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[Gone Fishin']

Hi Nigel,
Good to see that you've returned safely from Finland! Great report so far, can't wait to read the continuation of the story, but I am leaving for Sylt tomorrow at 7 am, so good night!

Ride safely,
Louis

PS: And it is MV Augusta, not Moto Guzzi .... ;-)))

[ice6900]

Hi Nigel,
Good to see that you've returned safely from Finland! Great report so far, can't wait to read the continuation of the story, but I am leaving for Sylt tomorrow at 7 am, so good night!

Ride safely,
Louis

PS: And it is MV Augusta, not Moto Guzzi .... ;-)))

thanks for correcting me Louis, i am always getting the two names mixed up.

[ice6900]

So because of the supposed bad weather we were 1day early in Stockholm for our overnite ferry to Turku Finland, A friend of Rob^s had told him if we had time in Stockholm then there was an old galleon that was being restored in a museum which was well worth the visit.
Vasa (or Wasa) was a warship that was built for King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden from 1626 to 1628. The ship foundered and sank after sailing less than a nautical mile (ca 2 km) into her maiden voyage on 10 August 1628. Vasa fell into obscurity after initial attempts at recovering her valuable cannons in the 17th century but was located again in the late 1950s, in a busy shipping lane just outside the Stockholm harbor. She was salvaged with a largely intact hull on 24 April 1961. She was housed in a temporary museum called Wasavarvet ("The Wasa Shipyard") until 1987, and was then moved to the Vasa Museum in Stockholm. The ship is one of Sweden's most popular tourist attractions and, as of 2007, has attracted more than 25 million visitors.




A link if your interested in reading more
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasa_(ship)

[ice6900]

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[ice6900]

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[ice6900]

after our Swedish history/culture trip we walked a little around a harbour area

[ice6900]

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[ice6900]

later we found our way to the ferry terminal, to join the many other riders

[ice6900]

checked in, our ferry just docking

[ice6900]

all aboard, i was surprised that we just had to park our bikes and they were not strapped down as in all ferry crossings i had experienced previously, but this was a much bigger ship, a cruise liner   silja line MS Galaxy

[ice6900]

On board i was surprised to see so many beers being consumed as the Sweden and Finland are relatively strict on drink driving, i had discussed this with my riding colleague as we agreed max 2beers per day, this is a riding/exploring holiday!
We had forgotten to put our clocks forward 1hour and were awoken by the ships tannoy and a knock on our cabin door. "The ship will be arriving shortly vehicle owners please return to the car deck!"

[ice6900]

sunsetting over the many islands the ship travels past

[ice6900]

As i suspected the local police were meeting some of the ferry crossings and breathalising riders as they came off the boat, unfortunalely for some they failed the test and were told to get back on the ferry to return to Sweden. There were more controls just outside the city and on some routes up to the rally site, we passed several unmarked police cars hiding behind bushes on the entry ramps to the roads waiting for speeding motorists. I was about to overtake a dark blue car with blacked out windows when i noticed a STOP light in the rear of the car, hmmm  that was close!
Rob and I decided to travel up the west coast of Finland on route8, via Pori towards Vaasa, we had thought this would be scenic but most of it was cut through tall pine trees which was very disapointing and boring straight roads, after a while the only thing keeping us awake was looking out for elk and deer, traveling through Sweden we had only seen 1deer running across the road so far. The deer usually run away but the elk we were told woultd stand its ground.
About 100km before Vaasa we turned inland towards Kauhajoki and the rally area in Seinajoki. This last part was much more interesting with some bends in the road and passing though farm land and civilisation. We arrived at the entrance in perfect timing 10mins before the gates opened, with a relatively short queue (a few hundred) of bikes infront of us.

3060.3km from home to rally entrance, the gates soon opened, there was a long queue for the admission of payment with cash, only half as long was the queue for payment with credit card, we we both jumped forward into the smaller queues, on the left was another seperate entrance for the full patch club members who were subjected to more stringent control, Rob being a super rally virgin though he would jump into there queue as there was virtually no queueing, he realised just at the point of no return his mistake  lol.......and returned to the credit card queue.

we had experienced no problems with the bikes and neither of us had experienced any major discomfort or saddle sores.

[ice6900]

set up camp along the main drag,along side the river bank, not to far to the event area and the same distance to the toilet and shower containers, was this a good idea?

[ice6900]

a nice lil sandy beach area near our tents. Mosquitos were to become more problematic as the days progressed.
The first nite it seemed like most people were hitting hard on the expensive beer in the rally area 5€/rally dollar/pint, 2€deposit on the plastic glass, many could no longer walk straight or unaided. Even the english guys were surprised at the way the Fins were downing the beer, thats the result of to much control we think.