I had thought of going to Omberg for a while. But the bus stop that deserved the park only saw two busses a day and not on weekends.
I checked the other bus stops around to see if anyone had busses, and to my great surprise, Hästholmen (3kms away) had a bus almost every hour from Mjölby, the nearest train station, on Fridays and 4 buses on the weekend!
I was longing for more nature so when I saw that Thursday, I thought “why not?” I hadn’t decided yet when to leave, would it be Friday or Saturday, how long would I stay? That didn’t prevent me from packing my tent, my sleeping bag, first aid kit and all I thought I would need.
I had a late lunch planned on Friday but as my work progressed swiftly, I decided to set sail after that. After lunch, I stopped at a supermarket to buy enough food for 2.5 days, thinking I’d be back Sunday evening at the latest. I had seen fireplaces but I wasn’t sure if there were a grill, I decided to bring only vegetables that didn’t need to be cooked.
Friday evening
I waited for the first train after 17.00 as I could buy a non-peak hour ticket and I wasn’t in a hurry. After 20 minutes of train, I arrived in Mjölby and took bus 665 toward Hästholmen. I drowse off a bit during the 45 minutes of bus ride but it was smooth and the view nice. Unfortunately, my phone wasn’t fully charged and there were no outlets on the bus.
Once in Hästholmen, I walked along Östergoleden, a long path crossing all the region, toward Omberg. I didn’t stop at the first shelter because a friend had told me the second one was nicer. Around 5kms later, I arrived. I was surprised to see so many people on a Friday evening with not such great weather but parking was just nearby. After a nice dinner and set up my tent, I went to look at the waves hitting the rocks in front of a magnificent sunset.
Saturday
As I was folding my tent, I saw two Swedish women go into the water. Mind that, it was about 17 C outside and the sun was not yet on our campsite.
At Stocklycke, a few minutes after the campsite, I got a map of the park and decided on a whim to try to do the Omberg runt (circa 25 km). The path was sometimes quite steep, I had to avoid crossing in the middle of a cow herd, climb some ladders on the way, and go over big tree trunks fallen over. Quite an adventure!
After a windy lunch at Borghamn strand, I got back on the trail. The last few kilometres were hard, between the mosquitoes and my legs starting to feel very sore.
But I made it all the way to the bus stop and got back to Linköping.
I would definitely recommend visiting Omberg and maybe doing one of the shorter paths but strongly advise against doing the Omberg runt with something else than a day-pack, or doing it in two days.
