Helsinki and across the Gulf of Finland

After a few days in Nuuksio National Park I gathered my courage and headed into the city. I have a friend who lives in Helsinki, Richard, who was once a gap student for me in 2007 when I was Director of Sport at the Grange School in Santiago, Chile. Since then we have stayed in touch through Strava. Richard returned to the UK in September 2007, studied Arabic at Durham University and has since worked in Saudi Arabia, and for the last five years, marketing for FinnAir, based in Helsinki. He is a triathlete so with the ability to be running and biking on forest tracks, and swimming in lakes only thirty minutes away the city suits him fine.

I was in the south of Nuuksio National Park for the weekend, parked up at the side of a football pitch thanks to being made welcome by a group of families..

..who were Swedish-speaking Finns having a social get together. Swedish-speaking Finns make up 5% of the population

There’s a real maze of tracks here in the south of the Park. Navigation isn’t easy on the smaller trails which aren’t marked with a colour like the bigger ones.

He has been fortunate to get a good price on an apartment rental just eighty metres off the sea front very close to Eiran Ranta, the city beach, and Löyly, the sauna restaurant so popular with tourists. That it was a Sunday was fortunate, as I could park directly outside his apartment, something not possible six days of the week. We walked on the seafront for a couple of hours, took a couple of expensive beers, and then settled Roja to doze in the van while we had dinner at. Nepalese restaurant, before returning to his apartment for a late beer.

10 euros a beer at a cafe on the seafront, and a very average IPA at that..

It’s been a long while since I have been in a city anywhere near the size of Helsinki, though on a Sunday evening it is as quiet as it gets.

I had thought I would stay in the van where I had left it, but there was still traffic after midnight, noisy on the cobbled stones, and the trams started at 5 am. Therefore I drove the three kilometers to the ferry terminal, which was closed, but found a quiet nook for the night without a problem.

The van parked opposite Richard’s apartment

Roja must have eaten something unpleasant that has disagreed with him. Diarrhoea began just as I got into the van for the night, and he got me up every couple of hours. It has been years since he has been laid low in such a way, though other than his need to pass he seems fine. It wasn’t an ideal place for it to happen, to say the least. He much prefers some thick grass off the track and of course there was nothing like that anywhere near.

This morning he isn’t better. I expect it will work its way through, but a two and a quarter hour ferry journey is a test for both of us…

…Actually he was fine on the ferry crossing, just slept. I finished my book, and we were into Tallinn on time, only to be delayed by traffic having to circumnavigate a huge hole in the road just after the exit of the dock.

I had another social engagement, two in as many days. Like London buses. This time it was with Eeva, who I have known for ten years mainly through her work at New Ing, but also as she did quite a bit of walking with us, including a memorable trip to Harris in January 2019. Her real friend is Roja though, as Eeva looked after him while I was away on bikepacking courses a few times. She was back in her hometown, Türi, for a week’s vacation and to celebrate her father’s 70th birthday.

Roja is very happy to see Eeva and be back outside the city..

We had a walk around the lake and through the park, and then went back to her parents’ apartment for lunch. It was just what Roja needed. He shook off his stomach problems and was in his usual fine form. My suspicion is that he doesn’t like cities, and so much so, that it makes him unwell. Perhaps he picked up something nasty from sidewalk sniffing, he doesn’t enjoy city strolling on the leash at all, and that was worsened by being left in the van on a busy road while we went for dinner.

He was hungry enough to eat a full dinner tonight.

From Türi, I drove half an hour west into the flat forests to a section of the long distance footpath, the 2RM Matkatee, a through hike of 820 kilometres through the Baltic forests of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.