Tyresta National Park

A visit to the Tyresta National Park. Been a while since I was last there. I came by bicycle, of course. Parked it at a couple of different places during my visit and went for a walk near the old village. Great colors everywhere. It was a bit cold. The idea was to head into Stockholm, which I told a friend about when we met out on the road, but I realized that it was a bit too chilly for a long ride, and you can never go wrong with the National Park.

Farm Houses

Two more photos from the old village at the Tyresta national Park in Haninge. Before the pandemic hit I used to visit the different exhibitions and what have you that used to take place in the Dahlgren farm house which you can see in the top photo. These days I do as the people seen here, I usually sit in the warming sunshine enjoying a bite to eat. The second photo shows the Jansson farm house on the top of the hill overlooking the little village. Today it is the caretakers office building. The flagpole is a mobile mast in disguise btw.

A visit to the national park

These photos and the one in yesterdays post are all from the Tyresta National Park that I visited earlier in the week. There are several old farm houses at the little village at Tyresta as well as a working farm. Ever since the start of the pandemic the national park has seen a lot of new visitors which is great I think. It is a unique park as it is so close to Stockholm, if you drive it is just 30 minutes away from the nations Capitol. I bike here and that takes me around 45 minutes one-way. On this visit I decided to walk over to the bird-watching tower.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Naturum

A naturum is a visitor center with activities and exhibitions, located at several of Sweden’s national parks and nature reserves. This is the naturum at the Tyresta National Park. Snapped this one earlier in the week. www.swedishepa.se/Enjoying-nature/Protected-areas/Naturum/

To Autumn

The road to the Tyresta national park yesterday afternoon.

Tyresta National Park

A couple of photos from a recent visit to the Tyresta National Park. The bird tower is newish, built maybe a decade ago. From up there you have a good view of the wetland. If you look to your left you can see the working farm at the old Tyresta village. The house on the hill is another old farmhouse, Erikssongården, today the headquarter for the caretaker at the National Park. The cows were in a pasture on that hill.

The old road

This is the old road to Tyresta, up ahead you can see a building at the village where you today can buy a cup of coffee or visit the farm if you are so inclined. On your way to the village you will pass by the bootlegger's place which is the second photo. Ninety years ago the infamous bootlegger/Olympic footballer Algoth Niska had his headquarters at the Lillgården farm house here. He spent several years in prison, both in Sweden and Finland. In 1938 he began smuggling Jewish refugees out of Germany to Finland. He died in 1953 from a brain tumour. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algoth_Niska

Chewing The Cud

Cows hard at work at Tyresta national park. Info in English about the national park can be found here. Tyresta is located just 20km from Stockholm so it is very accessible for anyone visiting the nations capital.

Farm House

October started with a bike ride to the national park, Tyresta. It wasn't planned, but as a cafe where I were supposed to meet two friends were closed we decided to meet up at the old village in the national park where there is a popular cafe. This building is known as Dahlgrensgården. It has been moved to it's current position, but I don't know when that happened. History tells us that the village was established just over 700 years ago. If you want to learn more about the national park follow this link.

No Sign of The Big Bad Wolf

There's been a lot of press coverage this Summer of a, (Norwegian), wolf that has been seen in this area. And even a Facebook group for the sightings. As you can probably guess some people have gone ballistic. Politicians in both Haninge and Tyresö have asked to have the animal put down. Concerned parents that have seen the wolf in their garden were afraid that the wolf would eat their little ones. It feels like there's a new wolf story every day. What we do know for a fact is that the wolf killed a sheep in this pasture a while back. This is in the Tyresta national park and they asked for money to set up a better fence two years ago, but as no one had ever seen a wolf here back then, they were refused that funding. Chances are that they will get that money now. No sign of the wolf during my stakeout at the pasture earlier yesterday.

Blowin' In The Wind

Visited the newly restored, (for the worse), cafe at the Tyresta National Park yesterday. A fine Summer day. Took a few snaps in the old village and then while cycling home I stopped by this wheat-field also belonging to the park for a close-up photo using my new Yongnuo 35mm lens.

A visit to the national park

Earlier in the week, before the cold took hold of me, I visited the Tyresta national park. I walked over to the newish bird tower, for a bit of bird spotting. All I could report in the visitors log was Canada Goose and a few different types of ducks. To get to the tower you have to walk through a muddy pasture filled with chillin' cows. I did another stop at a horse pasture and took a close-up of a "mule", or snout as it is called in English. For a larger view of the panorama head over to flickr. All the animals lives in the working farm that you can see to the left in the panorama.

Fence & Rooster

No real inspiration for photography at the moment. And I do of course blame the weather for that. One day it's 7C and a blueish sky. The next it's freezing and snowing again. Yesterday was an in-between day so I took the bike to the Tyresta national park. This is a fence called Hankgärdesgård, this type of roundpole fence dates back to the Viking era a Millennium ago. It's a few photos stitched together, shot with the nifty fifty to get that shallow depth of field. The buildings in the background belong to the old village. They are a few centuries old, there's a working farm there and that's where I met the rooster.

The Duck Man

This is the Duck Man. His real name is Åke. You can find him at Lake Bylsjön most every day, year round, feeding the ducks. It's a 7.5 km walk to the lake at the Tyresta national park from his home in Brandbergen, so he gets a good workout during his daily promenades. Today he thanked global warming for the fine weather. And it has been an unusually warm Autumn this year. We talked for a bit about cycling and digital cameras. Åke was considering buying an electrical bike and I told him about my two singlespeed fixie bikes.

Autumn Colors

Bike ride to the Tyresta National Park earlier in the week. Sunny, and around 17C. No real signs of Autumn until I walked down towards the new bird watching tower.

Nyckelharpa

Another photo from the folk music festival at the Tyresta village on Sunday. There he was all alone in the Dahlgrensgården building. Playing his chordophone for no one but himself, so I sat down and listened to him play a tune. Oh, and nice socks.

Folk Music Festival

There's a folk music festival at the old village in the Tyresta National Park every Summer. The Swedish name for such an event is Spelmansstämma. Not really my thing, and it has always collided with a few other more interesting events, but not this year so I jumped on the steel horse, stopped in Handen to ask a friend to tag along and off we went. We arrived at 1300 hours just minutes before the event started. I counted a few hundred people including a few familiar faces. It was very hot and sunny and we found the warmest cafe table and enjoyed a sandwich and some coffee as we started shooting. After the coffee we strolled around listening to all the music. The musicians probably had the most fun. They walked around with their instruments ready and formed new groups all afternoon. At one time I heard at least three different folk songs from three different directions! More photos tomorrow when I'm done with the editing.

Shaun the Sheep

It will cost you 3600SEK to take Shaun home. Not very cheap at all. Found it outside the cafeteria in the Tyresta village in the national park yesterday.