At this lake a number of other campers turned up after we had settled in and then I realised it was the weekend and maybe they were here for that. Washing was done on the Friday night and hung out to dry in the last of the sun. On Saturday morning I decided we should swim across a part of the lake to a place we could easily get out of. It wasn’t really that far, but distance is always difficult to determine. I have been wanting to do a bit of swimming for ages and here was our chance to do it. I still have fear about what is in the water, but we swam anyway. Scot could have swum it 10 times over and still not been out of breath, but I got a little panicked about 2/3rds of the way across but made it anyway. I wasn’t as confident as when I did the Noosa 1km ocean swim which when I look back on it, it was a breeze and I have lost so much fitness. We had a great relax at this place and then cooked our dinner on the open fireplace and opened a bottle of Luxembourg bubbly which was just lovely. We shared our marshmallows over the fire with a young boy whose parents couldn’t speak English, but we managed with hand signals to at least establish where we were from and that it was ok for their son to have some marshmallows with us. We have found that a lot of Finnish people either don’t speak English or they speak very little, unlike the rest of Scandinavia who seem to speak it very well.
As with all other campsites there wasn’t wifi except at the reception area so we had to sit there for a short time to try and do some internet stuff. In every campsite here in Finland they have saunas and not just one per camp, they have several. Some are wood fired and some are electric. We have only had the one when we were in Norway near Lillehammer as they cost a bit much here for us to worry about having one. If it was really cold we may have decided to pay the money to have one.
A couple of little tidbits about Finland – it is the first country we have seen pokies all over. We haven’t been into a pub yet (much to Scot’s disgust) but we have seen them in newsagent type stores, in eating places, in the entrance to supermarkets etc. They seem strange places to put them and you do see people playing them occasionally. They did have them on the ferry on the way over from Sweden as well. Their taxi’s are named appropriately – Taksi is what they have on the roof of their cars which is a better spelling than we use I think.
Sunday 23 August
We leave our lovely little haven on the lake after a morning of sun, reading and swimming. We know we won’t be travelling far so we don’t have to leave early. We were going to drive via Jyvaskyla but decided we didn’t need to drive in and out of a city again, although being a Sunday it would have been closed. So we drove to Kuopio via Suolahti and stopped at a campsite just before Kuopio. They were also closed when we arrived but they opened in the morning at 8am so we weren’t about to get another free night. The campsite was huge and again on a lake front. They had a beach which looked like it was frequented by all the locals on lovely sunny days such as this was. We decided we didn’t need another swim so relaxed for the night at the van. We tried to ask a couple of people if the camp had wifi, but they just looked at us and didn’t really understand what we were asking so we gave up.
Monday, we headed down east and drove through Joensuu and then south near the Russian border. At Puhos we turned West though as we had heard Savonlinna was one of the most beautiful areas in Finland and we wanted to see it. We always seem to have plans to go so far and then things change. We had thought we may go to Juva for the night, but we saw a campground sign just before Savonlinna and decided to check it out. It turned out to be a campsite that was right next to a sports complex and they had bull dozed out a few spots in the dirt for vans to stay and put in a prefab hut with a toilet and a shower. Quite a crappy site really and it was so expensive. However after our initial crankiness with the site we found out the sport complex had a 25m pool with a diving well which we could use for free. Normal entry was 10euros and it was open until 9pm. So before dinner we headed in for a swim and a dive. God that was so good. Scot did a few laps and then had a great time doing lots of dives whilst I swam laps. I miss my swimming more than anything and I know no matter if we go in England when we return we absolutely have to have a pool nearby so I can continue to swim. Hopefully Greece will provide some kind of swimming over the winter months we will spend there as well. This complex also had a spa pool with temp of 35degrees and a plunge pool with a temp of 4 degrees. Scot did these pools but the 4 degrees made my feet hurt after a couple of seconds so I got no further and piked out. What a shame the pool didn’t open again until 3pm or else we would have been back first thing in the morning.
Tuesday morning and we headed off into Savonlinna to see the town. They had a huge castle here that was built in the 1400’s and was primarily for Sweden to defend itself against the Russians as Sweden used to own the land that is now Finland. Russia did take over for a number of years until Finland won their land back. The castle was built by Erik Axelsson Tott – maybe a relative of yours Lloyd if you are reading this. We didn’t see the entire castle as it was so huge we didn’t have the time to dedicate to walking around it. The bridge leading into the castle is a bridge that can be swung to the side to allow boats to go into the lake area. It had floats on the bottom that helped to swing it back and forth. The harbourside part of the town was indeed pretty and perhaps the nicest we had seen in our limited Finland travels. We stopped for a coffee and cake at a lovely little café but a bee seemed to take offence to us and wouldn’t leave us alone. I had to run inside at one stage as it was dive bombing me and looked so angry. Eventually it left us alone and started harassing other patrons so we were fine.
I have a penfriends address not far from Savonlinna – in Sulkava that I wanted to visit and who knows I may get to meet her. I started writing to Saija when I was about 9 years old and wrote until I was about 19 when I took my trip to Australia to visit another penfriend I had been writing to for about 10 years. I found an old postcard that I photocopied the address off and bought it with me on the off chance that I may get there. So we left Savonlinna and drove off the highway to see if indeed my penfriend was still around. We hadn’t been in touch for 32 years!
We pulled into a driveway a long way down a corrugated dirt road (our poor van) and the surname on the letterbox was that of my penfriend. When I knocked on the door a lady answered. Although she didn’t speak English she saw the name and address on my photocopy and with hand signals I was invited inside. It turned out to be Saija’s parents and they still lived there. Saija’s father spoke a limited amount of English, but they got Saija on the phone for me and we arranged for us to drive and visit her where she now lives near to Helsinki. What a beautiful family. They gave us a beautiful afternoon tea and coffee as we tried to communicate with them with our limited/none Finnish and our phrase book with lots of laughter as we tried to understand each other. It was such a fun afternoon and very rewarding. I am so glad I had the foresight to bring the address with me and that Scot pushed us to visit when time constraints seemed like we should just keep going. They wanted to show us my penfriends summer house on the lake down another badly corrugated dirt road (I am not sure how many screws are still in place in the vanJ) so we followed. It was an amazing peaceful haven that would have been a delight to spend the summer in.
So we arranged to drive past her house near Helsinki so we can finally meet. What a shame I don’t still have all my other penfriends – I could have visited lots of other houses around Finland, Netherlands, England etc. I wrote to quite a few around the world during my teen years.
We thanked Saija’s parents and headed off towards Juva and then decided we would go as far as Lahti for the night so that we would only be an hour or so from Helsinki. The campsite in Lahti was due to be relocated after this summer and because of this it was in dreadful condition – probably the worst campsite I have ever been to and it was expensive. The facilities hadn’t been cleaned for some time and there were mosquitos everywhere. What we have found in Finnish campgrounds is that they obviously don’t worry about their privacy in the bathrooms as all the campgrounds we have been to so far have had one open shower room and everyone just showers in together (each sex separately). On the shore of this camp were a few guys using a mechanical water ski rope and learning without having to use a boat. It looked really great – a little like the one at Mudjimba but on the lake.
Wednesday 26th August
We headed off to visit with Saija at Nurmijarvi. We arrived at their home and met Saija and her husband and son. They were so welcoming and it was so lovely to meet the family. Saija had put on the most beautiful Finnish food for us. We talked all afternoon but unfortunately it was soon time for us to leave and head for Helsinki. It was a huge buzz for me to meet a penfriend from my teen years. Some things we learnt from our visit were about the winter war between Finland and Russia just before the second world war which we hadn’t heard of before. It is interesting that each Finn male will do about 10 months of compulsory conscription duty – army training – when they are trained. Females are able to apply to do it but it isn’t compulsory for them. We were interested to learn that obviously Finland still has concerns about their relationship with Russia hence their training regime. Finland was also right on top of their game with winter sports and have had many champions, but since the 90’s the other countries have caught up and now challenge them for their sporting titles – particularly Sweden.
