Day 14 - Helsinki to Vaasa

Those who remember the events of the Falklands war will recall how the Argentinian Exocet missiles came out of nowhere to strike at the British task force ships. Since then, I have thought of those unexpected bad things that come of the blue to strike you, as Exocets. Well, an Exocet hit us late last night!

During our evening meal at the hotel, Ahmad came in with an email he had just received from the US Hurtigruten agent he had booked his ferries through, saying that our ferry from the North Cape to Tromso was cancelled because it was in dry dock having repairs! They were offering him a sailing 24 hours later. I won't go into all the subsequent discussions, phone calls and emails that took place, but the result is that we will be splitting from the group when we reach the North Cape. Four cars will stay in Honningsvag for two nights and then catch the ferry to Tromso, where they will then stay only one night, while Wendy, Peter and I will return from the North Cape to Alta, where we will stay a second night and then drive across to Tromso for two nights. Doing it this way will give us the two days we had planned in Tromso and also enable Peter to fly back to Germany on the 24th.

It's not entirely satisfactory and I must say I am very disappointed not to be doing the ferry from the North Cape, but there is no sensible alternative. These are the sorts of things that happen on a trip such as this and you have to get used to making changes.

Returning to today: we left Helsinki around 9.30am for the 430 kms drive across south-western Finland to Vaasa on the coast of the Gulf of Bothnia. It was an easy drive on good empty roads and we reached the coastal town of Pori around 12.30pm.

A typical empty Finnish road and then, with the sun coming out, some dark clouds in the distance.

 

We then turned more or less due north and left the main road to find somewhere to have lunch. We quickly found this very pretty spot by the sea, where we had the lunch of cheese and ham rolls we had prepared at breakfast.

The place was truly idyllic with small islands and forests down to the shoreline.

 

Two pals.

We spent a very enjoyable hour and then started north again. We took the small back roads that kept close to the coast and occasionally we could see the sea through the pine forests. We went through many small villages with their red and white wooden houses.

In one village we saw this church with the most peculiar wooden statue of a man with one wooden leg and his hand out-stretched.

Behind the church was a very small graveyard with neatly arranged headstones of those who had died in the two world wars. By each headstone were blue pansies in a small flower pot. It was all very beautifully laid out.

 

We drove on and again turned off the road to look at the sea and take more photos.

The end of the road????

We reached Vaasa at about 4pm. Driving into Vaasa and the wooden railway station opposite our hotel.

 

Ahmad had arrived and, not long after, the others all turned up. We exchanged stories and then walked down to the waterfront to have a wonderful meal as the sun was setting.

We came out of the restaurant at about 9.30pm with the sun still quite high in the sky. We really are very far north and the day after tomorrow we cross the Arctic Circle, to enter the Land of the Midnight Sun.

Finally, more disappointing news for Eric when he learned that the window he was waiting for will not now be delivered to Oulu as he was expecting. He has taken the decision to have it delivered to Alta, as that is the first place of any size where he can possibly get the car repaired after we leave Oulu the day after tomorrow.