Björnlandet Nationalpark and Lappstaden in Arvidsjaur

While driving back from Sarek we passed Arvidsjaur and stopped quickly at Lappstaden.
A Lappstad is a 'village' containing houses/tents (kåtor) near a church where the Sami people spent the night while visiting. A lappstad can also be referred to as 'Church town'. This one is the biggest and best kept in the world with its 80 houses/tents built in the late 1700s.
From here we drove even further south to a small national park called Björnlandet just outside of Frederika. We spent the night there camping after some shorter hikes, one being to the highest top in that area with an view point over the entire park.
It's a nice little park with very old forest. Some of the trees being over 450 years old. The terrain has lots of high cliffs which makes it rather inaccessible outside the paths. Something else interesting was the clear scars of several large fires in many of the old tree trunks.

Next blog -> Tatra mountain in Polen!
                                                                                                

Sapmi art

Lappstaden in Arvidsjaur

Storehouse, Lappstaden

Lappstaden

Björnlandet NP, A lot of tree lichen

Trace of wood fire

A very big larva, cossus cossus 80-100mm

Björnlandet NP

Evening light at Björnlandet NP

Road Trip in U.S, Los Angeles

Time for the pictures from the 'road trip' in The States.

Let's start at the beginning, the trip was to start and end in Los Angeles, so in total we would have two full days to explore it. Obviously iy's not enough, but hopefully this is not the last time.
It might feel odd, but I will show you pictures from both occations in this post.

When arriving we stayed on the south side of LA, close to the gorgeous Hermosa Beach. So of course the first day was spent walking along it, and just after a few minutes we saw both dolphins, pelicans and few surfers (not that unusual as you might suspect :) ) But actually the first day was just spent enjoyed the warm weather.
On our last day, we stayed at Santa Monica beach where the famous muscle beach is. Unfortunately we did not really see any 'proper' body boulders but people keep in shape! Everywhere you could see people running, cycling, walking, rollerskating along the beach promenade.
Of course we also saw parts of Hollywood and Beverly hills, but just because we needed to find/see the Hollywood sign :) and wow how small it is. Even if the houses were luxurious here, the beach property would be prefered (if I ever would have a choice)

When first arriving I thought that this would be a city for me, but when actually seeing the traffic, NO WAY!

Anyhow, this is few of the pictures from LA, and next is Yosemite where also the trip took us.

 

Santa Monica Pier

 

Muscle beach at Santa monica

Santa Monica Pier

Road Trip To Scotland (Part 2)

We had planned to have the whole day Saturday on the Isle of Skye, which is needed because even though the island is small it takes time to drive around in order to see all the interesting stuff. We did the round trip starting along the east coast towards the north and then down along the west coast.

Along that stretch were 5 top tourist attractions;
- Old Man of Storr, which is known for its weirdly shaped rock pinnacles. But here we just took photos from far way, because we wanted to hike at the next place...
- Quiraing. Here we stopped for a couple of hours to go hike along the pillars and the mountains. The view from here was amazing.
Unfortunately one of the places that we missed after Quiraing was Kilt Rock. We were relying on mobiles a bit to much, and we actually didn't have connection at all except crappy one during lunch on wifi at a pub.
We had a map reader (me) but he missed it ;))
- Anyhow, next stop was Coral Beach, which despite its name is not actually coral but pieces of dessicated and sun-bleached algae's. This is the only "nice" beach on Skye, but who wants to swim here when the average temperature during summer is +14C and approx. the same in air :))
- Just before Coral beach there is a castle Dunvegan, which we also visited. Very nicely located at the sea and have amazing gardens.

Now, it was late afternoon and we had one more visit left 


- Neist Point, which is a lighthouse at the tip of the west side of Skye. Very cool too.
From here you can see the outer Hebrides, which are the last stop before Greenland and Alaska. We stayed here to watch the sunset and again got disappointed when it disappeared behind the clouds.

So that was our day, and now the only thing that remained was to drive back to the hostel and dinner.

To see and do everything should on Skye, you need at least a week. We now just drove around most of the time. There is still so much more to do here, like hiking, fishing, scouting for wildlife as otters, sharks, dolphins, orcas and a lot of birds.

Quiraing

Quiraing

Quiraing

Do u see me on the top the rock formation ;)

Coral Beach

The Old Man of Storr

Neist Point

Neist Point

The Black Cuillin hills

Black Cuillins in the distance

Road Trip To Scotland (Part 1)

Last Thursday (skärtorsdagen) after that wife and a friend finished the work for the day, we started with our trip to Scotland. 
Not drive all the way to the Isle of Skye (which was our most northen destination) but stay the first night at the Lake District NP, to then early on Friday morning drive the last long stretch.
The journey from Sheffield to Skye took about 12hr, but as we slept in the Lake District we only had 8-9h driving on Friday.
The long drive didn't matter as the sceneries were breath taking. Passing through among others the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs NP. The journey goes through valleys and mountain, and sometimes it was down to sea ​​and then again up the mountains. Amazing!
On the mountains the snow was very nicely placed just on the highest peaks, and the weather was beautiful with sunshine and just few degrees above zero.
We arrived to Skye in the afternoon, and as our first stop was Talisker Whisky distellery for a guided tour. Maybe not one of my favorites, as its one of the smokier whiskey on the market, but still a lot of fun to see how its made.

We just had few hours before the sunset which we spent on the southwestern parts of the island. The roads are very very narrow in some places, but as there very little to no traffic it was still fine driving there. Plan was to take sunset-pictures, but unfortunately it was not as nice as it could be.
The trip for the day ended at the hostel after a fine spanish meal :))

Kirkstone Pass, Lake District NP

Ullswater, Lake District NP

Loch Lomond NP

Loch Lomond NP

Highlands

Highlands

Royal Forest, Three Sisters

Isle of Skye west coast (achnacloich)

Achnacloich