May 17th: The road to Vasa

The  day began with a relatively leisurely breakfast at 0800 followed by the joy of checking out of the pleasant but overpriced Hotel Kamp and setting off in the Land Cruiser with Tim and Wendy for out overnight destination of Vasa. Vasa is a medium size town in the Swedish speaking part of Finland on the coast of the Gulf of Bothnia - the correct name for the top end of the Baltic Sea apparently.

The route out of Helsinki was  the usual scramble along ring roads and seeking signposts that came and went; very frustrating even with a satnav to help; but eventually we found we had succeeded and avoided the motorway and were on an ordinary main road towards the coast at Pori, about 250 km away.

 The day brightened up and the sun was shining  as we drove on straight, good quality roads with pretty light traffic most of the time.

The countryside varied from birch and pine forest with odd patches of agriculture or logging......
 to larger expanses of cleared land for broad acre crops and even large areas of plastic greenhouses.

We turned off onto smaller roads to stay close to the coast once we were north of Pori and found a very good spot on an inlet to have our picnic lunch.

The view at the lunch site

Wendy bringing the picnic basket down to the lunch site

The three of us at lunch

 After lunch we stayed on small roads and eventually ended up on a small swimming beach which was  very deserted and cool as the wind was getting a bit blustery. Still it was good to be on a beach and have a walk by the sea (Baltic or Gulf of Bothnia).

 A Baltic Beach

Tim filming intrepidly  at the beach - it really was quite a chilly breeze

On our rural run we came across many houses painted the same red colour...

A typical red house in a village

But then we found this very striking church  which was more of a tower. It seemed to be marking  a war cemetery from WW1................ 

................ but it also had this odd one-legged figure at the door but we could not make out the explanation...

 The drive continued through very pretty countryside,still traffic free narrow roads in birch and pine  forest

We finally drove into Vasa at about 1630  and found the Hotel Astor with no problems, it is opposite the railway station.

The entry to Vasa

Vasa railway station

Tim parking the car for the night outside the hotel

 A quick check in and then a head count as the other cars began arriving; we had not been the first as every took their own route the arrival were spread over about another  45 minutes.
First business was a  session in the bar to sort out travel changes due to the advice that our ferry from North Cape would now be one day late. The bar was rather dominated by these  three deer heads on the wall............

The deer heads  - and Diane from Texas

 Anyway after some discussion Tim and Wendy decided  that we would spend 2 days in Alta, rather than the one planned, and  make the North Cape a day trip before driving across to Tromso to arrive as close as possible to the original schedule. Others decided to stay 2 nights and North Cape and go fishing or whatever.
Once all the changes had been sorted out we all went to a waterfront restaurant at the other side of town - a 15 minute stroll- to enjoy a great meal.

All 11 participants at the dinner table - Baltic Sea (Gulf of Bothnia) outside the window at the rear

 At 2200 we set off to walk back to the hotel still in broad daylight!

The sun still high in the sky at 2200

The old Town Hall  in Vasa  in the evening daylight as we walked home at 2200 - Time and Lynne crossing the street

A day of some 470+km and very pleasant countryside with  spectacular water views.
We are 63 degrees 5 minutes north and so still have a way to reach go to North Cape at 71 degrees 10 minutes plus, but tomorrow should see us almost inside the Arctic Circle which is at 66 degrees 33 minutes.