lost post 5: tour de saimaa (day 1)

Postcard from Punkaharju via 

  

As you may have gathered by now, we (by which I mean I) am doing a catch-up series of 'lost' posts about what we did last summer. A very late back to school essay if you like.  Anyway in the last episode our heroes were about to embark on an epic trip around Finland... well, a bit of cycling and camping around the north-west corner of Saimaa anyway...

1. päivä: maanantai 5. heinä: Helsingista Parikkalaan (junalla) / Parikkalasta Punkaharjuun (pyöräillä)

After loading up the bikes (while Jonna ran round making sure the Isänöitsiä had our new spare keys for the workmen, as the other spare keys were with Hiiri for plant watering duty) we headed of for the station in already blazing morning sunshine. Since we were now at the top of Kallio, this meant an interesting lesson on heavy bikes braking badly on cobbles on steep hills on the way. By the time we had wrestled our bikes and luggage on to the double-decker train (and defeated the Krypton factor cum torture device hanging bike rack) we were already hot and thirsty.

View Day 1 in a larger map - spot the detour?

We arrived in Parikala early afternoon, which gave us plenty of time to get to Kesämaa Punkaharju Camping near Retretti, theoretically less than 40km, and also theoretically a quite straightforward route. We soon hit one of the problems of this tour route (compared to Ahvenamaa say), with a stretch of the route on the busy main road with no cycle path. Luckily we could eventually turn off following the national cycle route 14 on to the quiet old road (Vanha Viipurintie) running roughly parallel which was much more pleasant.  This was fine until we got to a slightly strange twisted crossroads which suggested route 14 went straight or right... but oddly not from the road we came from, so we carried on 'straight' under my confident assertion it must be the way, and which started to turn left before leaving the shady trees onto a more open dusty road. In hindsight that change in direction should have given me a clue to check the compass, before we had travelled 5km in the wrong direction...

Which way?

After correcting that small error and adding a further 5km we continued and got into the picture postcard parts of Saimaa - the narrow ridges of forested land between lakes.

Eventually we arrived at the campsite, after almost 50km, quite hot, tired and sore from the first day of cycling.  We discovered the tent area to be very busy (unusually so in fact) but being a Glastonbury veteran this wasn't a bother.  After pitching camp and the necessary shower, we took advantage of being in a large family holiday campsite and opted for herring pizza's and beer/cider on the cafe terrace - luxury camping!

Herring pizza