May 11, 2024
Park in the parking lot for Gårdlösaleden by the highway to Simrishamn east of Smedstorp. The trail heads north. There is a sign at a tree to an ancient burial ground with two stone ships. Take a detour there. Then head north past a farm and limestone quarries. Was there in 2015 (see below), today sloe and cherry trees are blooming. A group warns that the path up the ridge is steep. There is a rope to hold on to. Arrive at the river and the remains of the lime kiln. Last time some hepatica bloomed on it, this year cowslips are blooming. Continue on the trail over the highway and toListarumsåsen. Walk through beautiful beech forest. Turn around and hike back. Before the parking lot we go up the ridge Alnabjär to the west. Up there is the remains of a stone ship. Drive to Sankt Olof, coffee and cake on Byvägen 35.

About the stone ships:
Gårdlösa gravfält
Alnabjär

March 22, 2015
In the limestone quarries there may be up to ten feet long fossil of ordoceratiter, an octopus who lived during the Ordovician of about 450 million years ago. When the sea was 30-40 meter deep here. Have no expectation of finding such fossils as we exit the car in the parking to Listarum Ridge Nature Reserve on the road between Smedstorp and St. Olaf.

Following Gårdlösa trail east. A stile leads into an enclosed field. Between two stone walls into the woods. Many Yellow Star-of-Bethlehem who is about to bloom. There is the ruin of a lime kiln. At that grows hepatica, they are not really blooming yet. On the bridge over a river, past a picnic area and on the ridge above a pond. Appearing on a grass road, after a short distance is a stile in a pasture. A sign informs that in there is a disbanded limestone quarry. The limestone was broken and carted to Ignaberga to become cement.

A great quarry and a little smaller. Take lunch at the lesser. In the great quarry are steep sides. Looking for fossils in among the rocks on a ledge. On the one side you can with little trouble getting down. Slide among the loose stones. Looking for fossils in them. Find nothing. It's beautiful down there. In the eastern part is a narrow gauge with remnants of a railway where the stone was transported out. Go up and continues the grass road south to a small quarry, Kalvahagen quarry.

Not so much, a pile, a body of water and a wall. Goes back to the big quarry to locate another limestone quarry, follows the remains of the narrow gauge railway to the east. The rails remain. Halt at a house. Do not want to cross the house, go back, crossing a pasture, step over a fence into a field. Take a short cut across the field to the dams north of the house. The ponds are remnants of a limestone quarry. Stone shards cover the beaches. Looking again after fossils, twist and turn stone pieces. Perhaps? In any case, the idea boggles the mind that there may be remains of animals that lived in the sea 450 million years ago. Goes back, Coffee at the lime kiln.

Map