Day 15 - Vaasa to Oulu

We are now two weeks into the tour and a second Exocet has just struck us!

This evening, when we arrived in Oulu, we saw Ahmad and Reza who had arrived before us and they told us that their Mercedes had a major problem. It has a faulty fuel injection pump. For the last 160 kms to Oulu they nursed the car to the hotel with the engine limited to about 2000 rpm. They went to the local Mercedes dealer, who said it needs a new pump and there are none in Finland. The dealer then managed to locate one in Hanover, Germany and has arranged for it to be flown to Oulu on Friday. This will mean Ahmad will be, at best, two days behind us as we drive to the North Cape. The hope is that he will be able to leave Oulu on Friday afternoon and then do the three day trip to the North Cape in two days, so that he can catch the ferry next Monday.

It's leaving it very tight but we are all keeping our fingers crossed. In his favour is the fact that we have nearly 24 hours of daylight, so driving late into the evening is not a problem. I'll update the blog as I learn more.

Returning to today's journey of just over 300kms, we drove down to the waterfront in Vaasa to take a few photos before driving along the coast of the Gulf of Bothnia.

At the waterfront I saw this old Landcruiser. It made my ten year old model look positively modern!

 

We left Vaasa and drove more or less due north. After about seventy kilometres we turned off the main highway to take one of the side roads that would lead us to the coast. Not long after, we drove past this very interesting stone memorial that was by the side of the road.

We pulled off the road and saw an information poster that explained the memorial was to Major-General Carl Von Dobeln. He led a battalion of Swedish forces in the 1808-9 Swedish-Russian war and successfully beat back superior Russian forces who were attempting to take a strategic position.

He had fought in a previous war against the Russians and in 1788 he had been shot in the head. Thereafter he always wore a black band around his head, as shown in the picture at the site.

A close-up of the plaque on the memorial and, if you look closely, you can see the band around his forehead.

We left the memorial and drove down to the coast along a narrow winding country road. We reached the sea at a small fishing village. It was very cold with the temperature down to 5 degrees and, with the mist rolling in from the sea, it created quite an atmospheric scene.

As we drove back towards the main road, Peter shouted out that he had seen a large bird in one of the fields. I pulled up quickly and reversed a short way. We all peered through the bushes and saw, feeding from the ploughed field, this magnificent crane. Apologies for the clarity of the photos but these were taken on maximum zoom.

 

We spent nearly ten minutes watching the bird and then moved on. We reached a very pretty small town called Nykarleby which had this very typical yellow Lutheran church.

By now it was time to stop for a snack lunch. We drove past this waterfall and spent a very enjoyable half an hour having our lunch and looking at the river. We noticed to one side of the falls, a series of salmon steps that had been constructed to allow spawning salmon to by-pass the falls, on their way up river to their spawning grounds.

Wendy in front of the falls.

We reached Oulu around 4pm and checked into our hotel, The Lasaretti. It is located on the banks of the Oulu River where the Finns have constructed a large dam. On the side of the river you can see the salmon steps that have been built to allow salmon to avoid the dam.

 

We walked through the small park between the hotel and the river and came to a large number of fountains spread out across the water. It was both an impressive and beautiful sight.

It was only a short walk to the city centre and we went past yet another large yellow Lutheran church, this time Oulu Cathedral, built in the late 18th century. It was re-built between 1832 and 1845 following a fire. The architect was Carl Ludvig Engel, who also designed Helsinki Cathedral. The interior was very plain, all in white, but very beautiful. There was the most magnificent ornate organ in the organ loft.

 

 

A short walk on and we came to the City Hall, a very grand brick building.

We walked round the back of City Hall and came to this very interesting sculpture. It was a series of wonderfully sculptured people on top of a curved low stone wall. They were all about twelve inches tall, but we did not find out what they represented. It's another Google opportunity! If I find out, I'll post the answer to the blog.

We spent half an hour walking the streets of the centre before going back to our hotel for our evening meal. Over the meal, we discussed our route for tomorrow and decided that, contrary to my plans to drive close to the Swedish border on our way to our overnight stop in Muonio, we would head much farther east and go via the capital of Lapland, Rovaniemi. This is where Father Christmas lives!!