Wed, 13 Aug 2003

author Tim	location St. Pauli, Hamburg, Deutschland
posted 16:20 CEST 18/08/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/Finland ( all photos )

Goodbye Helsinki ( 12 photos )
Having both run out of our three day tourist ticket and things that we really wanted to do, we spent the morning lazing in for the first time in a while.
Around 3pm we got organised, packed up the bus and drove into town to locate the Viking Line terminal.
During our wait in the queue, where we were kept for a long while as they found a space our unique-height van could best occupy, we took some photos showing the size of our vessel - the Mariella. This was something quite different to all other ferries we have caught, and I was constantly reminded of a trip on the now-defunct Fairstar the Funship I took with my family many years ago.
Eventually aboard, we set out to explore the ship. Numerous bars, several restaurants and cafés, obligatory duty free and our cosy little cabin were all highlights. We were up on one of the higher decks and to our suprise had our own toilet and shower - the girl had certainly done the right thing by us when she couldn't book exactly what we wanted.
We were up on deck in the fantastic weather as the ship pulled away from the docks, staying there for quite a while just taking in the fabulous vistas, including the Zoo and Suomenlinna where we had visited - we almost felt like locals.
In fact, it felt like we were going somewhere for months, not permanently! There were people waiving and everything, and this was only a sixteen hour ferry ride. There was some on-deck entertainment for a while, but the wind eventually got the better of us, so we headed inside.
We settled on a Grill House for dinner, which was a little more expensive than we would have liked, but the fun of dining in a moving restaurant made up for it.
We had a look through the duty free shop, not wanting to buy anything major after our huge stock-up on the Estonia trip, but instead found some everyday items very cheap - coffee, olives, etc.
The night was spent watching some entertaining (in a laugh-at-them-not-with-them way) Swedish or Finish karaoke - no idea which, it didn't really matter. The sight of people singing along horribly to songs you have never heard with backing videos shot out of someone's car as they drove through a city will stay with me for a while, whether I want it or not.
Declining to join in, even though we would have done better than some of the participants despite not having a clue what we would have been singing about, we headed back to our little cabin, and enjoyed a great night's sleep.
Somewhere during the night, our clocks changed an hour and we crossed back into Swedish waters.

author Tim	location St. Pauli, Hamburg, Deutschland
posted 15:54 CEST 18/08/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/Finland ( all photos )

Suomenlinna Sea Fortress ( 21 photos )
Heading back into town, we had the general task of getting ourselves a ferry from Helsinki to Stockholm.
But first, two main things. One was to satisfy my nerd-knowledge a little for a change, heading to the Department of Computer Science of the University of Helsinki. Some among you many realise that this is the birthplace of Linux. If you don't know or care, skip to the next paragraph. I just wanted to find out if there was anything there as a tribute of sorts to Linus Torvalds' time there, and some fairly helpful and suprised to see me people basically explained that there wasn't. After a bit of a nose around and a coffee in their cafeteria, we caught a tram back into town.
Next was a means to save ourselves some money - an International Youth Travel Card. This is accepted almost everywhere (we have found), entitling us to so-called "student" discounts which are sometimes as much as 50%. Why we didn't find out about this earlier I don't know, but some careful reading of Lonely Planet pointed us at the Student Travel Association, which conveniently have an office smack-bang in central Helsinki.
So, after waiting there for a while (where we noted that travel to Australia and NZ is very heavily promoted - they even have a special information night), we forked over a measly ten euro each for another photo card to prove who we are in our wallets.
This turned out to have been a very good move, as our next stop was the offices of Viking Line, one of the ferry companies sailing to Stockholm. After a bit of negotiation, we managed to score ourselves good cabins on a ferry for the following day, the student cards saving more than ten euro each right away.
So, this left us with a day more to spend in Helsinki. This worked out well, giving us time to get the tram around a little (a couple of embassies which were closed), then get back to the fish market for a ferry across to the Suomenlinna / Sveaborg Sea Fortress.
The fifteen minute, already paid for with our tourist ticket ferry ride across to the set of islands was nice enough, and we soon set about wandering around the place. This is yet another World Heritage Site, a 250-year old sea fortress built by the Swedish into a city with more inhabitants than Helsinki itself. What remains is a series of interconnected islands with museums, parks and plenty of history.
Our wanders were fairly non-specific, taking in plenty of old buildings and lazing in the parkland. One thing of interest was the Submarine Vesikko, the only remaining Finnish submarine (the rest were destroyed). Saving huge sums of cash by waving our shiny new student cards, we got a glimpse into what life must have been like cramped into a tiny tin can under the water for months on end.
After a long wait for a return ferry (no problem, just relax and enjoy the view across the water), we got back to the other side and then the caravan park to pay for another night's accommodation. This bought another nice suprise for the day - the fourth night is free!
We rounded off a cheap day (well, except the ferry tickets) with a home-cooked meal and some duty free beers.

author Tim	location Helsinki, Finland
posted 14:01 EEST 13/08/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/Finland ( all photos )

A Quick Evening ( No photos )
(Continued from Eesti)
We located a taxi since the Metro had long stopped running (it was approaching 1am), who drove us rather quickly back to our camp site. More than worn out, we managed to organise the bed and crash asleep.

author Tim	location Helsinki, Finland
posted 12:28 EEST 13/08/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/Finland ( all photos )

A Quick Morning ( No photos )
After not doing much in the morning, we had some breakfast and made some sandwiches, to keep our costs for the day down.
Back into town on the Metro, we headed once agian to the Tourist Office, stood in a queue for ages to ask about a ferry to Tallinn, only to find out that she couldn't book us on one since they were already boarding. So, we raced down to the docks, located the right office, went in, paid some money and wandered up to customs. We were on our way to another country!
On the way out, the immigration guy was concerned about my passport. It seems that Finland has recently joined the Schengen agreement, which means that if I intend to stay more than three out of any six months in any Schengen countries, I need a visa. Never heard about that before, but you don't argue with immigration people.
Not a problem, as I haven't yet spent three out of six months, and can get a visa in the future. However, at most border crossings you don't get a stamp, so it looks as if I have been in Schengen countries since entering Netherlands the first time back in April.
Luckily, I have been keeping my boarding passes from each international journey we take, so after a while I could convince him to let me out. We will get a visa sorted fairly soon for me, and now start insisting on a stamp at each border.
So, that sorted, we were in a queue with lots of people, headed across to Eesti (Estonia).

author Tim	location Helsinki, Finland
posted 22:15 EEST	section Europe2002/Europe/Finland ( all photos )

Exploring Helsinki ( 21 photos )
It has been nice not driving at all today - the last time we did that was in Bergen, which seems like quite a long time ago now. Instead, we have been giving our three day Helsinki tourist travel card a workout, travelling on the Metro and buses all around the city.
We caught first the Metro then a Bus this morning, taking us in the cheapest possible way to Helsinki Zoo. We spent a pleasant few hours wandering around the place. In some ways it was great - there were some interesting animals you wouldn't see in many other places, but in other ways it was quite disappointing. For instance, many of the animals were nowhere to be seen, leaving us to wander if they were there at all, or just had signs for people to read about them, look aimlessly around the enclosure for a while, then keep walking.
But by far the biggest disappointment was in that they had no moose! Imagine this - you are a tourist from a far-off land, and every two kilometres or so for the last five thousand you have driven, there have been signs saying "look out for moose!". Yet, you haven't seen even one. So, you decide that it's cheating a bit, but perhaps you can see one at the zoo. You fork over your cash, wander around in the heat for a while, and then learn that their enclosure is undergoing renovations so they aren't there!!! Oh well, worse things could have happened, and for now my stuffed toy moose will have to do.
So, back into town to begin our wander around. First to the Tourist Information to ask plenty of questions - where is an Internet café which will let us plug the laptop in? Ferries to Tallinn? Ferries to Stockholm? The poor girl did a great job, and according to her badge, could have done so in six different languages. We read our emails there while waiting in the queue which was nice.
We headed to the café which ended up having wireless net access, but which was a very expensive pay for 24 hours one which we didn't really want to do. So, we had a nice lunch snack there before heading on.
This took us back through the impressive Senaatintori (Senate Square), which is totally dominated by the huge Tuomiokirkko - a Church. When we first saw this yesterday as we wandered around the corner, we were both a little lost for words. Apparently this square is used by third-rate film-makers when they want an "authentic" Russian look.
Which reminds me, we would be very keen to take a side-trip into St Petersburg (only about 300km from here) were it not for both of us needing visas which take about twelve days to process at the least.
Further south to the Fish/Produce/Tourist Garbage market, we wandered around for a little while, purchased our Finland fridge magnet (we have one from each country we have been to), then some raspberries which we ate by the water. There was a strange, perhaps not-quite-all-there busker who was hitting pots and pans near us, enough to make us move onwards.
Deciding to be just a little organsied for a change, we jumped on to part of Lonely Planet's Helsinki walking tour. This lead us through plenty of interesting places, including the Havis Amanda Fountain and Mermaid Statue, Market Square, which is regarded as one of the symbols of Helsinki. Then along Esplanade Park - a long thin strip of parkand which stretches for several blocks along the city, where huge numbers of people were out enjoying the sunshine.
About here we cheated a bit and jumped on a tram to continue our "walking tour". Picking one at random, and having no idea where it went (everything in Finland is in both Finnish and Swedish, as there are two official languages), I followed our path through the city on our map, trying to pick out the tiny street signs they have here as we actually ended up almost exactly where we wanted to be - the Olympic Stadium from the 1952 Olympics which were held here.
First though, we wandered past the much newer Finnair Stadium, where the FIFA Under-17 World Cup is currently being held, before approaching the older stadium. Here, dechyphering the security guard's broken English we discovered that the National Athletic Championships was currently in progress, so we couldn't just wander in for a look around.
Being half-tempted by sitting back and watching other people play sport, we wandered down to the gate to enquire of the ticket price, but decided fifteen euro (still haven't found that on my keyboard) a bit much. However, walking through the stalls set up outside the gates, we spied an outdoor beach volleyball tournament taking place. No-one challenged us as we walked in and took seats right by the ring (even passing the balls back when they went out), and spent an hour or so watching various teams play, relaxing in the sun like so many Finns also seemed to be doing, the Olympic Stadium in the background.
Back on the tram, our walking tour finished for the moment (we have seen most of it when combined with the looking around we did last night), we needed some food, and found it at Eatz. The snacky bar-food filled us well and fairly cheaply, and was washed down with a bit of the local brew. Well, you have to try things in these cities...
Just across the road to the train station, we came back to the caravan park, showered, and are about to head to bed.

author Tim	location Helsinki, Finland
posted 22:56 EEST 10/8/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/Finland ( all photos )

First wander around town ( 8 photos )
The look around town went quite well - more detail in tomorrow's update, but suffice to say we got ourselves oriented, took some interesting photos of the sunset over the old city buildings and generally learnt how things worked.
Of interest specifically were the "onion-bulb building", the Uspensky Cathedral, so nick-named due to the 13 bulbs which adorn the roof representing Christ and the disciples. We just thought it looked cool, especially reflecting the sunset.
After a wander along the docks (and an ice cream, just as the wind picked up), we headed generally for somewhere to spend a couple of hours before returning home. We found this to the north of the city at Storyville - a jazz venue with expensive beer but nice surroundings. The band only started as we were about to leave, so we didn't stay around.
On our way there we walked past perhaps fifty people carrying trombones. I thought that perhaps one of the most horrible-sounding orchestras ever was in town, but it turns out that it was the Finnish Trombone and Tuba convention. Very strange.
Nothing much else to do for budget-conscious people such as ourselves, so we headed back for the night.

author Tim	location Helsinki, Finland
posted 19:21 EEST	section Europe2002/Europe/Finland ( all photos )

South to Helsinki ( 8 photos )
We awoke to make the most of the showers which seem to be included in the rather hefty caravan park fees in Finland (no free-camping allowed here), have some breakfast than see if we could convince Rosie to get moving.
She seems to dislike some of the fuel we are putting in her - works quite a bit better on the more expensive 98 octane stuff than the usual 95. Also a few other small problems developing, but nothing bad enough to slow us down. We intend to stop for a few days perhaps in Hamburg while we put her through a full service, quite a bit overdue.
So, Liz took the driver's seat first as we pushed directly for Helsinki, stopping only for fuel just before running out (phew), coffee and things like that.
We eventually made it to Helsinki ring-road where we followed our noses towards the only caravan park here, Rastila Camping. It's quite large and fairly soul-less, but serves it purpose and the metro/train station is 50m out the door.
An interesting side note is that even though we have driven so far south now (similar distance as one corner of Great Britain to the other since North Cape), we are only back at the same latitude as the Orkney Islands, above the top of Scotland!
We intend to go into town tonight for a look around, and over the next couple of days explore both the city and also nearby Tallinn, capital of Estonia an 80km ferry ride south.

author Liz	location Helsinki, Finland
posted 19:09 EEST 9/8/03	section Europe2002/Europe/Finland ( all photos )

South, South and more South ( 1 photo )
Today we set and alarm to get going nice and early, and them promptly went back to sleep! We still managed to get on the road before 8:30am, and drove a short distance north-east to Ranua. There was a Scandinavian Wildlife Park there (it even had a Moose!), so we were very keen to go, but the weather was terrible - rainy and cold. We sat at the park's cafe and had a hot drink, trying to decide what to do. There was 3km of outside walking which we decided wouldn't be to pleasant, and the animals would probably also be hidden away out of the weather. So we gave it a miss and headed onwards.
A lot of the rest of the day was spent driving. Tim has just worked out that today we have driven as far as the south-east corner of Ireland to the north-west corner. Not bad really.
It has rained quite heavily for most of the day as we passed through more and more forests. There are still a few reindeer here and there but no moose!
We stopped in Kajaani for a while to call Tim's mum (her birthday today - Happy Birthday!), look for an internet café, do a bit of grocery shopping and then stop at an all we could eat pizza place. We stuffed ourselves and didn't have to eat for the rest of the day.
Tonight we are just outside of Kuopio at a huge caravan park, Camping Rauhalahti, that happens to be having a motorcycle rally this weekend. We came here primarily because it has the world's largest wood smoke sauna. We went for a walk up to the sauna throught lots of very wet forest, but it was all closed up even though it is supposed to be open on Friday evenings.
So we came back, bought a beer and an apple and lemon cider (interesting but nice) to relax with in the van.
Rosie has been playing up a bit (loosing power, but different to last time), but it got worse today so hopefully we will make it to Helsinki before repairs are needed.

author Tim	location Tornio, Lapland, Finland
posted 21:13 EEST	section Europe2002/Europe/Finland ( all photos )

Santa Claus' House ( 6 photos )
After my late night staying up for a while then giving up looking for the sunrise due to cloud and tiredness, it was a late start getting on the road this morning.
When Liz did eventually drag me out of bed, we packed up then drove about thirty seconds into town to have a good look around the Sami handycraft shops. There was plenty of Made in China touristy garbage around, but if you looked under the cover, you could see silversmiths working on the pieces in the back of the shops, weavers weaving and the like.
After walking around the town and seeing what was on offer, I eventually parted with not too much money for a very nice Sami knife in a pouch. Holding the real ones next to the horrible touristy ones I was glad I had waited until here to buy it.
We then hit the road for lots of what was basically a long driving day, heading almost due South along the E75. It is amazing what a difference being able to drive at 100km/h makes - we get so much further it is constantly suprising us.
The only real stop of interest all day was half an hour or so spent wandering around the "official" residence of Santa Claus, Santa Claus' Village. Built on top of the Arctic Circle crossing for maximum tourist potential, we were shocked to find out we didn't actually have to pay to get in. Also, it was all quite well done.
We saw the "real" Santa (although Liz claims he is a fake just because he was wearing grey tracksuit pants), and marvelled at the dazzling array of Christmas garbage you could buy. So, to make up for not having to pay an entrance fee, we bought some.
We also poked our heads into Santa's Official Post Office, where there were letters from all around the world filed away. I'm not sure if they have one from me on record, but it's interesting to look at the pigeon hole where it would have sat, thinking about how far away it seems when you are sitting in Sydney.
We used the excuse of it being the northern-most in the world to stop off at the McDonalds in Rovaniemi just south of Santa's House. Tasted just like it did in Tasmania.
Pushing south back out of the Arctic Circle, we drove on towards the town of Tornio / Haparanda. This place has two names since it is actually a city in two halves. One part, Tornio, is in Finland, and the other is over the bridge in Sverige. Just how the locals manage to change their watches by an hour every time they cross the bridge is beyond me.
That reminds me of a golf course that Lonely Planet points out here where "you can tee off in Finland and hit the ball into Sweden, which means if you start at, say, 12:30am, the ball will remain in the air for an hour and land in yesterday." Makes me wish I had kept my golf up just for the novelty value.
We drove around for a while looking at signs on the roads and trying to find them on our Lonely Planet map, until it emerged that Liz was trying to navigate us with the map of Turku, some 700km south of here! Needless to say, we ended up feeling our way towards the closed Tourist Office, where we got a brochure and made plans to head towards our stay for the night, Camping Tornio.
We have rested here for a while, Liz catching up her journal, and me happily whittling away some wood with my new knife. We have to make some plans tonight as we aren't sure exactly what to do next.

author Tim	location Inari, Lapland, Finland
posted 02:14 EEST 07/08/03	section Europe2002/Europe/Finland ( all photos )

Into Finland ( No photos )
(Continued from Norge)
Perhaps it was the sight of a very dirty red high-top combi van with Dutch plates and Australian flags approaching which alerted the border guard, or maybe he was just looking for someone to pick on. We were pulled over, after very quickly deciding, perhaps incorrectly, that we had nothing to declare.
We hadn't expected anything at all - all other border crossings we have done have been nothing more than a sign and advice of the new road rules. That is most probably because that has all been within the EU. Since Norge isn't in the EU, we were now driving back in to it and hence the high security.
We showed our passports, explained how we came to be driving a Dutch van, gave our rough plans, said that we did have alcohol on board (I have my Scotch whisky bottle collection with us - maybe not the cleverest thing to be driving across European borders with), and were eventually given the all clear and a friendly smile. Also forthcoming was a "drive carefully - their are reindeer and moose on the road". Reindeer are old hat now, but a moose is still high on our must-see-before-we-go-elsewhere list.
So, we now have a bunch of useless currency we need to exchange somewhere (Finland uses the Euro - something we understand at least), and the possibility that this entire country might not have stopped using butane and maybe we can cook for ourselves again.
Once again able to drive at reasonable speeds (100km/h instead of 80km/h on a wide long straight road in the middle of nowhere), we rapidly covered the distance to Inari. This was our target due to billing as a great place to find genuine Sami bits and pieces, and its posession of a nice little caravan park.
We spent the evening cooking in the kitchen here, did some washing, and now I am still awake many hours after midnight getting my journal up to date. I think I'll stay up for the sunrise now, it can't be long.

(customised)