Freedom is: A Finnish Lake near Virrat

Zagan the motorhome is feeling free, parked in the cool, sunlit air at a small, free of charge parking area alongside Lake Toisvesi, near Virrat in Western Finland (N62.25548, E23.75246). Thinking about it, the idea of charging for parking here seems ludicrous. Not that it’s not a wonderful place, but the fact this is Big Country. Already, without yet touching the vast tracts of forest in the north, we’re getting a sense of Finland as Europe’s most forested country. 70% of the land here is trees. It feels like almost all of the rest is lake! Using my thumb as a rough measure, we’ve the same distance driven from the bottom of Poland to here, to do again to bring us to the top of Finland. Big Driving days ahead (anything over 2 or 3 hours is a Big Drive for us!).

Zagan wild camping at Lake Toisvesi, Finland

Last night a rock concert kicked off, drum-thumping starting exactly at midnight. Impact on our sleep: not much. We were both bushed. The shift towards endless daylight’s eating away at our kip. It’s not unusual to see someone arrive in a car at 11:30pm, and take off for a run or a walk on the beach, as though it were hours earlier. Despite the ‘no motorhomes’ sign we shared the parking area with 2 other vans and a caravan, and no Finnish police arrived to turf us all out. Caravans, by the way, share a similar status to motorhomes here, something we’ve also seen in the Baltics. Most countries forbid caravans from using aires, and typically the friendly wave between passing motorhomers isn’t extended to our caravanning cousins. Not here – we’ve shared kipping spots with caravans and motorhomes alike, and today found ourselves waving like kids to about 50 Finnish motorhomes and ten Finnish caravans!

Wild camping in caravans appears to have the same ‘accepted’ status in Finland as motorhomes

You may have noticed by this point we’re next to a lake, and we previously said we were avoiding lakes, or more accurately the mosquitoes hordes we expect to frequent these watery havens. Yesterday we pulled out the map and changed our minds. We were going to hug the western coast, and if we’d been allowed to take Charlie on the beaches we might have done just that, as the beach and dunes at Kaanaa were fantastic. New plan: make a bee line east for the Koli National Park, before turning north to Sonkajärvi to drink beer and watch blokes carrying wives.

Good roads and good drivers here in Finland. Keep an eye out for speed cameras though – every junction to seem to have one (the speed limit usually drops at junctions)

Finland in June: Green trees and purple flowers line the roads

So here we are. A couple of hours through the forest-lined roads, a diesel fill-up (€1.19 a litre) and a swim in the lake later and I’m tapping this out. It feels good to be here. Finland’s beginning to feel like a place of freedom, where we can roam about like the nomads of old. The Finns seem to feel entirely at ease in their own company, and don’t bother us or even acknowledge us. I’d heard this about them (we have a Culture Shock book on Finland), and I thought it might come across to me as being aloof, but no, not at all. It feels like mutual respect is extended by default, and it very much suits my own introvert nature. I like the Finns.

Lake Toisvesi: frozen from December to April

Look carefully, there’s a tiny Jay head bobbing about in the brackish waters!

Not much else to report. We’re both keeping track of events back home, as we await the next steps following Britain’s vote to leave the EU. Being so far from home it’s hard to judge quite what’s happening. The mood of the country seems far from jubilant, but maybe that’s just the media portrayal of events. We’ve already had one email asking is if we’ve seen any change in the way we’re being treated abroad, which we haven’t, but it gives a small indication of the uncertainty which may well lie ahead.

Charlie’s bark-a-thon position whenever we turn up somewhere new. The poor thing has attempted to use his wee wherever we stop to claim land from the Sahara to Finland!

After yesterday’s post about SIM cards etc, I’ve just run a speed test on our Internet connection here: 4.6Mbps up and 11.9Mbps down on the Elisa 4G network. Why it’s twice as fast up as down, when it’s normally the other way around, I don’t know, but it feels beautifully responsive. Here’s hoping tomorrow’s speed is as good, as we’ll watch the England football game if it is, sat by a lake in a forest in Finland! I love technology (when it works :-).

Cheers, Jay

P.S. I spent a bit of time today reading about Simo Häyhä. He’s passed away now, but became a national hero in Finland’s fight against the USSR as they attempted to annex the country in 1939. Small in stature, and seemingly as reserved as any Finn, he gained the nickname “The White Death” from the Red Army. Sitting in snow at temperatures down to -40°C, with snow in his mouth to prevent his breath giving his position away, he killed over 500 of the enemy in just 90 days before finally being shot in the face with an exploding bullet, which he survived and lived into his 90’s. Incredible stuff eh?

P.P.S. No mosquitoes spotted yet, but some MAHOOOOSIVE flying biter thing tried to take my leg off earlier. We have some anti-mozzie spray called ‘Off’ which we got in Estonia, and which we’re no doubt about to test the effectiveness of!

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