of Altenkirchen we would then take the car Wittower car ferry over the Breetzer Bodden and finally visit the village of Gingst with its handicrafts museum, cafe and bookshop.
We caught the little road train from Putgarten to Cap Arkona
When we arrived on Rügen the first place we stopped at was Bergen. It’s about as central as you can get and one of the bigger towns. We were lucky to decide on the first cafe we came to and found it to be old-fashioned and characterful. Cafe Meyer
Day three’s walk included a boat trip to the island of Hiddensee. The ferry from Schaprode sails out to Neuendorf around midday and we were able to catch a return ferry from Kloster in the late afternoon.
Hiddensee is the long, thin strip of land to the west of the coast of Rügen
miladysboudoir 