We visited once again. It is always so beautiful and relaxing. The Seurasaari area has multiple museum areas and buildings -you need to buy a ticket if you wish to go inside those buildings. But area has also a lot of hiking pats around the island and the most amazing thing is that so many animals are so used to the people and you can feed them from your hand… You can easily feed bluetits, great tits, squirrels, mallards, swans and geese from your hand if you bring some nuts/ seeds with you. Didn’t take too many pictures this time. I had my videocamera with me!
View to Ruoholahti from the IslandView to Meilahti hospital from the Island
I didn’t try this ever but a quite long time I was very interested. First I bought the board for my wife (she was talking about it almost all the time…) And because this summer was so nice I bought one also for myself!
She tried the board first time 20th of June
Even this board was very cheap it turned out quite ok! It keeps the direction even better than mine.
I tried mine first time 29th of June
My first time wasn’t very lucky! The paddle wasn’t tight enough and the blade of the paddle was gone! It went to the bottom of the lake. But soon I bought another paddle so I could go supping with my wife. First time together we checked Lönnhammarinjärvi. That is not very big lake and water is very clear! Our second time together was Grabbskog Storträsket. There we spent quite many hours paddling from the beach all the way to the grilling place of Västerby recreation area. That lean-to is on the otherside of the lake -it would be at least 6km’s of supping. Also the views on the lake made me decide that I want to have a camera on the next trip! This next trip was in 25th of July. I chose the lake called “Iso Simi” which is very rare lake here in Raasepori. It doesn’t have houses built on the shore (or only a few near the road).
First rock
My wife
Obstacles on the lake
Beautiful shores
Small dam at the end of the lake
After we took a short walk at the other end of the lake I started to take videos. Until now I had my DJI Osmo Action hanging on my neck but now I needed to keep in the hand so that there would be some sense in shooting. This is what I got:
Amazing Lake Simi in Raasepori
All shores of the Lake Simi are Nature reserve area. It means that camping and pretty much everything else is not ok. They are trying to keep the whole lake in it’s natural state.
We visited with my wife in this marvellous place on Maundy thursday. This place is famous because the Russian emperor Aleksander III built a fishing lodge there in 1889. The imperial family visited several times there!
Fishing lodgeNice summer house!
This time of the year the rapids are very powerful and there is lots of water running down! Took quite many videos with my mobilephine and edited 5 minutes video to YouTube.
This winter we didn’t have snow until 3d of January. It didn’t even feel very strange because last winter we didn’t have snow at all! But then around 10th of january started the “crazy winter” -we cot half of meter of snow in only 2 days and then crazy cold weather!
This picture was taken 5th of January. It’s our local watertower and it looks like coffee machine!
In the beginning of January we visited Imatra and we got to enjoy the real winter before it started here in South Finland. When the very cold temperatures started my working car’s heater didn’t want to operate anymore so it was impossible to work until I found what was wrong and it was fixed!
At the moment it seems that I have stop my business because Covid-19 and return to do ordinary work -but we’ll see what happens.
16th of January
17th of January we got to see a rare halo in the sky! It was a cloudbow. I’ve never seen it before and now I got quite many pictures of it!
A Cloudbow
Now the sun is shining brighly in the sky, the day lasts more than 9 hours and spring is getting closer! 3 days ago it was still crazy cold when the sun was setting (-16°).
Sky after sunset on 11th of February13th of February in Tammisaari ArchipelagoRaasepori Castle is only 10km’s away!
Kopparö recreation area is located in Raasepori and you need to take a short ferry ride to enter the Sher Landet (Skärlandet) island.
Luontopolku = Naturepath
After you park your car and start walking the trail is very wide in the beginning. But soon you will see small bay on the right side and the trail is getting smaller. Here you will go across the suspension bridge.
Bridge is about 30 meters long
The structure of the bridge is quite scary. I will share a video in the end of this blog about it. Right after this bridge we started to hear bird screaming with very high note. It was like “Kvik – Kvik – Kvik!” But the volume of the shouting was extremely loud. And only few minutes after this we saw them flying in the sky -Two White-tailed eagles!
About 100m above our heads
This was a second time for me when I’m seeing this mighty bird. I guess these were two young ones because they were shouting all the time! (Mama! Mama! Look at me! I’m flying!!) Soon there was another bridge so we moved from Långön island to Stora Sandö island. This is like the “Main island” of the Nature path.
To Stora Sandö
The trail goes almost around the island and because it was quite warm we chose to turn to the left. I knew there would be a place for swimming!
Sandöedet
We didn’t have our swimming suits with us but it wasn’t a problem. We both did the the skin-dipping! The walk between Sandöedet and Stora Sandö grilling places is the most beautiful part of the trail! You can walk almost all the time very near to the sea and admire the clear water of the Gulf of Finland!
Stora Sandö island
We reached the grilling place of Stora Sandö and took another break there to eat our snack. I also made a Droneflight to take few pictures and the video of this beautiful area.
Grilling placeStora Sandö from east to North-WestStora Sandö Most eastern point
Stora Sandö
Amazing walk of Kopparö Nature Trail
After our snack my wife started to collect blueberries. Soon the half-a-liter bottle that we had was full of berries and we got to eat fresh blueberry pie at home! The whole trail is almost 8km walk and we did it all! In the map it looks like this:
Kopparö Nature Trail
In the beginning of this blog I said about the suspension bridge that I was little bit worried. So I made a video about it. It’s only in Finnish.
After packing our stuff and cleaning the cabin it was time to drive again. It was 50 km to Kuopio where we made about 2 hours stop. It was 1st time for my wife in this beautiful city. We parked the car to the new garage they have under the market square and came up to make a walk in the city center.
City Hall
Church and park
Snellman’s park
The Park
Churchdoor lock
Belltower
Market Hall
Kuopio
I have a BIG minus comment about the parking garage!! We went down to our floor (underground) from the side of this market hall and there was a sign that there will be this payment machine. But there wasn’t!! I had to walk to another elevator to find the damn thing! KUOPIO! Not like this! Our route went off from E4 highway in Juva but I had chosen quite small gravel road. Finally we entered the Pistohiekka & Lietvesi area. There is one special viewing point just beside the road.
Lietvesi viewing poin
From here it was only 80km’s to Imatra so in the afternoon we’re back in our house in Meltola. The summertour was over. The route for this day was like this:
We woke up little bit earlier than normally and had breakfast. Then we took a short drive to Korkeakoski (High rapids). 08.10am we were ready to start exploring…
Korkeakoski is the highest rapids in Finland
There was also a naturepath starting from the rapids but we didn’t read any reviews of the path. It was a bit disappointment since the path didn’t follow the river in the canyon. Anyway the thick Savonian forest was beautiful but there were totally too many mosquitos!!
Savonian forest near Korkeakoski
After getting back to the cabin we started packing our stuff… But while we were packing we suddenly decided to stay in this beautiful place one more night! So we didn’t pack our stuff but we headed to the canal that was also nearby.
Ahkionlahti Canal -or actually two canals
There’s actually 2 canals, the old one is built in 1866-74 and it was mainly used for log driving. But in the same time the population in Savonia was growing and people started to use boats to move around our country… The new canal was built in 1981-83.
Old one on the left
Old one goes “up”
The other end of the canal
Dronepictures of the canals
The total length of the canal is few hundred meters and the distance between two block gates is 240 meters. The difference of the surface in these two lakes is about 3,5 meters. I made also a short flight over the old canal…
Ahkionlahti Old Canal
Since we didn’t actually drive anywhere I’m not putting the route… Ahkionlahti Canal is located about 6,5km’s northwest from Maaninka.
Waking up beside the river in Lapland is quite nice. I took my drone up even it was max 50m.
OunasjokiLevitunturi (mountain)Ounasjoki early morning
Later the weather was not very nice in Finland either. But there was a chance that it wouldn’t rain so we decided to go up to Aavasaksa -after we crossed the Arctic circle…
Saariselkä is one of the first “Tourist attractions” in Lapland. There was visitors from other countries already in 18th century. In 1881 they built “Emperor’s Hut” for possible Russian Emperor visit but it never happened!
Emperor’s Hut
Aavasaksa is 242 meters high “mountain” just beside border of Sweden and Torniojoki -river. On the top of the hill is also one of the Struve Geodetic Arc -points. We took a walk around 2,5km path on the top of the hill. We had to take our raincoats because it was raining a little bit.
Aavasaksa
We also checked little bit of the city of Tornio -I was very interested how they had arranged the check in points on the border? But it was just a border patrol car beside the road before Sweden. There is an old church in Alatornio. This was built (1797) only 11 years before Sweden lost a war against Russia. And the church was built honoring the King of Sweden -I would say quite bad luck for him!
Alatornio Church
Then we drove all the way south of Oulu to the island of Hailuoto! Because weather forecast was quite nice for the evening and for next morning! Yes, the evening was nice but there was also quite strong wind!
Dinner
Pöllä beach, Hailuoto
Trying to make a dinner in this kind of wind was interesting. Ok the food was great but there was some sand and small stones as a spice! Route for the Day 11 was like this:
Day 7 was about driving west in quite cloudy and grey weather. It was a big pitty because there is many places to admire the landscape and the view to the sea.
Few pictures from the E6 to the Arctic Sea
We took also 1 ferry from Olderdalen to Lyngen. It was about 17€ and took about 50 minutes. But soon after this ferry we arrived to our destination! Blåvatnet This is a small lake located in Lyngen municipality in northern Norway. Area is also famous about Lyngen Alps where the shape of the mountains is more steep than ordinary fjells or mountains in Norway. The highest peak is Jiekkevarre with 1833 meters. Blåvatnet is one of the most famous hiking places in northern Norway. The lake is about 200 meters higher than the parking area and it’s about 4km’s walk. The landscape is rugged with lots of stones and small rivers to cross. Luckily for us it looked like it would not start raining. We started the walk up to the lake about 3.40 pm.
River after river
Wooden paths
Amazing views
And river
And river
This rock was about in the halfway
Clouds over the mountains
Rugged land
And river
Getting closer
The walls of Mordor!
Almost 2 hours hike to the lake
I was little bit afraid when the weather is so grey that we will not see the amazing crystal clear blue colour of the lake. But there was no reason! The water of the lake comes straight from the glaciers in the mountains and it stays very very crystal clear all the time!
Blåvatnet
The last 200 meters hike to the lake is quite difficult! The stones are big and sharp and there’s many chances to step wrong and twist your ankle or even worse. The consentration and physical struggle made me sweat quite a lot. Now I understood why quite many said to take your swimming pants so you can swim in the lake! I didn’t have them with me (So stupid!) so I just took off my jacket and t-shirt and flushed my upper body in the lake! On the way back I took only 3 pictures -Here’s one of them:
6.30 pm in Northern Norway
When you search the pictures of Blåvatnet you will ofcourse find those ones first that was taken in sunny weather and with clear blue sky. But when you come here you can’t choose your conditions and weather. We are very happy that we saw the lake at least without rain! The route for the Day 7 was like this:
It was beautiful morning beside Barents/ Arctic Sea. We started driving first to south towards Lakselv city and then to north towards Nordkapp. Even it was quite nice weather I knew it wouldn’t be like this in the North Cape -ofcourse I was hoping that there would be sunshine! We made the test cooking with our camping cooking system and I even called to Minna Jakosuo. I knew she would know the answer and she did!!
Cooking water as a test
If you keep “The Heart” of this cooking system in the same package with all the pots, the steam from the burning fuel will catch the pots! And it is almost impossible to wash the taste away. Even this Alcohol Stove has a lid with seal the steam of alcohol is still going outside the heart!
Alcohol stove
So we didn’t have a proper cooking system anymore… All the pots were ruined by the taste of burning alcohol. Luckily we had quite a lot of food with us that you can eat if it is cold so we didn’t care too much about this. After very nice road from Lakselv to Honningsvåg (about 160km) we at least could check a little bit of this village and the views from the “Viewing point” from the military above this village.
Honningsvåg harbourSame village from above
So we didn’t visit the North Cape. It was my second time on this island and again I didn’t go to Nordkapp… (Shame on ME!) We had to drive the same beautiful road back to the mainland. The more south we were driving the more beautiful the weather was coming! On the southside of Skaidi we made a stop beside the road. It was amazing place with very nice landscape. I made even a drone flight.
Question Mark
Goahtemuorjohka
Picture taken by my wife
Click any of the pictures to see it bigger
We took a cabin from the camping area in Lakselv for the night so we could make proper food! The route for the day 6 was like this:
