Last night I took the plunge, not literally, and went to try a Finnish sauna. I was a little bit nervous, because I know that the sauna is a central part of Finnish culture and I suspected there were all sorts of unwritten customs involved and I was anxious not to commit a sauna faux pas. I was relieved that some of the men getting changed spoke English and so I was able to ask about the small bowl of water outside the changing room door. It turned out it was simply for cleaning your feet if you went in the muddy lake before the sauna. I certainly wasn’t going into the freezing lake so no problem there.

Apart from everyone being naked the experience was much the same as the once or twice I have been in a proper sauna in the UK, except here everyone just seemed so relaxed and comfortable with the whole experience. My limited experience in the UK is that there either isn’t any water to throw on the heater or it’s done in a haphazard manner. Here one of the men, who was nearest the heater, had a pail of water and a ladle and threw water onto the heater extremely regularly. The other big difference, of course, was the conversation. It was in Finnish, so I didn’t understand a word, but it was a relaxed chat amongst men, who were not friends but happened to be in the same sauna together. It seemed like a location where men were put in a small room together and so could have a friendly chat with each other. I can’t think of a similar situation in UK culture. When we British are forced into a small place with strangers we tend to be the opposite of chatty. Think of railway carriages, for instance or even those rare occasions we find ourselves in a steam room or a sauna. Would you often hear strangers striking up a conversation – not usually.

After twenty minutes or so the heat became too much for me and in addition I could hear someone showering ready to come in. The sauna was already full and accommodating an additional person could only be accomplished by shuffling up so our naked bodies would touch. Rather than risk finding out what Finns do in these circumstances, I bailed out.

Today we decided to leave Koli Freetime Camping. Not for any reason in particular, just because we had itchy feet. Koli Freetime is a really good campsite. The facilities are excellent, the owners are very friendly and speak perfect English and if you want to experience a sauna complete with Finns, here’s as good a place as any, and it’s free.

As we headed north, in 25 degree Celsius heat, the roads were again broad and straight, but the forest was slightly more broken up in places by small patches of farming. We saw hay cutting and baling and the occasional field of cereals. Civilisation is becoming more and more sparse as we head north. The supermarket I had programmed into SatNav turned out to be a petrol station with attached shop, but judging by the number of cars it was the centre of commerce in the area.

Sarah became bored with being a passenger on such long straight roads and so decided she wanted a go at driving. We both took a short course on driving Basil a year or more ago, but since then Sarah has only driven occasionally and then in England. This would be the first time for about a year driving Basil and only the second time in any type of vehicle on the “wrong” side of the road. Sarah enjoyed the experience and eventually it came time to turn off the main road for our wildcamping spot. We then had to drive 8 miles on what was essentially a forest track, before we reached my personal favourite wildcamping spot of the whole trip (63.816212, 29.193542).

Basil in our new wild camping spot

It is, in essence, a small campsite with no reception in the middle of nowhere, next to a lake. It is situated in what in English is described as a “recreational area” and the body responsible for this area have laid out this campsite complete with composting toilets; shelters; huge amounts of firewood which is free to use; a recycling centre and a cooking hut, the like of which I have only seen at our last campsite. The cooking hut, as I call it, has a large fireplace in the centre in which you light a wood fire. The smoke goes up though a central hole in the roof. Above the fire are some permanently positioned griddles on which people cook, presumably mostly meat or fish. All this for free. No electricity or water, but team Basil can manage without those.

Typical Finnish view – trees!

There is a waymarked walk leading from our camp and so Sarah and I decided to give it a go. We had no map, but how difficult can it be to follow a waymarked walk. Too difficult it turns out. We had gone less than a mile when we suddenly found ourselves wandering through the forest on an ever diminishing trail. By the time we noticed there were no markers on the trees we were way off track. Like Hansel and Gretel we were lost in a huge forest full of wolves and bears. However, unlike Hansel and Gretel we did not have to follow a trail of stones or breadcrumbs, we just retraced our steps. When we found where we had gone wrong, it turned out we had missed the marked track by the proverbial country mile and when we got back to the track we decided to lick our wounds and regroup at Basil.

View from our ill fated ramble

My legs are covered in red blotches from yesterday’s encounter with bitey things, but luckily they don’t itch. Today covered ourselves in extra strong insect repellent, which appeared to do the trick. I had forgotten from previous tropical travel that this strong stuff turns your lips numb if you get any round your mouth. It lasts only ten minutes or so, but it’s an alarming side effect. Sarah took the extra precaution of wearing a midge net over her head!

Sarah models the latest fashion essential against bites things