Danska Falls Naturreservat

Danska Falls Naturreservat is located in the wooded inland of the municipality of Halmstad in the southwest of Sweden and is a popular tourist destination in the region due to the rapids and the waterfall Danska Fall along the river Assman.

The nature reserve covers an area of around 70 hectares and is characterised by old beech forests with individually interspersed oaks and a change between flat mountain ranges and small gorges. Most of the trees are over a hundred years old and the forest has long been untouched by human intervention. Therefore, there is plenty of dead wood in the form of fallen and dead trees, which are the ideal habitat for numerous wood-loving insects and for the woodpeckers who eat them.

The diversity of species in the nature reserve

The entire nature reserve is home to a great variety of species of birds, fish, insects, green plants, fungi, mosses and lichens. The beech forest in particular is rich in endangered and rare lichens, such as elf ears (Normandina pulchella).

Along the river there are Old World flycatchers or grey wagtails (Motacilla cinerea) and at the rapids there are white-throated dippers (Cinclus cinclus) diving for water insects. The river itself is populated by numerous trout, which feed on the intact fauna at the bottom of the riverbed. On its way to the lake Brearedssjön on the northern side of the nature reserve, the river forms a mosaic-like water landscape with numerous ramifications between cliffs and rocks, which looks like a miniature archipelago.

The waterfall Danska Fall

The majority of visitors are attracted to the nature reserve mainly because of the waterfall, which is a few hundred metres upstream from the lake Brearedssjön. In this part, the water of the river flows through a narrow gorge with steep rock walls, which looks like a small canyon. The water flows over several wild rapids and the Danska Fall waterfall, where the river Assman falls from a height of 36 metres.

To get to the Danska Fall on the shortest way, there is a gravel path of about one kilometre, which can also be used by prams. It starts at the parking lot and leads directly to the waterfall. For a more extensive walk, there is a 2.5-kilometre-long circular trail that leads through all areas of the nature reserve.

The name Danska Fall is based on a dark story that is said to have happened in August 1676, towards the end of the Scanian War. After the devastating defeat in the Battle of Fyllebro at the gates of Halmstad, a scattered troop of Danish soldiers fled to the forest near Simlångsdalen. They were tracked down by a Swedish unit and fled over a rotten bridge leading over the waterfall. The bridge collapsed under the weight of the soldiers and pulled several Danes to their wet deaths in the foaming waters of the waterfall.