Lidl Vegas

Day 67 - July 30th

With the rough weather the night before we woke to a fairly damp and battered Hanko, although the good news was the weather had now passed us over. 

Hanko is more of a beachside holiday destination in Finland so there wasn’t too much to see in town itself. With this in mind, we decided to have breakfast and then take a run along the beach and nearby parkland. 

It was a fairly quick run and we cooled off by heading out into the sea for a quick dip in the chilly Finnish ocean. 

With most of the western coastal sights ticked off (and there’s not that many), we started our final journey towards Helsinki. 

As we were only about 100km away from the city centre it was a fairly quick drive in after filling up with water, diesel and supplies for lunch. It would have been a quicker journey if I hadn’t left the water filler cap on top of the pump and didn’t have to drive back another 15 minutes to get it!

We arrived into Helsinki at about 3pm in the afternoon and headed towards a wild camp spot that had been highlighted on the Internet. It turned out to be a pretty good recommendation as we were on the coast again and even had a stretch of beach that we could relax on. A beach in Helsinki, who would have thought?

Our beachside wild camping spot - Helsinki.

As Helsinki doesn’t have a huge amount of attractions we took the rest of the day fairly easy and rode our bikes into town to find a supermarket to purchase supplies for dinner. This turned into a bit of a mission as we tried to find a supermarket that sold pizza bases that didn't cost an arm and a leg.

One of the strange things we had noticed about Finland in the short period of time we had been there was the concentration of slot/poker machines in supermarkets and petrol stations. It was quite strange to walk into a supermarket to see a whole bank of poker machines lining the entry and often with 3 or 4 people playing them at different times of the day. This was something we had seen in Las Vegas, but not expected to see in Finland.

Claire having a quick flutter before doing the grocery shop at Lidl.

Day 68 - July 31st

With the sun shining again, we decided to visit the island of Suomenlinna which is about 15 minutes boat ride from the southern Helsinki docks and market area. 

Riding through the Helsinki gardens towards the port.

The island was actually set up as a fort by the Swedish in 1748 to protect the city and port (then under Swedish rule) from the Russians. Not surprisingly, the island was listed on the UNESCO world heritage list and was also regarded as Helsinki’s number one attraction so we had to go and take a look at it. 

Although marketed as a heritage site and museum, Suomenlinna is still an active community with approximately 900 people living and working on the island and this was evident by a large number of residential buildings, cafes and a supermarket. 

Museum on Suomenlinna.

Suomenlinna fortress walls.

Despite it’s UNESCO listing, the walk around the island was fairly uneventful with very little to do or see on the island. The most interesting part was an old world war two submarine (Vessiko) that had been docked there and open for tourists to view. With the signing of the Paris Peace Treaty in 1947, Finland was forbidden from having submarines and forced to scrape all existing machines with the exception of Vesikko.

Vesikko Submarine. 

An old bomb - the Finnish probably shouldn't
leave these lying around as kids will draw faces on them.

The rolling hills on Suomenlinna, which are actually
bunkers as part of the main fortress.

Following our return back to the mainland, we took a quick walk around the southern dock markets. Stalls were setup selling home cooked Finnish food, coffee (a Finnish staple), fruit and vegetables and also souvenirs, which included reindeer antlers shaped into knives and also reindeer coats and hats that you could wear if that's what you were into. 

The southern dock markets where you can get yourself one of the
latest things in fashion - a Reindeer coat.

Church we passed on the way to Kallio for a pint.

Our final stop for the day in Helsinki was an area called Kallio, which was noted as a ‘working class area, with working class prices’. Our main objective here was to have a beer in one of the many pubs, as we had not had a drink out of a proper pint glass (or any glass) for quite some time.

Riding along the street we were met with a number of venues with drinkers seated outside along the pavement enjoying the sunshine. Most of them had no spare seats and to be honest the look of some of the drinkers (Bikies and Goths) didn’t make too many places that inviting. 

With us fast approaching the end of the street, we stopped into the last pub on the corner and wandered in to find the place with similar clientele but some cheap, cheap prices (about 2 Euros a pint, which was good compared to Norway & Sweden's $7-10 Euros) so sat down for a drink, before heading home to pack our bags for Russia!

A Storm on Three Fronts

Day 66 - July 29th

As we didn’t get much of a look around town the day previous, we got our sight seeing in of Rauma the following morning. Being a UNESCO heritage listed site and renowned for its 800 plus wooden buildings it had some big shoes to fill against the wonderful (and also UNESCO listed) Norwegian town of Roros we left a couple of days earlier.

Being a Sunday morning, there wasn’t a great deal of shops open or people around, but we did get to have a pleasant stroll around town. Although it had a far greater number of wooden buildings than Roros, those that it did have were not kept in as good a condition and it wasn’t the most picturesque place so I think we both agreed that Roros won hands down. 

With Helsinki only about 150km away, we were pretty close but had some other coastal towns to visit along the way. After a bit more driving down the long, straight motorway we managed to head a little further towards the coast on smaller roads to get a look at how the locals lived and a bit more of the countryside and pine forests. 

Our turn in towards the coast was actually made so we could go on one of the only Finnish roads marked as ‘picturesque’ on our road map. After about 30 minutes of driving on it, we had to check and re-check that we were actually on the road as the scenery wasn’t all that scenic!

Despite not seeing anything greatly scenic on the road, we arrived into the seaside town of Naantali, which was once a holiday spot for the Russian aristocracy. 

Marina Naantali

Once Russian summer houses, now turned
 into cafe's and restaurants.

It was immediately obvious at the amount of money the Russians would have poured into the town in years gone by, as the once seaside mansions had been turned into thriving cafes and restaurants and the town was in a far better state than that of Rauma.

Naantali Marina.

Being a Sunday, the town was extremely busy with many Finnish people out for lunch and drinks on the water plus a local wedding. We took a ride around the town and out through the park on the waters edge, stopping at a café for an ice-cream, finally making our way back to the van as there wasn’t too much more to make us stick around for the night. 

Our next destination on our whistle stop tour of the western coast of Finland, was the oldest city in Finland – Turku. With approximately 179,000 residents it is also the third largest in Finland behind Helsinki and Tampere. 

Being a functioning port town, there wasn’t a great deal to see, however, we pulled the bikes out of the van and took a ride down the Aura river taking in all the boats that had been converted into restaurants and bars. 

The Aussie Boat Bar and Restaurant Turku.

Some great waterside architecture in Turku. 

To our surprise, there was an Aussie Bar and restaurant and we took a quick look inside to see what they were serving as far as food and beer. The food was a little disappointing (i.e. no meat pies or Parma’s), but the beer selection was quite good with much of the Coopers range, James Boags Premium and VB. 

Despite some nice waterside bars and cafes, Turku was a pretty busy city (something we’re growing a dislike to) and there wasn’t really a great lot keeping us in town so we again hit the road going further down the coast. 

Turku Cathedral.

The final stop that we had listed for the day was Hanko, which was another seaside town right on the southern end of Finland. The town was renowned for it’s fantastic beaches and some amazing wooden mansions that had been built by the Russian nobility back the late 19^th century for their summer holidays.

After driving through town, we took a look at the local tourist map and identified a potential wild campsite about 2km out of town on the water. Upon driving in there were a couple of signs with ‘Tents’ and a cross through them, so we convinced ourselves that you just weren’t allowed to camp in a tent there and motorhomes were okay so got settled in. 

Hanko Peninsula.

Claire doing a bit of Yoga with Cider.

We took a quick walk around the point and had a drink in the falling evening sun before heading back to the van for another BBQ. 

After watching a bit more of the Olympics that evening, our van decided to run out of sufficient power to watch any more TV so we made our way to bed. As we were about to tuck in, you could hear faint rumblings out to sea. Being close to a port and knowing there were a lot of ships that passed through, we dismissed the noise as nothing more than large cargo ships.

Our assumption about the noise being boats was quickly put to bed as we saw a number of flashes of lighting off in the distance and realised that it was a thunderstorm. 

Making nothing of it, we drifted off to sleep only to be woken about 30 minutes later with one of the biggest thunder and lightning storms we have ever seen. 

Despite all our blinds being closed in the van and it being pretty much pitch black inside, the van was illuminating with huge flashes of lightning. Knowing this was a storm on a larger scale than we were used to, we clambered out of bed and opened up the vans windows to see a lightning storm happening on three fronts.

Unfortunately, we didn’t get any footage of the event as we were so caught up in the moment, but it was literally three huge storms happening about 50km away from us and taking up our entire peripheral vision. 

The forks of lighting were so close and crisp it was scary. The storm had also got the attention of a lot of the locals as a number of cars came flying into the car park to get a better view of the storm from the point we were on and some were even brave enough to venture out of their cars to try and get a photo. 

As the lighting and thunder petered out, the rain started to teem down and the wind picked up, eventually getting to a point where they shook the van quite vigorously and it almost felt like we were in and oversized washing machine.

The only photo we managed to take during the storm.
Not that good but gives an idea of how the sky was being lit up.

Morwell for UNESCO Heritage!

Day 65 – July 28^th 

Although we only travelled about 85 km over the Gulf of Bothnia on ferry the previous night, the weather in Finland seemed to change quite dramatically for the better.

We were awoken in the Finnish truck stop car park in the blazing sun and it felt like things were going to heat up from there on after the turbulent weather we experienced in Sweden and Norway.

After a bit of trouble with an automatic diesel machine (it stole our 50 Euros without giving any diesel), we hit the road and started heading south.

Now despite the weather heating up dramatically, the scenery didn’t do the same and we were met with flat and boring farmland and pine plantations as far as the eye could see. To be honest, after the constant twists and turns of Norway and their maximum speed limit of 80km/h, it was welcome relief to be able to drive in a straight line at 100km/h and not pay too much attention to the road.

On that point, the first thing we noticed about Finland was the massive amount of speed cameras they have stretched right along the roadside. Fortunately, they’re not as sneaky as our Australian police with their placement of the cameras and often have a sign letting you know that a speed camera is coming up.

So as long as you haven’t fallen asleep and forgotten to slow down for the 15 meters of road they make you drop to 80km/h, you’re generally okay.

Following a fairly lengthy stop at the ‘Pack and Save’ supermarket, we arrived into the town of Rauma about 3pm. Rauma was listed as one of the more picturesque towns to visit in Finland and was also a UNESCO world heritage listed town so we decided to give it a go for the night.

To be honest, after visiting a great deal of UNESCO world heritage sites at this point in our trip, I’m a little skeptical about their entry criteria as pretty much every second town or remotely interesting landmark seems to be able to get onto the list. In fact, I’m pretty sure with a little bit of ‘creative’ marketing we could get Morwell and Dandenong on the UNESCO list when I get back home!

Off to Church.

At Church.

After Church with Car. 

Checking what time Church starts next Sunday to beat the crowds.

Anyway, UNESCO aside it was now 3pm in Finland and we still hadn’t eaten lunch so were quite famished. With such brilliant weather we decided to get out the BBQ at our wild camp spot (which turned out to be a car park in the middle of town) and cooked up some BBQ pork.

How could you resist a BBQ here?

It’s funny how your sensitivity to other people's opinions starts to numb as you travel in a campervan for an extended period of time. I’m pretty sure if I invited a group friends over for a BBQ they would jump at the invitation until I mentioned it was the local car park. Yet, we now have no hesitation in whipping out the BBQ in foreign places and cooking up a storm while random strangers pass us by.

With it being the first day of Olympic competition, we took it easy for the rest of the day, watching the men’s road race being won by a reformed drug addicted Kazakhstani and a freakish Chinese swimmer – seriously a dolphin wouldn’t have a chance against that girl!

Getting McCharged and going East

Day 63 – July 26^th

With much of what we had planned to achieve in Norway now accomplished, we awoke in Roros with our minds set on getting out of Norway and as far across Sweden as we could in one day. 

Both countries are quite long but not wide, so we actually managed to get from the Norway/Sweden border to the easterly coast of Sweden in about half a day, stopping at the town of Sundsvall in the afternoon for a look around. 

Although quite a nice town, there wasn’t much to keep us in Sundsvall so we continued north along the coast as we were planning to get a ferry over to Finland the following day.

We ended up in a town called Harnosand and lobbed into the local McDonalds to book the ferry for the next day and to do some general research on Finland. 

McDonalds are fast becoming quite a useful rest stop for us, as were able to connect to the Internet for free, use their toilets and also recharge our laptop and phone batteries and have also been cheeky enough to take in a power board and recharge our portable music system as well!

After about 3 hours and a couple of sundaes in McDonalds (this is all we treat ourselves to so we don’t end up the size of houses), we drove across the road to a nice wild camp spot on the edge of the river, cooked up marinara for dinner and enjoyed some of the great (and strong) cider Sweden produces.

Day 64 – July 27^th 

With our ferry over to Finland not leaving until later in the evening we had a bit of time up our sleeves to see a bit more of Sweden before we left it for good. 

We took a quick look around Hannosand after breakfast (well Luke did while trying to find a public toilet), and then set off to an area of Sweden known as Hoga Kusten, which is translates to the ‘High Cliffs’. 

The bridge over to Hoga Kusten - probably the most picturesque part of Sweden.

For most of our time in Sweden we had travelled up the southwestern side, as we came in from Denmark. Although not ugly, this coastal area wasn’t much to write home about so we were quite surprised when heading up the east coast to see how beautiful the scenery was and the fact it didn’t really get a mention in any of the literature we had read about the country.

We arrived in the town of Norrfallsviken for lunch as we had heard they did a really good seafood buffet for only £20, but were disappointed to find that the buffet was only done on the weekends and being a Friday, we were a day early. Instead we had our own seafood buffet from a John West Salmon tin between two slices of bread.

Norrfallsviken town on the Hoga Kusten coast. Seafood buffet is on Saturday and Sunday only - not Fridays :(

After a quick stroll around town and lunch, we then decided to continue going north and stop in the town of Umea (where our ferry was leaving from), so we could use the Internet to research Russia a bit more. 

Another 3 hours was killed in McDonalds (again) we then headed towards the ferry port to load up onto the ship for our four and a half hour journey over to Finland. 

As we were leaving around dinnertime we decided to take our esky on full of food, beer and wine but were shocked to see that harsh penalties would be enforced if you were found to be taking drugs and alcohol onto the ship. Our concern quickly abated when we saw that pretty much all the Finnish people were drinking on the ship, so decided to crack a few beers and drink them conspicuously. 

We finally docked into Vassa, Finland around midnight and then started our drive south towards Helsinki. Given the time of night and the fact we only had about 5 litres of diesel left, we decided to stop into the first motorway truck stop, tune into the second half of the Olympic opening ceremony and wild camp for the night.

Our Chariot from the Gods to Freedom!

Day 62 – July 25^th 

It’s always an early start when you sleep in a tent as the light filters through in the morning.  In Norway it doesn’t really get dark so it was a restless night and we were up super early.

We packed up camp while the local sheep and cows stared at us from the nearby fence line and continued on the trail.  We walked alongside farms, hills and streams this time no steep grueling climbs, which was a welcome relief.  

We took a wrong turn into a toothless females dairy famers property and had to turn back.  We then missed the essential turn that would lead us back the correct way to Maxi.  

Luke leading the way.

Setting off on the morning hike out.

Still full of energy.

Unbeknownst to us that we were that lost we walked on for kilometers and kilometers.  We knew that all roads eventually lead out to the main road route 29 so there was not point stressing. 

It became clear as we clocked over 10km that we had in fact taken the wrong route.  Soon enough we reached route 29 but with an estimated 10km walk back to the starting point we put our heads down and powered on.  

Route 29 just before taking a much deserved rest and stashing
the backpacks

The Bork House!

We had a rest and refuel stop by a lovely river just off the main road.  It was killing us that we had to drive back along the same road we were walking along and an idea that it would be wise to leave our backpacks hidden in the bushes. Unarmed with the packs we continued on the long journey.

About 4km into the walk Luke decided to take a photo of the farmland just as he finished taking his snap, he turned around and saw a big yellow bus come flying around the corner.  He waved the bus down with such vigor that I thought he was going to take off himself.

The photo Luke took just before he flagged down the bus.

The big yellow bus stopped - our chariot from the gods to freedom!  We greeted the driver and hopped aboard the empty bus.  The driver seemed a little bewildered wondering what the hell where we doing walking out in the middle of nowhere and more importantly, where was our luggage?  We explained ourselves- we went for a hike in the mountains, took a wrong turn, got lost, found the 29, left our bags in the bushes and needed to get back to the car and this was the only way.

Luke a little over excited from catching the bus! 

He pondered on this information as he drove the 7.2km back to Maxi while we thanked our lucky starts and nursed our blistering feet and aching backs. 

Once back to Maxi I text my sister Eva for her 33^rd Birthday before it ended in Australian time and we continued our journey towards Sweden.  

We had read about a small town called Roros on the Norwegian/Swedish boarder that had appealed to us.  A historic copper mining town with wonderfully preserved colourful wooden houses that climb up the hillside.

By the time we reached Roros we were bith so tired that we couldn’t deal with site seeing so we parked up at a layby nearby and had a nanna nap. 

Feeling refreshed we took two and reentered Roros.  We took a walk through the historic town a literally couldn’t stop taking photos it was just so lovely and picturesque.  

Something posing as Brun

Day 61 – July 24^th 

We started the day with a stroll around Alesund absorbing the sun and atmosphere.  

Catching a few rays in Alesund.

After collecting some supplies at the supermarket Rema 1000 we were back in Maxi re tracing the route back to Andalsnes.  

When designing a rough plan for our travels around Norway we had always mapped out a trip up the Lofotan Islands which are approximately 600-700km north of Andalsnes.  Given the lack of any road that resembles a straight line and the time it takes to travel on them we decided to scrap that idea and head back into Sweden and get a ferry across to Finland. 

So we were now headed towards Sweden with a plan to do the overnight hike we had wanted to do a few days earlier. 

We took the E136 – another truly specular road and very unexpected. The E136 is lined with sheer mountain faces and plummeting waterfalls, it is home to Trollveggen (Troll Wall), which is the highest vertical mountain wall in Europe at 1800m!

The spectacular drive along Route E136.

Fierce rapids were created with so many waterfalls
feeding into the rivers 

1800m climb to the top, camera doesn't
do the towering walls justice!

I was stunned as we drove through the valley in absolute ore of the beauty of it all.  There were waterfalls everywhere at one time I counted nine in view.  We stopped off at one of them, probably the fiercest of them all.

A stop off at a very energetic waterfall.

Feeling the power of the water.

The E136 lead us to the town of Dombas where we stopped off at the tourist office and picked up a book of local hikes.  We found a hike that was a 22km circuit that wasn’t too far down the road.  The map was pathetic but we thought the trail would be marked as the previous walks had been. 

We found the starting point, packed the backpacks with the tent, sleeping bags, food etc and set off on our little adventure for the night.

Luke hopefully pointing us in the
right direction.

One of many scandinavian grassed roofed houses.

The long road ahead.

We followed the road and headed off into the hills.  Unfortunately the trail didn’t seem to be signed but we figured if we followed the road in the general direction it should work out.  After 10km or so we thought we best make camp and found a spongy cleared area suitable to set up the tent.  Luke made fire and I cooked the camp food. I’m not sure what we ate ‘brun’ something we think it means brown in Norwegian – it was out of a tin and tasted pretty rank but filled the hole.

Luke making fire.

Cooking Brun whatever the hell that is?!?

We had been invaded by mosquitoes and after battling with them through dinner we retreated quite early to the tent to read and sleep!