Baltic Sea Circle Day 10
Having just crossed the Arctic circle, there were a few hours of relative darkness during the night. More like a prolonged dusk. I struggled to wake up that morning, but Gem had had a restless night. We were still sleepy as we packed up and left the campsite, I drove first and we headed in the direction of Oulu, the host of the World Air Guitar Championships.
The roads were long and straight, lined with forests and beautiful pink and purple flowers. As we were leaving Lapland there were now fewer reindeer and elk, and the landscape turned to farmland and forestry. Every so often there would be huge piles of logs stacked up ready to be loaded onto trucks. We kept ourselves going with sweets and crisps, not the healthiest but they were easy to eat as we motored along, and sipped from our water bottles at regular intervals to keep us hydrated as the day heated up.
We got to Oulu and headed for what looked like a little beach, down the end of a residential road. We parked up and got out, stretching our legs and backs for a moment before grabbing our hats and water to stroll down to the sand. Locals were swimming and diving off a platform, enjoying the heatwave on the north coast of the Baltic Sea. We headed out along a stone breakwater sheltering a small marina and took in the sight of the flat calm sea and the industrial town in the background.
After our rest we headed back to the Porsche and set our sights for the next waypoint, near lake Kolima. We stopped at a Finnish service station that had a small supermarket and stocked up on crisps and mineral water, keeping our eye out for more spicy cheese nik nacs but they must be a Swedish delicacy as we had to settle for a Wotsit type sour cream and chive type. We were becoming European crisp experts. Gemma had spotted another lakeside beach on Google maps and we found ourselves on a dirt track, winding amongst the trees wondering if this was the right place and even if it had parking at the end. Eventually we saw a blue P sign and a few cars parked. We made a quick sandwich before heading down to the sand, where the clear brownish water was lapping. Gemma had a paddle in the cold water, a relief from the heat of the day. This seemed a favourite place for locals too as there were kids and parents cooking off in the water. Finland really does love wild swimming and I don’t blame them, with 188,000 lakes on their doorstep it’s easy to see why.
Gemma entertained me as she struggled to get out of the sandy bottomed lake, while trying to put her flipflops on. I helped her in the end. With feet dried we went back to our drive south and plotted a course for another 90 minute drive. We’d been using a great app to find campsites and wild camping spots and had a few candidates for tonight depending on how much energy we had. The middle option seemed best for today and we found ourselves driving off the main highway and into a small village. The locals did stare as they saw our low slung sports car with roof tent rumbling over their speed bumps. We found our campsite on the other side of the village in an area of pine wood between two lakes. After a short hand waving chat to the campsite owner, who spoke no English, we agreed a price and where we could park. We set up the tent and noticed one of the roof rack feet looking a bit loose, so got out the toolbox and dismantled it, tightened it all up and rebuilt it all in the space of 30 mins. We then got out our cooking equipment to make a meal of courgette, onion, salami and pesto sauce, served with pasta. Just as I announced that the pasta was perfectly cooked I knocked the pan off the stove and the contents went all over the table and floor. Doh! Luckily we had some couscous so cooked a pot of that and in 5 mins we were enjoying our concoction.
For the price of 12€ we had the campsite almost to ourselves. They had showers (that fell apart when Gemma had hers, the shower head falling off at high speed and thrashing around out of control), and simple “drop” toilets (where Gemma was scared she would fall down into the big tank filled with poop). It was great!! Oh and I haven’t mentioned the hundreds of gulls which lived in the trees above us that kept us up. The scenery was stunning though.
We were on track to make Helsinki tomorrow, if we got up early we could even see some of the city.
WILD SPIRIT 