The Swedish High Coast and the Kvarken Archipelago in Finland form a joint UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The last Ice Age, land uplift and sea have shaped the scenery. During the Ice Age, the inland ice was at its thickest around this area. The ice, about 3 kilometres thick, pressed the land downwards to the depth of up to one kilometre. When the ice melted, the land started rising again, and continues to do so. At present, the land rises 9 millimetres per year.
My exploration of the area began on the northwest of the main island of the Archipelago, Replot, at the Klobbskat Marina. Here, there is a place for campervans with an indoor sitting area on the end of the marina with a fire pit, the lifeboat station, a boatyard and a brewery. From here, I took two shorter trips out by van for hikes in the surrounding area.
To my surprise, there were actually three other motorhomes at the marina; all of them friends, celebrating an 80th birthday, but in a low key manner. They barbequed in the little hut at the end of the pier, but were incredibly quiet.
There were two employees only at the brewery, I spoke to one of them at lunchtime on a smoke break. He told me they brewed for the local supermarket. Supermarkets in Finland can now sell beer up to 8% in strength, changed from 5.5% last year. Kvarken brewery brew an IPA, a double IPA, a porter, and a session beer. There is quite a lot of porter here in Finland, a pleasant surprise for me at least, as there seems to be less and less in the UK over the last few years. The guy gave me a bottle of porter after I asked if I could buy one.
Eventually it created a cobble field with round and similar-sized stones.
Due to land uplift, there are cobble fields on dry land, like the one above. Here, they are called ‘devil’s fields’, since they were unsuitable for cultivation, and thought to be made by Näkki, which in Finnish folklore are small evil spirits that lure unsuspecting swimmers to their deaths by shapeshifting themselves into floating logs..
On Wednesday morning I moved to the southwest of the Replot island, Sommarö Sund. There is another motorhome area here, though with no one else around. It’s an area of summer cabins, but also quite grand main residences, though it seems extremely quiet at this time of year. There has been a guy working on his boat close to my van in the last couple of days, and he tells me that though the area would seem ideal for commuting to Vaasa for work, a 30 minute drive away, for Vaasa residents that is too far.. which seems ridiculous to anyone from a British city, or the guy himself who has worked most of his career in China, where a 100 kilometre commute isn’t rare.
There are a couple of good circuit hikes here also which Rua and I have undertaken.
In contrast with the storms hitting the UK, the weather here has been calm, with no wind or rain, and warmer than average, at about 10C, cold at night only if the cloud breaks.
I’ll leave the Kvarken tomorrow for the Vaasa area, and to head inland again, but I plan to be back in the Archipelago again in a few weeks.
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