| @ Tue 02/07/2008 - Fri 04/07/2008 | |
| Exercise | Canoeing |
| Comments | We spend five days in Eastern Finland visiting Tomi's parents at their Summer house and canoeing a couple of days in the nearby archipelago. We enjoy some wonderful Summer weather, and some rain, too. We drive over on Tuesday visiting the Huvila brewery in Savonlinna on our way. They serve exquisite food and their brews are just excellent. And the location is not bad at all, either. On Wednesday morning we start our canoeing trip. The weather forecast is not too promising, but we start our trip in gorgeous sunshine. After paddling for a couple of hours we change to swimsuits --- it's simply too hot to wear any clothes. That's the time Tomi takes an accidental plunge. Luckily he's safe and unhurt, but his canoe takes a major sip of water. We go on in a nice weather not quite certain where we are. The wind direction varies a lot. Eventually we find the changes alarming enough to start looking for a campsite to pitch our tent before the major thunderstorm arrives. We find a decent place, but there's not much soil to ground the tent properly. Luckily, the storm never enters our vicinity; instead we get constant boring rain for hours and hours. We end up cooking and enjoying the dinner in our new tent, and it works out pretty well. Thursday morning starts gray. We wake up early, pack our camp promptly, and find a more comfortable place to have breakfast. And that's not too far away. It is a site maintained by an organization called Keep the Archipelago Tidy. We are just sorry we did not find this place last night when looking for a campsite. It would have been so much nicer. Now we know! I really appreciate this kind of effort people are doing for the environment. And then the sun comes out. We have a very pleasant way back to the Summer house, although quite windy at times. On Friday we drive back to Helsinki. But before leaving we spend a few hours canoeing around the nearby island Kaija. |
