Holiday 2020 Day 13

Posted by gozamite on 22.7.2020
Posted in: adventure, autoilu, DJI Mavic, Drone, Matkustus, nature, summertime, Travel, walking. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

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.

Holiday 2020 Day 12

Posted by gozamite on 20.7.2020
Posted in: adventure, autoilu, Drone, Matkustus, summertime, Travel, Video, walking. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

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.

Organum
Weird 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 nights
Right after we arrived it really started raining!

The route for the Day 12 was like this:

Holiday 2020 Day 11

Posted by gozamite on 20.7.2020
Posted in: adventure, autoilu, Drone, Kävely, Lapland, Matkustus, nature, Travel, walking. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

Waking up beside the river in Lapland is quite nice. I took my drone up even it was max 50m.

Ounasjoki
Levitunturi (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…

Aavasaksa 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:

Holiday 2020 Day 10

Posted by gozamite on 20.7.2020
Posted in: adventure, autoilu, Lapland, Matkustus, summertime, Travel, walking. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

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 Kemijoki
Lean-To in Finnish it’s Laavu
Camp-fire makes a special atmosphere in the evening!

Holiday 2020 Day 8

Posted by gozamite on 16.7.2020
Posted in: adventure, autoilu, Matkustus, Reisen, Travel. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

After sleeping in a car quite many nights and 2 nights in a camping area cabin and 1 in a room with kitchen it was time to take a hotel room.
We drove to Tromsø and took 2 days in the hotel (Smarthoel Tromsø was very cheap!)
The way to Tromsø was with one ferry -from Svensby to Breivikeidet. This was about 13€.
After we put all our stuff to the hotel room we went to check Arctic-Alpine Botanic Garden. This was very nice visit! So many beautiful flowers and plants!!

Amazing colourful flowers

The area of this Arctic-Alpine is not too big but we checked all the flowers quite closely! After the garden it was to time to go UP!
The cable car of Tromsø is called Fjellheisen and it will take you to 420 meters above sea level!

Fjellheisen

The weather was little bit better than it was in morning so we could actually see something from up there! And took some nice pictures!
In the evening we were eating pizza just beside our hotel. The restaurant was called Casa Inferno and with the price little bit over 20€ we ate very nice pizzas!

Local traditional food

The route for this day was like this:

Day 9

Like I said we didn’t move anywhere from Tromsø. But this second day it was already raining. So we visited the Polaria. We saw quite many fishes and plants and also the feeding “show” of the seals. They had 2 small seals (Harbour Seal) and 2 big ones (Bearded Seal). The show was quite nice and these guys knew few tricks. Everytime they did some nice trick the stuff gave them the reward. But I was thinking why they had to be there in this small pool??? Why they will not them to go free?

Sea anemone
Small moray

The most interesting “show” was the short movie about Svalbard. That would really be interesting place to visit! The movie was mostly about how the landscape has been changing there. All the glaciers are soon gone…
In the evening we had a dinner in Asian place called Tang’s restaurant. About this We would give even bigger recommendations because the price was almost “normal”.
This day there was almost no driving at all.

Holiday 2020 Day 7

Posted by gozamite on 14.7.2020
Posted in: adventure, autoilu, Lapland, Matkustus, nature, Reisen, summertime, Travel, walking. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

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:

Holiday 2020 Day 6

Posted by gozamite on 13.7.2020
Posted in: adventure, autoilu, DJI Mavic, Drone, Lapland, nature, summertime, Travel. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

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 harbour
Same 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:

Holiday 2020 Day 5

Posted by gozamite on 11.7.2020
Posted in: adventure, autoilu, Drone, Lapland, nature, summertime. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

Morning beside the Lake Inari was amazing!

Käyräniemi, Lake Inari
Käyräniemi

We started driving towards Norway. We shortly visited in the last shop to buy something sweet…

Shop before border

And very soon in Norway there is very nice rapids/ waterfall called Skoltefossen. We stopped to take pictures.

Skoltefossen rapids in Neiden, Norway

Our route was following the Varangerfjord and the views to this part of Barents Sea are beautiful. It was only few days earlier when one my friend visited Pykeija (Bugøynes) village so I was thinking I need to see this too!
So even our weather wasn’t too nice we checked this small fishing village!

  • Few km’s before Pykeija
  • Fishing harbour
  • Village beach
  • Village from the hill
  • “Famous” Arctic Sauna on the other side of the bay

Our driving continued over Tana bridge. This is the only possible route from the “Western part of Norway” to the “Eastern Part of Norway” where this country has border with Russia.

Short video driving over old Tana bridge

After Tana we were still driving quite a lot before we entered the Silfar Canyon and ofcourse we stopped to take pictures!

Silfar Canyon 50km’s north from Lakselv

We found a nice place for sleeping in the car beside the mainroad and we slept well!

Roddenes

The route for Day 5 was like this:

Holiday 2020 Day 4

Posted by gozamite on 10.7.2020
Posted in: adventure, Lapland, National Park, nature, summertime, Travel, walking. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

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 raining
The Top -restaurant
Lake 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:

Holiday 2020 Day 3

Posted by gozamite on 9.7.2020
Posted in: adventure, gravel road, Lapland, Matkustus, National Park, summertime, Travel. Tagged: , , . Leave a comment

We had a nice sleep in this small cabin.

My car beside the campingarea cabin

On the northside of Suomussalmi there is quite famous “art installation” called Silent People. It was originally put up to a private field in 1988 but in this field it has stayed since 1994! There is almost 1000 “people” standing in the field… It is such an interesting installation!

Haypeople
If you find an interesting t-shirt you can take it! Just leave your own t-shirt there!

Quite soon after Haypeople we turned to Hossa National park. We wanted to check the deepest canyon in Finland! We took the 5 km walk to the new hanging bridge in the middle of the “Julma-Ölkky” lake. This is so beautiful Finnish nature!

Bridge is about 5m from the lake surface…
But the canyon walls goes much higher!
The lake is called “Julma-Ölkky” -impossible to translate…

If you want to visit this lake we recommend you will take the road from Hossa (from east)!This is only 8,5km’s. The road to west from the lake is in much worse condition and can be full of surprises and it’s 25km’s.
We took a room from the old Omena hotel in Ruka. Omena Hotel in Ruka doesn’t exist anymore and nowadays there is few rooms/ apartments available from “Vuosselin Helmi apartments”. We also checked few possible places to sleep in the car but didn’t find any.
The route for Day 3 was like this: