Friday 6th August mileage 4319 location 100km north of Jyvaskyla Finland

Weather very good at start of day. Big change from yesterday now the problem is keeping cool yesterdays was keeping dry and warm.
Breakfast was the usual cereal fruit, yoghurt, then eggs, cheese bread, with cofee and orange juice.
After breakfast packed up and then sat in hotel and read my Travellers guide to Finland.
It seems that Santa's Park in Finland is one of their big tourist attractions, so I am not expecting great things from the rest of Finland. Studied Helsinki and it appears last time I was here and we had a day spare we did everthing that is worth doing in Helsinki, National Museum with comprehensive displays on the history and heritage of Finland.  I remember at the time I was quite impressed, it may be worth another tour you always pick up things you missed if you go back and revisit.

The landscape thas changed, now there is farmland interspersed amongst the conifer forests. Mostly barley and oats, not seen any wheat. I remember from my farming days that if you say wheat takes a factor of 10 out of the soil then barley takes about 3-4 and oats takes just 1. You can just keep replanting oats and the soil recovers just naturally.  I don't know who wants oats other than porridge and cereal manufacturers. I suppose it is still grown to feed to animals.

Suddenly started to think about Joanna's comment posted on Monday 2nd August blog taken from Wikipedia about the blue ice of glaciers being caused by no additional snow and the air being squeezed out of the existing ice.  Sounds reasonable, but then why is the water tainted blue and the fjords blue?  Still a problem to be resolved here I think ???

Having trouble getting petrol from automatic machines here in Finland.  This has been a problem on the whole of the trip but they all seem not to work here in Finland.  You put your card in and they say card invalid.  Thought I had got one to work when it asked me for my pin, but when I put the number in it said invalid pin.  I tried again and same result, and I wasn't going to try a third time, so I hit cancel and got my card back. Went to the adjacent cafe and asked them if they could change a €50 note into 5 x €10 so I could get petrol using the note reader.  Went back and the damn machine would not read the notes !!  The Finnish customer waiting to use the machine tried the notes and it wouldn't work for him either so he said he would use his card and I could give him the money.  Ok we agreed just €10 and I put the petrol into the bike.  he looked at me oddly and said I had taken €15 and sure enough I had been reading the litre4s gauge as the Euro gauge.  It's an age thing you know.  I felt like Victor Meldrew.  So he is looking at me as if I've tried to rip him off.  I scrabble around and find €5 in coinage, and say thank you and I'm away again.

Missed another photo opportunity, as I was driving along I passed what looked like a derelict petrol station and in the undergrowth at the front I could make out what I think was three bronze statues.  They depicted a man with a spear protecting a dog from a bear stood on it's hind legs.  I am sure it was significant, but I was passed in an instant and turning round wasn't an easy option.

Stopped at at transport stop on the road and it was a mass of forged bells.

Don't know the connection and why the bells were here, but they were all fully forged metal bells and sounded great.   Talked to an Italian motorcyclist who had a BMW 1200 adventure all kitted out.  Said he was on his way to Norkapp. I acted very nauchalent and said I had jusdt come from there though raelly bad weather !!

Talking of weather the problem is now full on sunshine and keeping cool. It's ok when yopu are moving on the bike, but as soon as you stop you start to overheat.

Suddenly with the heat it seemed a good time to stop so saw a sign for camping and was directed down a narrow track to the side of a lake where there was a superb campsite.  They have cabins all dotted in the forest and as part of the amenities they have saunas, and then you can go for a dip in the lake.  It was getting late after I had erected the tent and cooked my meal so I just sat and admired the view from the lakeside, but I wish I had gone for a dip.  The thing that was putting me off was the mosquitoes hovering above the water.  However with the DEET they are no bother normally.

TOR