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.
And again we had quite a perfect morning for swimming! And for morning walk near the Marjaniemi lighthouse.
Marjaniemi beach and lighthouse, Hailuoto island
There is actually an active fishing village beside the lighthouse and a pilot-boat station so it was very interesting walk!
I made this video of the beach in Hailuoto
And on the other side of the island there is a weird art-installation called “Organum”. This is a 3 piece echo-chamber in the middle of the forest. The artist has made few similar all over the world! His name is Lukas Kühne.
OrganumWeird place
Then we started driving… First the idea was to stay on the western coastline but since the weather forecast didn’t promise too nice weather we kind of pointed rendom place on the map and it was Iisalmi. Then we started to find something interesting to see there and we found Korkeakoski. And that was actually located in Maaninka which belongs to Kuopio nowadays. It looked like a very nice place!
Short stop in Vieremä
But the drive became also a race against the rain! When we finally arrived to Maaninka it started raining right away. We chose to rent a cabin and we were quite happy that we found very nice one just beside the lake!
Our cabin for the next 2 nightsRight after we arrived it really started raining!
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:
Escaping the rainy Norway… This was second day with rain and the weather forecast didn’t look nice at all… So we decided to drive back to Finland. In Norway we spent 2 nights in a car, 1 night in a camping area cabin and 2 nights in a hotel. Temperatures were mostly about 10-13 degrees celsius and it was cloudy.
Norway – Finland border in Kilpisjärvi
After 2 hours and 150 km’s we reached our homecountry Finland. It was still raining! But only about 50km’s later the rain had stopped and we saw blue sky!
Finland somewhere between Kilpisjärvi and Muonio
In Muonio we decided to buy new camping cooking system (Trangia). And it was a good decision! From Muonio we took Levi as our goal! And there we drove straight to the top… Or not quite, you still have to climb about 100 meters higher from the parking area. The top of Levi is 530 meters. There is nice wooden path to walk around in the top of this “mountain”. It’s only 700 meters but the views are quite amazing to all directions. We had even a rainbow in the beginning of our walk!
Wooden path around the top of Levi
Then it was time to find a place for sleeping in a car. There was nice lean-to just beside Ounasjoki -river. A perfect place to get to know better all of those mosquitos…
Ounasjoki goes down to Rovaniemi and connects with KemijokiLean-To in Finnish it’s LaavuCamp-fire makes a special atmosphere in the evening!
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 takes 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:
We woke up in Ruka and cleaned the appartment. Started driving to Pyhätunturi (The Holy mountain). There was one stop on the way in the northside of Kemijärvi, there is a small village called Kostamo. Why is this village interesting?? It just happens to be the same name than my Family name…
Kostamoroad & It was also chosen as the village of the year in 1997
From Kemijärvi to Pyhätunturi it’s not too far anymore. The path to the Pyhäkasteen lampi & vesiputous (pond in the end of canyon and the waterfall) had been closed for the whole summer until this day. So we were about the first ones to see these amazing views!
FIrst there is about 1km walk in the forest
Then you have to go down
On the bottom of the canyon there is nice wooden path
Canyon is called Isokuru
At the end of the canyon you will find the pond & waterfall
Click any of the pictures to see it bigger
After this very nice hike we continued driving north. We were shopping first time in Sodankylä and then again in Inari. The second visit to shop was because we realized that we will be in Norway next day and there everything is much more expensive! We made a short stop in the top of Saariselkä and beside the Lake Inari.
2 years ago when we were here it was very warm. Now it was +11 and little bit of rainingThe Top -restaurantLake Inari
We also found the place for sleep beside the Lake Inari. In the evening we were making food with our Trangia cooking system. The taste of food was terrible!
Cooking the meal that came out with terrible taste!
We realized that there was some taste of the fuel that we were using to make the fire in the cooking system. We put the question to Facebook to ask from other users did they have the same? Few days later we found out the reason. The route for the day 4 was like this:
This summer we are making our holiday trip with the car. Luckily last winter I bought a Station Wagon (Ford Focus) so we can even make the beds to the back side of the car. The bed will be a little bit too short for me but I was thinking it will be OK.
Ford Focus double bed
We started driving on tuesday 23rd of June to the north from Imatra. The first goal was one nice hill quite close… So I typed the address to google maps and we started driving. After about 50 km’s we stopped and I was looking around. It was a wrong place!! I had typed “Hukkavuoren…” when I should have been typing “Haukkavuoren…” Luckily the correct place was only about 20km’s away!
Walking to the hill
The first place we visited was “Haukkavuori” in Rautjärvi. It’s a hill 79 meters above the lake below so the views are amazing!
79 meters down
We continued to Punkaharju. This National Landscape is so beautiful that people of Finland have voted this road as the most beautiful road in Finland!
The most beautiful road.
We checked one possible sleeping place near Punkaharju but it wasn’t ok… and it was still quite early. We continued to Kerimäki.
Kerimäki church
This is the biggest wooden church in the world. We had seen it before so we continued to check few bunkers close to Kerimäki. There is so called “Salpalinja” that Finnish soldiers built during the WW II against the Russian attack. Luckily we never needed to use this defense line. Finally quite far from Punkaharju and Kerimäki we found a place to stay for the night. It was only 1,5 km’s from the Russian border!
