Spending a weekend with female adventurers at Ängsö nature reserve

   Rania

 I leave early on a Friday morning and after spending most of my day on a train I arrive to a hot, sunny afternoon in Västerås. It’s just me and my 25l backpack – I decided to travel light and minimalistic. Letting unnecessary stuff make way for experiences. I meet up with Boel at the station and then Angeliqa picks us up. In her little white car we burn through the streets to leave the city life behind us.

Around thirty minutes later we find ourselves on the little island of Ängsö nature reserve.

We are three of the ambassadors for the female adventurers, a campaign brought together by Vandringsbloggen and Morakniv to inspire more women to head out in nature and this weekend is organized by them. There we are, standing on the cliffs overlooking the sea and the view is breathtaking. More women, adventurers and friends joined us later and this entire weekend turned out to be very special and I will forever treasure it dearly.

I join different workshops; Sanna Rosell talks about how to write about your adventures and Buschcraft Sweden teaches us all about how to make a fire and hone our knifes. In between we sit down to whittle and drink coffee, we hike and laugh and take photos and it is all oh so wonderful.

The evenings are spent with golden sunsets, late night skinny dipping, BBQ and magical skies. We laugh and sing and as the nights grow darker we make a fire, put candles on the table and drink wine and all the while bats are chasing insects above our heads.

It’s all a blur, time flies by and suddenly it’s Sunday. We hug each other tightly, say our good byes and I get on the train headed home. Nothing feeds my adventurous soul like realizing that I have dirt under my nails, pieces of forest in my hair and the smell of smoke still present in my clothes.

Beautiful Ida and her Luna. They have matching hair and eyes, it’s so amazing! Last time I met Ida was a year ago amongst the mountains of Åre and Luna was away so it was nice to finally meet her  – and wonderful to meet Ida again!

Boel, Angeliqa, Sofie and myself feeling happy and free in the wonderful sunset.

Boel went for a swim, the first for this season. It seemed cold but lovely and once she was up her face was shining with pure joy, it was wonderful to see. Later that night, as the fire crackled and we’d had a few glasses of wine she sang one of her songs to us and I got goosebumps right away.

The moon had replaced the golden sun, the candles flickered on the table and all was silent except her wonderful voice echoing in the night.

Sofia capturing that amazing sky, it’s nice that photography helps us capture and store moments like these.