Oh no, I hear you cry, not more bloody bears! Yes more bears, because it was very exciting and I’m sure you really want to hear about it.

The last two days Team Basil have been ensconced at the Martinselkosen Erakeskus Wildlife Centre, half way up Finland near the Russian border. It’s a neat little outfit: some typical Finnish wooden buildings housing some Bed and Breakfast and I think some cottages in dense forest. I think their main income comes from the bear watching programme, which runs in the Spring and Summer when the bears are out of hibernation. Their business sense is very laid back. I asked several times to pay and they always said “pay at the end”. This morning I actually had to go to search someone out to make payment – very trusting.

They offer a range of viewing options from the very expensive photography hides, where you are apparently at eye height with the bears and the backgrounds are better for photography: trees for cubs to climb up, that sort of thing. Secondly there is an overnight package where you stay in a hide from 4pm until the next morning. Finally, for cheapskates like Sarah and I there is the evening session where you go to a hide from 5pm until 10pm. Our option cost €80 each and of course we didn’t have to pay for accomodation. There is room for motorhomes in their driveway and two electrical hook up points, although we didn’t use these.

Last evening I, together with eight others, was taken in a minibus for about 15 minutes deeper into the forest. We were then walked about 800 metres through thick forest, with boards placed over boggy parts to the hide. There was much jollity on the walk to the hide about people being tail gun charlie, because we were told we may come across bears on the hike.

The hide is large enough to seat 10 people each with a comfortablish chair and two openings in front of each seat. A glass panel and then below that an opening covered in cloth, with a gap in the cloth to put your camera or even head through. The centre provide coffee, water, biscuits and a sandwich to fortify it’s guests during the arduous five hours. The hide is situated on the edge of a marshy clearing in the forest, with a view of perhaps 30 to 50 metres straight ahead to the opposite side of the clearing and much further on either side. In fact two hundred metres to the left is a line of trees which marks the Russian border.

Before the hatches are opened the guide buries and scatters dried dog food in various locations around the clearing. The hatches are opened and then the waiting begins.

The bears are very cautious. Our guide estimates there are in the region of 45 bears in the vicinity which might visit one of the sites each night. They do also occasionally see wolves, although 7 have been shot in the last twelve months by Reindeer farmers.

My first bear appeared from the far side of the clearing about 30 minutes after we arrived, causing great excitement. Camera shutters click ten to the dozen, until we get used to the fact we have seen a real live wild bear. The immediately impressive thing about them is their size. These are European Brown bears and males can reach over 300 kg and females 250 kg.

The bears have to work to find the food: digging and sniffing around to find it. The food is spread thinly so no bear gets too much and each bear only tends to stay for 30 minutes or so before wandering off. Some of them come very close to the hide and then it is amazing to put you head through the cloth hole and hear them chewing and even breathing.

From a photographic point my view is that the cheap hide is perfectly good enough unless you are after professional photographs. You get clear field of view and with a birding lens like mine, you can get some excellent close up shots. Perhaps I should now call it a “bearing” lens! I suppose if you were flying in specially for the experience then the extra cost of a photographic hide would probably be a small additional cost when set against the overall expenditure.

In the end I saw 11 adult bears. Two young adult males and nine females. Unlike Sarah there were no cute cubs for me.

I wondered whether all this feeding, which has been going on for nearly 30 years, had made the bears tame or if they had lost their fear of man. My question was answered when it was time to go. There was still a bear about four or five metres directly in front of the hide. The guide just stuck his head out of the door, without any other noise of actions. The bear took one look at him and ran like it had just seen something extremely dangerous, which it had: a man.

You have no doubt heard the advice about not running from a bear. I can confirm that there is no point in running from a bear. The frightened bear ran at incredible speed and it was running across a bog. I would suggest it covered the fifty metres in half the time a fast man could do it and probably a quarter of the time I would take!

Today has been a day of travel. Basil is booked into a garage in Roveniemi for a service tomorrow, so we have driven 200 miles on the usually excellent Finnish roads. The only problem today was that Reindeer country has started and so on two or three occasions we had to slow to a crawl to allow Reindeer to get off the road. This will only get worse as we progress north.

Tonight we have been essentially forced to pitch at a formal campsite, Ounaskoski Camping only 1 km from the centre of Rovaniemi. It is our most expensive site to date at €30 without electricity, but we desperately need to get some washing done, so beggars can’t be choosers.

Basil’s position right on the river at Rovaniemi

Thank you to all those who wished me a happy birthday on facebook and elswhere, it was much appreciated. I think we will walk into Roveniemi to see if we can find anywhere to eat out, but with the dogs it might be difficult.

*For those of you who did not grow up in Britain or who are too young to remember this is the opening line of the Teddy Bear’s Picnic.

My best of hundreds: