Bye Bye for another year...

This was the scene as we left our cottage close to Ruovesi this morning. Not a cloud in the sky- temperature 25C!

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A lazy day in lovely Ruovesi

Another lovely day here, with the temperature reaching 25C this afternoon. And the lake temperature has also reached its highest point of our whole holiday, with 25C being recorded both here at the cottage, in Lake Kankijarvi and also down in Ruovesi itself, where we spent much of the afternoon! Looking at the forecast for the next week, it will certainly get warmer yet, though unfortunately, we will be back home by then.

It has been a week for spotting lots of wildlife here. We have seen red squirrels, hundreds of frogs, jays, cranes, many dragonflies, lizards, and ravens as well as the more usual swallows, swifts and magpies. We have also been aware of something else here in this lake. Possibly it has been a muskrat, or an otter, we are not sure. It has been shy, but we have heard it splashing around from time to time. Finland in general is alive with wildlife in the summer, but here in particular this week we have been aware of the silence- but not the silence, as if you listen carefully, it's possible to hear lots of different animals and insects buzzing or flying around. And of course, there have been the fish too- everywhere, in each and every lake.

Tomorrow will be our last full day this year in Finland. And we will spend it both here and in Tampere itself. We have decided to leave here after lunch and drive down to Tampere, so we will be closer to the airport (and civilisation!) for our flight back home on Sunday morning. It'll allow us all to have look around the city of Tampere, which we are looking forward to, even though it'll just be in the evening.

We'll be sad to leave, as always. Finland in July is always rather special. And although the weather has been slightly cooler than the last couple of years, it has not stopped us enjoying all the things we really love about this really unique place. Olivia in particular has improved her swimming tremendously- she has now got real confidence in everything she does in the water, after swimming endlessly each day for the last three weeks. The change in her confidence has been remarkable!

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A perfect Finnish day!

This has been possibly the best day of weather since we were in Helsinki back at the start of our holiday. Although we woke up to cloudy skies, it was sunny by 10am and then it just continued to improve and get warmer as the day went on. By 3pm, when we were in Ruovesi, it was 25C in the centre of the town there, and the sun shone until a few minutes ago, when it disappeared at about 10.30pm. We weren't up early, as we slept possibly later than at any other point since Sandy and Olivia were born- until about 9.20am! I had read yesterday when linking to a post about our walk up to the gorge that it was possible to buy wild boar soup at the nearby kiosk, so I went up there this morning and spoke to Mirja the owner about it. Of course, we have already seen her flock of 24 wild boar in her garden along the road a bit, so she was happy to produce some frozen smoked wild boar soup for us to try. It was really delicious, and Anna, Sandy and I all enjoyed it. Olivia wasn't too keen to eat what she has seen running around in the woods close by!

Before lunch, Sandy had been keen to catch a lizard here- there are lots of them living close to the lake, and they come out to sun themselves on the jetty, so we worked for a while and eventually cornered one and caught it- see the photo below.

After lunch, we decided to go back to Ruovesi itself, to the public swimming area by the lake there. We lay in the sun, swam and enjoyed ourselves for most of the afternoon. There were quite a few locals also diving and jumping from the high diving boards there.

At about 5pm, we came home and decided to cook outside and eat our dinner by the fire area in the sun. We must have spent about three hours there, before finally having more time in the water here, jumping into the lake again before eventually coming in about 9.45pm. This has been the weather we have been used to over the past couple of years- and looking ahead to next week- it's typical that the warmest weather of the whole summer, and therefore the warmest lake temperatures, will occur over the next 10 days or so! So, Finland's weather certainly appears to be influenced by the jet-stream too. For us, we will be happy to enjoy the sunshine for the next couple of days here, before we head home!
The delicious smoked wild boar soup!
Happy lizard-catchers!
By the lake in Ruovesi.
Looking across the lake in Ruovesi.
Back at our place, in the evening sunshine.
On the jetty, after a last swim of the day- 9.35pm

Sitting on the jetty at 9.45pm in the still bright sunshine!

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Wednesday 25th July

At the top of Helvetinkolu ridge this morning.

Olivia leaps off the diving board in the afternoon.

Down in Ruovesi, Sandy surprised us all by leaping from the much higher diving board there!

Then, it was Olivia's turn! (Click on these to see a much better and bigger version of the picture)

After the children, I felt I had to do it too!

With some of the local lads, who were impressed with our leaps. Mind you, they were all crazy!
This morning, we set off from the cottage for a 4km walk into the national park here, to reach Helvetinkolu- and it proved to be a very interesting walk! Click the link I provided, and there is a very detailed description of the walk- along with a photo of the kiosk at the start of the walk- our cottage belongs to the lady who runs this kiosk! It took us most of the morning, and was truly mosquito-ridden, but it was definitely worth it!

Back here, very sweaty from having been well covered for the walk, we took saunas and showers in the afternoon. This was quite eventful, as the method of taking a shower involved heating water from the lake in a wood-fired furnace that sits right next to the sauna itself, then pouring it out into a huge bucket, and then mixing it with cold water that is pumped from the lake, and then pouring the lot over your head, having covered your body in a lather of shower-gel first! All this takes place in the tiled room adjacent to the sauna. It was certainly effective, as we felt very clean afterwards!

Later, we headed down to Ruovesi to the supermarket. There, by chance, I suggested we take a look at the harbour area of the village, and it was here that we discovered by the lakeside, a huge set of diving boards. Both Olivia and Sandy were desperate to jump from them (I was sure that Olivia might do it, but not Sandy, as he has never jumped from the diving board at Eyemouth) so we agreed to come back to the house, get the swimming gear and run back down there. What a surprise- they both jumped from the boards and impressed a few of the local lads there too, I think! It seems we might have to return there tomorrow!

It has been much warmer today, and is even now 19C at 11.20pm! I think the changing position of the jet-stream is beginning to improve the weather here too!

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Tampere and Sarkanniemi

Taken at 10.15 this evening, halfway between the cottage and the lake, after we returned from Sarkanniemi.
Today we set off early from the cottage to head to Tampere, aiming to get there before the 10.00am opening time for Sarkanniemi Adventure Park. We got there with a couple of minutes to spare, though the journey did take just over an hour.

It was a really super day there, we spent the whole day until around 5.20pm on various rides, visiting the dolphinarium, the aquarium, the rollercoasters and rides, the children's zoo, the world's first Angry Birds Land and also zooming up to the top of the highest tower in the Nordic countries!

Sandy took more than 200 pictures today, and Anna and I took more, but I can't even consider uploading the best of them until we come home, due to the remote location of this cottage.

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Monday 23rd July

Not a lot to report from today- a quiet day around the cottage, in not very good weather. Tomorrow onwards, it appears the weather will be very much better. We went to see the ostriches and wild boars that the owner of our cottage has this morning, which was interesting, and this afternoon we went to Ruovesi. This evening Sandy and I fished in the lake.
We are going to Sarkanniemi in Tampere tomorrow, so we'll need to be up early for a full day there. I'm not adding any photos tonight as the cameras were all on charge for most of today. Tomorrow night, we should have some to show!

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1st day at Lake Kankijarvi- back to basics!

Anna on the jetty!

Looking back from the lake to the sauna.
We arrived here, close to Ruovesi in Western Finland, in mid-afternoon. The weather was sunny and warm and we headed to a small shop, or kioski, in the national park here, where our host gave us our keys to the cottage. On arrival, we found that the place is very small, and very basic- and it's a bit of a shock after the last place we stayed in close to Jyvaskyla. I realised last week that the description of the place did not mention a shower, so I was hoping fervently that there would be one here. Unfortunately, there isn't! So, to wash, we have to heat a large stove next to the sauna down by the lake, and mix this hot water with cold water that is pumped from the lake and throw it all over ourselves in a small tiled area next to the sauna itself! This will be interesting! The cottage itself is tiny- and we are all sleeping upstairs on mattresses on the floor, at the top of some extremely steep stairs.

Apart from that, the lake has a diving board and it's our own lake, as there are no other cottages here. Sandy and Olivia are oblivious to the fact that the place is small- they were leaping enthusiastically from the diving board into the lake repeatedly this evening after our sauna session! And, to be fair, it's very beautiful here!

We plan to visit Tampere at least once this week, to spend a day at Sarkanniemi Adventure Park, and perhaps another day to look around the city itself. And, the weather seems destined to warm up a bit from mid-week too, with 25C looking possible on Wednesday at the moment.

Finally, there seems to be no phone signal here, for some reason. It's certainly pretty remote, but the strange thing is that I can get an internet signal via my SIM card powered internet stick, which seems very strange! However, that signal is weak and intermittent, so uploading many pictures might take me a while! We will see!

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