Saturday 05 July 2008
Rest Day, yippee!!! Spent the morning catching up on admin (trip notes and Blog) and ablutions (laundry and servicing Disharmony II).
All Tracey's prayers were answered when she 'ran into' (read pursued relentlessly across the campsite) the 'Finnish Naked Man' all comers cup. This consisted of at least 20 blokes mitt choppers swinging in the breeze.
Now a double take of such events would normally be considered sufficient, however Tracey managed to get into triple figures.....just to make sure you know!
In the afternoon, we taxied into Viitasaari town for groceries and a skulk around. Well the skulking was severely limited by Saturday being early closing in these 'ere parts. This proved a novelty for us, having last occurred in the UK in 1952!
We scuttled around our favourite supermarket for a 'British is Best' themed dinner. Egg, bacon, beans, toast and fried snooker ball (tomato) washed down with lashings of Monkey Tea smuggled in by the Goff's. Ahhh, bliss.
Now we know a fry up is not Haute Cuisine, but compared to the shi....errrm stuff available here it is heavenly. Don't come to Finland for the cuisine, you will most certainly be disappointed.
More Scrabble followed the belly buster, resulting in Tracey taking advantage of Miles' replete condition stealing another game to make the score 2-2.
Back in the saddle tomorrow.
Sunday 06 July 2008
Today we have a planned 55 miler taking us to a small campsite near Paajarvi in the middle of nowhere, Finland.
Up and away at our usual time of 09:15 after briefly chatting to another (nutty) cycle touring Brit travelling North.
He set off 5 weeks ago from his home in Zurich (oooooeee!) and was a couple of weeks from North Cape, Norway. Good luck to him, he was 'doing it' to celebrate his retirement!
Weather forecast was dire, very cold and wet all day. We largely managed to dodge the wet bit only being caught in the first shower of the day. The cold bit stayed throughout and in a Northerly wind was blimmin cold!
We bashed out 56 miles on pretty, quiet roads though there were a large number of small, horrible, leg knackering ups followed by reasonable matching descents.
We both got that sinking feeling as we got closer to our destination due to the paucity of campsite roadside signage. In Finland, we have come to expect this to mean the campsite in question was deleted from the world several years previously. We were not disappointed....
Having given up on our intended destination and engaged in looking for a 'natural spot' to camp in, we ran (almost literally) into a sign declaring 'camping'.
We followed the direction of the sign down an increasingly unlikely dirt track to a site that looked to have been abandoned since 1963. In the absence of anything welcoming, we pitched our tent and made ourselves at home.
The evening followed fairly uneventfully though Miles was increasingly uneasy due to the presence of a couple of dossers who showed up and pretended to be staying there for the fishing.
Miles eased his unease (wow, see what I did there, almost poetry) by pretending to be Rambo and carrying a kitchen knife around ready to leap into action at the slightest provocation. Errrrm....maybe not.
The campsite owner also showed her face and relieved us of €15 for the privilege of staying at her closed down site.
The day was completed by the good news that Hamilton had, against all odds, overcome the two Finns in front of him to win the British F1 GP.
Total today a hard 56 miles and 495m of ascent. Total trip 895 miles.
Monday 07 July 2008
After a very good nights sleep despite the knife shaped bump in Miles' pillow) we were up, at em and away by 09:30.
Today we have a planned 45 miles to a campsite in Keuruu, still Finland.
Weather similar to yesterday, very, very cold, overcast but dry.
More gnarly hillocks bashed the bejesus out of our quads for the first 25 miles or so.
Our ride started with a bit of trick cycling that had us performing a 'tactical dismount' when the front wheel washed out in loose gravel. Fortunately, this was at low speed and had us rolling in the road unhurt but somewhat embarrassed.
Stopped at a nice (and now unexpected cafe) for lunch and a coffee 12 or so miles before our ultimate destination. The café owner was most interested in Disharmony II (who seems to get ALL the attention BTW) and he sniffed around her taking illicit photos for his bike porn collection. Dirty boy!
We rocked up at Keuruu at around 15:00 knowing we'd been for a ride even though the computer only read 46 miles.
Very nice site and back in our favourite cabins, we got unpacked then rode back into the town for the nights goodies.
For the record, Keuruu looks to be a genuinely nice place, with both history and character. Go there young man.
Total today a paltry though quad burning 46 miles and 405m of ascent. Total trip 938 miles.
More Southerly ramblings to follow.
Back soon. Miles & Tracey.
