There are a few reasonably “safe” spaces for people to hang out at now that we’re supposed to stay away from each other for the sake of everyone’s health - nature being one of them. Of course that only works if not “everyone” picks the same spot in nature to visit at the same time…which is what it felt like a few weekends ago when I went to the Söderåsen National Park in central Skåne, a very scenic area.
It doesn’t show in these pictures, because I made a conscious effort not to show how crowded the picnic areas or trails were, but man…don’t go to places like this on a Sunday with good weather if you want to be away from other people (I already knew that of course, but the weather was just too nice to sit inside and the urge to photograph just too strong).
Anywho, this national park was set up to protect the unique landscape with several steep rift valleys that cut deep trenches into the landscape. People say that the Skåne province is flat as a pancake, but that is definitely not true in general, and definitely not in this place! The talus slopes are very steep and it’d be a challenge to try and climb several of them (I have no inclination to ever try that).
My fellow walkers (i.e. mom and dad) and I decided to walk along one of the paths set up at the bottom of one valley, following the water that lead into the pond near the visitors’ center. It was a pretty gentle walk and we got to see lots of the amazing nature scenes, including several animals I didn’t think I’d get to see (usually animals are rightly cautious of being near us humans).
Apparently there’s a purseweb spider population (Sweden’s only tarantula apparently) that thrives on the steep talus slopes of the rift valleys, but I didn’t see one of those…which I think was for the best since mom’s quite the arachnophobe…
Here be spiders? If there are, I didn’t see any…
A grass snake doing a far too good (in my opinion) job at camouflaging itself (at the center of the frame).
Little wood mouse surveying its domain.
A “slowworm” crossing the path (it’s actually a lizard, even though it doesn’t have any legs).
Whooper swans (which are fairly uncommon around here. We have lots of mute swans though.)
We did our walk and after the memory cards and roll of film in my Kiev 60 were full enough we had our packed lunch at the rest area (surprisingly enough it was possible to nab a table even with so many people at the park). I couldn’t help noticing that so many people seemed pretty oblivious to the fact that it’s a good idea to separate yourselves from each other (if you’re not part of the same family). I do hope that in a few weeks’ time we won’t have a second outbreak, just because people “had to” to hang out too close to each other in nature, now that the weather is nice.
An information folder for the park (which I strongly recommend anyone to visit) can be found at http://www.nationalparksofsweden.se/globalassets/soderasen/textsida-ovriga/folder_hela_eng.pdf