Rob and Hild visiting Eija - August 2013
A long overdue visit to Finland was in order. It was about time. We hadn't visited Eija since 1995! With amazing planning and timing (or lucky coincidence?), we met
Eija at Helsinki airport and then we drove north toward Tampere and Orivesi (see map). After all these years of hearing about Eija's father we first got to meet
him at his home in Kangasala. He served us coffee and cake and we enjoyed it so much. Thank you! Kittos!
We learnt some key Finnish words: järvi = lake, lahti = bay, niemi = peninsula... helpful when reading maps!
| The Horn of Orivesi | ||
| We arrived at the cabin near Orivesi on the shore of lake Längelmävesi. We borrowed a trailer from Eija's dad as we were planning to hire kayaks. The shed behind the car holds both the garage, the wood shed, and the toilet. | ||
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| The very first thing we did after arriving at the cabin, was to harvest salad ingredients from what we now call "the Horn of Orivesi" (as in "the Horn of Plenty"). Eija helped Hild distinguish edibles (multiple salad types, dill, parsley, cucumber, tomatoes, chives, basil, and more) from weeds while potatoes were boiling and Rob barbequed the sausages. Dinner was soon served. | ||
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| Kayaking Längelmävesi lake | ||
| Eija has her own very nice kayak. And after renting kayaks for Rob and Hild, we all went for a spin around the lake. That was a practice run. The real trip went across the choppy Längelmävesi lake to Eräpyhä - 2 km each way. Eija and Rob in kayaks and Hild in the rowing boat just in case we got into trouble and needed a battery-driven tow to shore! | ||
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| Our goal was to walk up the tallest hill in this area - for the view and to reach "Nunnankirko" (The Nun's Church) which dates back to the Bronze Age as a burial place and later as a resting, eating and sleeping place for hunters or possibly a place for church service in the 1300s. Now it is just a pile of rocks. We also came across some big glacial rocks - clearly marked with a sign "Protected by Law" so don't take it home with you! | ||
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| Our boats were parked on a small beach near Nunnankirko and we walked a nicely marked path around the headland. The ultimate goal was to have a picnic and cook sausages on a bonfire. Rob and Hild were very impressed when we found a nicely organized picnic area with table chairs, an open cabin, and a big fireplace. | ||
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| In spite of rather wet wood Eija and Rob got the fire burning well... and before you know it we had wonderful bbq sausages with tomato ketchup, bread, and "mustaherukka" juice (like Ribena or "Husholdingssaft"). | ||
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| During our hike around the headland we picked some lingonberries ("tyttebær") and while it didn't amount to much, we still crushed it all up with sugar for a quick-and-dirty jam one morning. The breakfast of (Nordic) kings: Bread with cheese and lingonberry jam, salami sausage, and a mug of milk. Yum. | ||
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| We were relieved when we returned to our secluded beach and found our boats still waiting for us. No one had stolen them although the chance of that happening was pretty slim according to Eija. On the return trip, Rob took the rowing boat and Eija and Hild were in kayaks. The wind was much stronger now and we got a very choppy and exciting ride (slog!) back. We are proud to say that we arrived back on the Horn of Orivesi without having to use the outboard engine. | ||
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| Hild followed Eija in her kayak as we battled the side winds and Rob had his own rowing-boat-battles. We all took the occasional breaks from rowing/paddling - nice photo opportunities. Hild constantly wished that Bjørnar was on this trip too, with his GoPro camera. Then she could have paddled while taking photos from the GoPro camera strapped to her head. It was great fun though - on such a beautiful day! | ||
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| Here are two illustrations of how bouncy the ride was - especially when Hild had to hold the camera and let go of the paddle... | ||
| After an exhausting but fun day we had dinner and enjoyed the sunset and the moon rise over Längelmävesi. | ||
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| Hiking the marshlands at Siikaneva | ||
| On the second day we ignored the rain and went hiking in the marshlands at Siikaneva north-west of Orivesi. We got horribly wet but completed our trek along the nicely maintained boardwalks to yet another well-organized picnic spot to make a bonfire and bbq more sausages. | ||
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| We arrived at the picnic spot and tried to make a bonfire after hunting around for the driest wood we could find and even making a (very) temporary and useless roof out of an old tarpaulin. | ||
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Then while we were sitting there, the fire - now sheltered by an old pot - continued buring and
we got our warm sausages in the end anyway. We all enjoyed a bottle of soft drink at which point Rob
introduced our favourite saying of this holiday: "I would rather have a bottle in front of me - than
a frontal lobotomy". We love tongue twisters!
And for a Norwegian, no forest hike or picnic is complete without "Kvikk Lunsj" (equivalent to KitKat in English and "Kismet" from Fazer) |
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| On the way home we drove past a confused-looking pheasant along the road. | ||
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| Later that night Rob made pizza for dinner - prepared from scratch and in Eija's fancy stove in the top of her fireplace. The main ingredient was not pheasant but pepperoni. Delicious! Eija and Hild contributed with salad from the Horn of Orivesi. | ||
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| Kayaking and hiking around Enojärvi | ||
| The next day we loaded the three kayaks onto the trailer and drove to lake Enojärvi. Here our plan was to find a route to the north end where we then wanted to hike to Tuula's cabin. Here Eija and Rob are consulting the GPS. And after some wobbling we all managed to get into our kayaks from the jetty - without falling in the water. We all find it easier to enter the kayaks from a beach. | ||
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| Rob and Eija in good style! | ||
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| We found a wonderful narrow section and we were just in awe at how beautiful it was.... and then we consulted GPS again just in case. Everything looks the same along the shorelines. | ||
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| There are not many photos of Hild kayaking as she was hogging the camera throughout... but here Rob managed to pry the camera from her. And then she took one of herself... | ||
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| Here are also some more film clips of how lovely kayaking on Enojärvi is. | ||
| A very nice land owner at the north end of the lake kindly let us land on his beach and store our kayaks there while we hiked up to Tuula's place. The photo of the transformer is only meant to show the road at which we landed (Kärjenniementie) - and not the boring transformer on its own... | ||
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THANK YOU TUULA AND HANNU!
We would like to thank Tuula and Hannu for letting us have lunch at their cabin at lake Rautajärvi. We would also like to say that, as requested, we didn't encourage the mice. In fact we gave them all a stiff talking too and spoke to them in a very condescending tone.... ho-hum. This should keep them away for a good long time. Here you can all see what a lovely veranda Hannu and Tuula have bulit and we enjoyed yet another bbq-sausage-meal! You can see the huge sauna in the background. The view from their jetty is so nice and peaceful. |
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| Eija is not convinced that 3-photos-in-a-row is a good idea. She might be right and the ruckus certainly didn't encourage the mice! | ||
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| Hiking a glacial ridge | ||
| Sunday we went hiking on the glacial ridge between Längelmävesi and Roine lakes. As you can see the satellite photo it was winter once, but luckily we have summer temperatures and no snow and ice - phew! | ||
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| We started walking at the Mobilia buliding which houses the automobile and road museum. At the top of the ridge we didn't only get a good view of the lakes, but we also got a history lesson or three about the area. Strangely enough none of the information was written in other than Finnish - even if it was funded by EU money! | ||
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| Eija worked hard and translated stories about: Kaarina Hannuntytär (1500s); "Laiska Jakko" (lazy Jakko; 15-1600s); Kaiser Aleksanteri I (17-1800s); The oldest road system dating back to 1500s; the great natural disaster of 1604 when the river switched direction overnight (Scary!)... Interesting stuff. | ||
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| We spotted nice red-white "Fluesopp" (Norwegian and "fly amanita" in English); a white-brown one we couldn't name; and "Rogn" tree with red berries ("Mountain Ash" in English). | ||
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| Other interesting sights were a huge vehicle used until 1980 to transport gigantic transformers along normal roads. We also saw these cute change rooms for swimmers; and a little road network for children to learn and test their road skills. | ||
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| Sauna Sauna Sauna | ||
| Each and every day we had sauna at Eija's cabin. It was wonderful to have wood fired sauna with "Vihta" which is a bundle of birch twigs to whip oneself with!!! ("Bjørkeris" in Norwegian); and then swims in the lake. In the moonlight was even better. | ||
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| Rug cleaning - the Finnish way | ||
| And before we left the Horn of Orivesi it was time to participate in a very Finnish tradition: rug cleaning. There are several of these sinks and cleaning equipment with public access. The process includes lots of water, soap, brushes, scrubbing, rinsing, mangling (using the mangle to squeeze the water out of the rugs), and then hanging the rugs up to dry. We learn new things every day of this very Finnish holiday. | ||
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| Holiday over | ||
| Then it was time to leave. First we grabbed some bakery goods with Finnish strawberry and blood-orange-juice. We caught the commuter train ("Taarjamajuna" in Finnish) from Orivesi to Tampere. It is the smallest train we have ever taken! | ||
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| After a pitstop in Tampere (photo is illustrative as it was taken in Orivesi) we took the regional train to Tikkurlantie and found our hotel Rantasipi near the airport. On our way to get dinner we walked past a commercial building that smelled just like the bbq sausages we have eaten each and every day since we got here. We have to investigate if "HK" was the brand we ate!! | ||
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| ... and research does indeed show that we had been enjoying HK Kabanossi sausages. Yum!! | ||
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So Eija, we would like to thank you for an absolutely fabulous holiday! You've got us hooked on kayaking so we're heading back to Canada
so we can keep paddling. See you soon!
August 2013