Trip 42 — Fasta Åland Walk

Day 7: Havsvidden to Saltvik via Pettböle and Toböle
Wednesday, 26 June 2024

Today: 48843 steps/38.89 km/24.17 mi/6h 54m
Total: 240731 steps/191.24 km/118.83 mi/34h 46m

Today's first 7½ kilometers were the easy road from Havsvidden to Route 4. Much of it went through forest, and the resultant shade and the light breeze kept the fly count down and my pace up. Birds cheered me on, and butterflies were the prettiest of the insects. The wildflowers smelled sweet, almost like cinnamon. I wouldn't have minded this all day.

I turned onto Route 4 opposite the Sadelinleden's trailhead. If I was lucky, I wouldn't be on the fast road for more than about 20 minutes: I hoped to cut through a hill just above a lake opposite the Grannas Äppel restaurant and continue east. If I couldn't find a way through, I'd have to go an extra hour, past Grannas Äppel and around the lake — half of which I'd already walked, on the way to Kroklund.

There were two chances to cut across the hill: two separate tracks that fizzled into brush and forest and people's property. That last element made me the most uneasy. In Geta I was up against — or cooperating with — nature, and I could reroute wherever I pleased. Here I had to do it without disturbing anyone.

The first track started easily, somewhat overgrown but navigable. I was soon scared away by a "Private way" sign, however. I turned around and continued a few more minutes along Route 4.

The second track started much the same way, and I expected to encounter a similar sign, but there was none. The brush became higher but still penetrable. I approached a yard opposite a red house on my left. If I could get past the yard, I'd be in the forest, and then I was pretty sure I could find a way up to the road on the other side.

The grass and other vegetation were as tall as I was. On my right was the tip of the lake. I stepped carefully for about three muddy paces and then continued across rocks. The vegetation remained high, and I felt the pain of stinging nettles. I pressed on; I had only to clear about 30 seconds of this and then I was in the forest.

Coming up through the forest was easy, and I reached the dirt road that soon delivered me to the paved road. There were vast fields of green and yellow, and a herd of cattle were sleeping in the midday heat. Near the houses of Stålsby, I found the windmill open, accessible by a ladder.

The windmill was built in 1884 by a carpenter in Jomala, the principality just above Mariehamn. After 112 years, it was moved by a crane to its current position, and replacement parts were built by the nearly 90-year-old father of one of the new owners. I seem to have been the first New Yorker to sign the guestbook, although the mill had been visited by people from Colorado, Virginia, and California, as well as about 30 other countries.

Taking the shortcut had been especially vital, because I was due to meet with a reporter and a photographer from the Ålandstidningen at a cafe at 1 p.m. They had been informed about my walk by one of the people I'd meet at Djurviks Gästgård. They found me on the road just short of the cafe a couple of minutes before the appointed time.

The cafe was in a tiny, old building. Before we started, I used the latrine, a raised wooden seat in a larger building. I'd never been pushed to aim so high. Perhaps the latrine was telling me something.

"We just got the door today," said the woman who was helping us. She wasn't sure whether the latch worked, but everyone agreed not to open the new door before I emerged.

She was, it turned out, someone the photographer had worked with before, in a secondhand store. She was the sister of the cafe's owner, who was also a colleague of the photographer; they worked together at the newspaper.

"Everyone in Åland knows everybody else," the photographer said. I had learned the same from Helena Halme's book. "When you meet someone here, the usual greeting is, 'Who's your father?'"

I explained my challenge in taking the earlier shortcut. "I want to make sure I don't bother anyone or go on their property," I said.

"Well, actually, we have something in Finland called allemansrätt," the reporter said. It means the right to roam. "You're allowed to walk on private land as long as you don't go near their houses."

"Like in Scotland?" I said. "You can go through people's fields and over their gates as long as you don't disturb their animals or privacy."

"Yes, it's the same here," he said.

A question was, would they know I knew that? Did that "Private way" sign have any validity?

I had a sandwich with the cafe's fresh garden vegetables while we talked, and then the photographer took some shots. She had visited the United States and loved New York — not so much Houston, where she had gotten her degree. There's certainly no right to roam in Texas!

I continued up the road for another five kilometers. Having gone four for four in my unknowns, I aimed for a fifth. If I took this road until it crossed the little river known as the Verkströmmen, just beyond the lake called Inre Verkviken, perhaps I could find a way up Åland's second-highest mountain (a whopping 114 meters), and then I could come down toward Saltvik on the other side.

Inre Verkviken was popular with swimmers, and the lake sparkled on this hot, cloudless day. A few people were boating or fishing from the shore.

I could see as I approached that if there was any way up the mountain, it was soon after the river crossing; after that the road came down under the cliff. I crossed the river and ascended the dirt road. I found a couple of candidates for places to go up the mountain; the likelier one had a few stepping stones to the first tier of boulders. But I couldn't see an obvious way to go after that, and how many tiers were there before I could strut across the mountaintop?

I conceded that the possibility of getting stuck or having to do a difficult retracing was too great. Furthermore, my shins were still recovering from the stinging nettles. At least I had come up this bulge of land at all, a significant one for Abecedarian Walks purposes. I walked back the five kilometers to the cafe, and then I turned onto Route 50 for the final hour and a half to Saltvik, briefly enjoying the scent of mown grass as I followed a lawn mower.

This last hour and a half was a frustrating one: more fast, albeit sparse, traffic with no shoulder, and the same red buildings and neatly planted vegetation. I wanted a break but all the bus shelters with benches were on the opposite side of the road, and I couldn't be bothered to take the extra steps.

Considering the Saltvik B&B's reply rate — they answered me two days after I left Mariehamn, saying I could pay with a credit card, which was a significant improvement over the three-month delay when I requested a reservation — they have a solid business going on. There's no restaurant in Saltvik, but the cafe at the B&B has to-go meals, pastries, and ice cream until 9 p.m., and that's not even the same as lunch, which is in a separate building.

The sleeping rooms themselves are in yet another building, and, like Paradiset, the place evokes another time, but in a different way. I've been typing this update on the balcony to the faint scent of farm animals. A bird and a dog are doing some evening scolding. One of the staff drives a pink Cadillac Coupe de Ville from about 1965.

They have one of those old wooden classroom desks where the chair is attached and you lift the lid and put your books inside. I tried writing this update there, but my phone's screen didn't respond to the chalk.

Go on to day 8