Fri, 08 Aug 2003

author Liz	location Helsinki, Finland
posted 19:09 EEST 9/8/03	section Europe2002/Europe/Finland ( all photos )

South, South and more South ( 1 photo )
Today we set and alarm to get going nice and early, and them promptly went back to sleep! We still managed to get on the road before 8:30am, and drove a short distance north-east to Ranua. There was a Scandinavian Wildlife Park there (it even had a Moose!), so we were very keen to go, but the weather was terrible - rainy and cold. We sat at the park's cafe and had a hot drink, trying to decide what to do. There was 3km of outside walking which we decided wouldn't be to pleasant, and the animals would probably also be hidden away out of the weather. So we gave it a miss and headed onwards.
A lot of the rest of the day was spent driving. Tim has just worked out that today we have driven as far as the south-east corner of Ireland to the north-west corner. Not bad really.
It has rained quite heavily for most of the day as we passed through more and more forests. There are still a few reindeer here and there but no moose!
We stopped in Kajaani for a while to call Tim's mum (her birthday today - Happy Birthday!), look for an internet café, do a bit of grocery shopping and then stop at an all we could eat pizza place. We stuffed ourselves and didn't have to eat for the rest of the day.
Tonight we are just outside of Kuopio at a huge caravan park, Camping Rauhalahti, that happens to be having a motorcycle rally this weekend. We came here primarily because it has the world's largest wood smoke sauna. We went for a walk up to the sauna throught lots of very wet forest, but it was all closed up even though it is supposed to be open on Friday evenings.
So we came back, bought a beer and an apple and lemon cider (interesting but nice) to relax with in the van.
Rosie has been playing up a bit (loosing power, but different to last time), but it got worse today so hopefully we will make it to Helsinki before repairs are needed.

(customised)