2013-06-10 62 27

Location

In Puutosmäki, Kuopio. The point is in forest.

Participants

Tilley

Plans

Continued from the first day.

Morning porridge is good!

The night had been a bit of restless. However, after eating oatmeal porridge for breakfast everyone felt better. We gathered the gear, and sped on our way. Our lunch break after about 20 km and baby's first naptime was in Millibaari in Vehmersalmi village. Some grill food for mom and dad and potato and carrot puree for the baby. We then just rested for a while, because there was a lighting storm cloud approaching from the south, and we wanted to be sure it was not coming directly at us before embarking on our bikes again.

On the road. Mrs. Tilley has a sack of candy in her hand.

The cloud veered to the side, and we continued. There was about 20 km to the hashpoint. I had marked the first junction we needed to take to the GPS, so we wouldn't pass it - or so I thought. Luckily at one point I was wondering, why the reading to the junction point is not decreasing at all, but showed quite steadily some 18 kms, although we should be already on the stretch of road which takes us directly towards the junction and the hashpoint. I decided to check the distance to the actual hashpoint, and it was no more than 5 kms! I had somehow entered wrong coordinates to the junction-point, and had to discard that. Almost Blinded by Science - if we had just rode past the hashpoint even for a few kilometers, we would not have had the motivation to turn back to look for it.

Our parking spot. The hashpoint is to the left.

Even without the GPS I was able to locate the first junction, and the second one after some 500 meters I had entered into the GPS correctly. Then only 200 meters on gravel road, which gradually got smaller and smaller. And then the needle pointed sideways - there the hashpoint was, about 70 meters away. The forest looked like the most thickety bush I had ever seen, but hey, in hashing there's no turning back. I didn't one second consider bringing the baby with me, I guess she would not have appreciated getting to stupid random points in mosquito-ridden thickets. So she stayed and Mrs. Tilley had of course to stay with her to guard her from mosquitoes - but I also think she would not have appreciated getting into the forest either, although she has followed me to some thickets before..

The absurd thicket. Who wants to grow forests like this?

Luckily the densest thicket was only lining the road for a few meters. But after that it didn't get much nicer - the forest was actually a swamp which had been turned into a sort of dark dungeon by digging some ditches to drain away the excess water. Runty-looking trees obscured the sky completely, the undergrowth was thick and I snapped dryed-out branches and twigs as I trudged along. 70 meters is not that much, however, and I found the point! Immediately when I stopped, hordes of mosquitoes attacked me. GPS reception was also not very good due to thickness of the forest, but I managed to hold of the mosquitoes long enough to get a sub-2 meter reading. Then couple of pictures and quickly outta here!

The grin.

I managed to find my way back, although this sort of forest is exactly the kind of place where you could get lost easily - I could not see further than about 20 meters. Phew! Two hashpoints logged successfully! I had already recovered from the horrors of the forest and now it was time to celebrate. We rode back to the main road's intersection, where there was a nice-looking cemetery. There we took our afternoon snack break, and the potty, too was in good use.

On the ferry.

On the way home we crossed one small ferry line. They still haven't built megalomanic bridges to every lake crossing, although Finnish politicians are quite good at getting these mega-projects on roads that have a traffic of mostly few hundred cars per day, but are so important because they happen to lie on the politicians' homegrounds. After the ferry, rest of the way was familiar. I had been hashing there a couple of times before. The last few kilometers were again a bit uneasy for the baby, she would have needed the potty again, as we later found out. :)

Our whole trip was 105 km and average speed was 17,5 km/h.