Finland Days 5 & 6

Monday, 12 August 2024

Our last day of competition was the long distance final – I knew the distance was going to be too long for me to be very competitive, plus I made lots of mistakes so I finished well back in the field – but it was still heaps of fun.

On our way home we did one last stop at a lake for a swim - there's no shortage of lakes in this country.

Back at home we washed our orienteering shoes and gave them a quick sauna before we packed them (all apartments and houses we've seen in Finland have a sauna).

On our last day in Finland and the very last day of our holiday we went for a quick run on one of the islands as I was keen just to run and enjoy the forest (without thinking about navigation).

Then we returned home to face the final pack of our bags - Jon has swapped bags with Zali and also been given lots of Zali and Jett's stuff to take home so there was some serious squishing to be done.. 

One we were done we picked up Andrea and Sue who were getting a lift and made our way to the airport.   Unfortunately I was feeling pretty unwell by the afternoon with almost exactly the same symptoms as I’d had in Edinburgh.   Hopefully some good rest at home will help me get rid of whatever this is for once and for all, as I haven't been 100% for weeks now.

Finland Days 1 - 3

Monday, 12 August 2024

By virtue of flying west to east and losing 3 hours to the time zone change, our first day in Finland was pretty short – we arrived at 4pm local time, picked up the car, drove 2 hours to Turku then had dinner with some Australians before finding our apartment in the Port Arthur suburb of central Turku.   Turku seemed pretty nice – it was the original capital of Finland and is a port town with a big archipelago nearby. Our apartment was in the older part of town of converted workers cottages:

The World Champs had been going for a few days already with the sprint qualification and sprint final having been run and won – because we wanted to fit in Iceland and the Faroes we had chosen to just come for the forest events – a qualification then a middle distance final followed by a rest day, and then the long distance final on the last day.

The first day of orienteering for us was the forest qualification race – To make the A Final I had to finish in about the top 40 of my heat (of 2 heats),  while Jon who had to be in the top 30 in his heat as there were more competitors and 3 heats. 

I had a steady run with some moments of good fortune when I stumbled over controls on my way to relocating so I finished 26^th in my heat but a long way back timewise. The terrain was really lovely – really detailed with lots of open moss-covered bits of bare rock – definitely more challenging than O-ringen had been as there were way less tracks and hardly any easy legs.  Jon only just missed out on making it to the A final – despite being a lot closer to the winner in time than I was.

The next day was the middle distance final – It was really tricky but I had a good run and finished 30^th which I’m really happy with - especially as there’s also the threat of relegation – if you finish in the bottom 10 of the A final, you get relegated down to the B final for the long distance race (while the top 10 in B move up) – so with 80 competitors I was well clear.  Jon wasn’t far off being promoted but ultimately stayed in B for the long final.

Iceland Day 4

Sunday, 4 August 2024

Today was always going to be big - we had 5 hours of driving interspersed with numerous stops and hikes.  Luckily we are match fit after almost 4 weeks of touring so we were well prepared.  

Leaving Vik in the pouring rain and gale force winds, our first stop was in clearing weather 50 minutes down the road at the Lava Fields - actually there are lava fields absolutely everywhere but these just happened to have a convenient viewing spot - the moss grows in layers on the older lava fields like thick snow:

Then it was onto a deep canyon called Fjaðrárgljúfur where we could walk along the top for a few kilometres:

Then we made it to the glacial highlight Jökulsárlón, which is a lake at the bottom of one of the glacier tongues, so ice chunks break off and float around the lake:

The more exciting part of this was the next stage, where the icebergs float out to sea, then get smashed up in the waves (which were wild today), and land back on the beach in pieces, looking like diamonds in some cases - hence the name.. Diamond Beach.

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The best fun part was sitting in the car in the carpark having lunch, watching people get unexpectedly swamped by the waves as they took selfies or stood on the larger icebergs.  The rate at which the ice melted in the sea was astounding - a car sized chunk was swiss ball sized by the time we drove away.  The beach also had cool rocks which contrasted with the black sand.

Then we turned around and headed back towards Vik as we had 2 nights booked.  We stopped at a national park to walk to Svartifoss - a waterfall with the basalt hexagonal shapes we've been noticing since the Giants Staircase in Ireland.

Then it was back in the car for the final leg home past mountain and glacier views, multiple waterfalls that had water falling up into the sky from the strong winds, and cliffs with cute houses and horses below.  These photos were taken out of the car window. 

We left home at 9ish and arrived back at 7.30, in time to have dinner, watch some Olympic highlights and reorganise ourselves for the trip to Reykavik and our final night in Iceland tomorrow - the highlight of which might be having access to a washing machine and dryer, as we haven't had one since Copenhagen.

Iceland Day 2

Friday, 2 August 2024

Day 2 of Iceland was great although the weather certainly started where it left off the day before:

While the rain was good for the volume of waterfalls, it wasn't good for the water quality - the waterfall below is supposed to have clear blue water..it was still interesting that the water didn't come from the top of the lava cliffs, but it wasn't quite the same as the photos we've seen where it's beautiful and blue!

Due to the prices (and our general preference not to spend more than necessary on food), we don't get to stop at the places that say 'all day lunch buffet' - we get to stop during a break in the rain at a soggy picnic table by the side of the road for cheese sandwiches.  After lunch the weather improved a lot and we started to see some great views around us.

We drove over the mountains to the famous Thingvellir National Park which is where two tectonic plates join and also the site of the birth of Iceland as an independent country in 1944.

After strolling around for an hour or so we continued on to our accommodation, which I'd had to book hastily the night before when Zali realised we had a gap in our bookings. It's turned out to be our favourite place we've stayed in so far - so all's well that ends well! It's a beautiful hand crafted cabin that smells of some sort of pine and even has it's own stream out the back.

We even had time for a short run near the local lake (with geothermal pools) before dinner. 

Then we had hot chocolates and admired our icelandic socks we bought at a tourist shop hours earlier.. 

I haven't got a good photo of them yet, but there are icelandic horses everywhere. We seem to frequently drive past paddocks full of 30 or more of them. While we drove through the mountains we got a good view of a group of them being run along beside the creek - it looked incredible - there were 8 with riders and 30 running along in between. I'm not sure why anyone needs as many horses as they seem to keep around but they do look very striking.  I'll get a better photo somewhere before we go.

Faroe Islands Day 3

Thursday, 1 August 2024

Jon and Jett went out for a rainy run in the morning..

then we finally got to walk through the doors of the local supermarket to get some non-service station food for the day’s supplies.

After that we did a driving tour of many of local towns and  islands via many tunnels and many bridges. We stopped for photos and even got some wifi when we went to an open information centre to check in for our flight the next day. We also discovered that one of the local teams Klaksvik was playing Malmo in the UEFA champions league round that night – so there was much excitement in that town (Update - they won 2-1!).  We’ve noticed that almost every town in the Faroe Islands has better football facilities than Hobart – generally beautiful artificial turf grounds and fancy clubhouses – so soccer is definitely a national pursuit. The other is racing their Faroe style dinghies but we didn’t get to witness any of that although the boats are all over the place.

After having a mostly cruisy driving day we had one final tourist challenge – we had to catch a car ferry to another island, drive to the far end of it (via 4 tiny one-lane tunnels), hike out to Kunoy lighthouse and back, then return to the ferry before it left, thus not leaving us stranded on the island overnight.  This meant we had to walk and jog at a decent pace to get back to the car in time. This was one of the pay-hikes which unfortunately don’t mean they are in good condition as we were slipping and sliding through the mud on the exceptionally steep slopes.  We made it with about 15 minutes to spare and the views were well worth the sweat and slides.

By the time we were home for our last night we just had time to pack and be ready for a 5 am departure for Iceland.

Overall the Faroes were amazingly spectacular.  It was hard not to be somewhere with an incredible view.  The weather was pretty similar to a Hobart winter - we noticed we were getting very similar temperatures each day! The roads are pretty good in most places, there's ample parking and toilets for tourists and good information boards everywhere (very helpful for those without internet). I'd highly recommend visiting to anyone but be prepared to hike a little, and go quickly, it's not going to stay quiet for long. 

Faroe Islands Day 1

Thursday, 1 August 2024

It seems that every time we catch a plane we have to get up at 5am.  The upside is that it had us landing in the Faroe Islands just after 9am in the drizzling rain. We had no rental car hassles (our 4^th rental car of this trip) as the company just left it for us in the car park with the keys in the ignition.

Our first stop was 10 minutes from the airport to see a big waterfall cascade into the sea..

then we had a 1 hour boat trip to take in some cool rock formations, the same waterfall from the bottom, and lots of cute puffins nesting on the steep grassy slopes.

After this we headed to do a 6k hike to some very high sea cliffs and also a lake that empties straight into the sea.  In the Faroes a lot of the hikes are on private land so you have to pay to do them – sometimes quite a lot.  Unfortunately for us the cloud was pretty low for a lot of this so we didn’t get the full views but it was still pretty spectacular anyway.

From here we had a short drive to another hike – a free one this time which is a good thing as we saw next to nothing at the ‘Witches Finger’ due to the low cloud.

After that we had a few stops to admire waterfalls then we drove down windy roads to get to the cutest little town called Tornuvik. It even had a surf shop and a town dog which would campaign for anyone to throw it a stick.

After what felt like a huge day we had one final challenge – to get ourselves and all our luggage up a 15 minute track to our little cabin.  The owner had advised that this was the best route as the farmers track could be muddy and not great for cars.  So we dragged ourselves up the little path and only caught sight of our little blue cabin at the very end, which was a great relief as every other hut we’d seen along the way was designed for sheep not humans. 

The cabin is cute and warm but unfortunately doesn’t have wifi which we thought would be fine when we booked it, but neither Jon’s or my sim card works in the Faroe Islands which means if Jon hadn’t had the foresight to download offline maps from the airport, we’d be in trouble! To add to the digital isolation, all the shops (including libraries with wifi) are closed from Sunday to Tuesday for St Olav’s day, the Faroes national day – so after debating whether we’d need to go back to the airport to buy food we ended up getting dinner from the service station which thankfully had freshish bread, frozen pizza and 2 minute noodles!

Sweden Day 1 - 4

Saturday, 27 July 2024

We're in Sweden for the Swedish 5 Day orienteering event - aka O-Ringen.  We last went in 2019 for 3 of the 5 days and stayed in a campervan in the O-Ringen camping city. This time we're having the complete experience by camping and competing for the full week, including doing the indoor orienteering event on the rest day.

We've been using our new tent and it's been great - it will be sad to give it away tomorrow as it can't come with us for the remainder of our trip. We also bought an electric grill from the supermarket and have used it every day - the cheese toasties after the events have been a treat:

The weather has been a bit mixed - we have had stretches of rain and stretches of sunshine - our tarp (also a supermarket purchase) has been alternately used as a sunshade and rain shelter. We're lucky enough to have a really good tent site up on a small hill within this huge area - the sites on the lower ground have been flooded and the roads were very muddy just a few days ago:

As usual the organisational infrastructure is incredible - the amount of work and planning required for the camping alone would be years worth, let alone for 5 days of orienteering for 17000 people in  3 different arenas.   Not to mention the mountain bike competition which happens at the same time.   There are about 10 'service' points throughout the campsite - each one has about 10 portaloos, rubbish sorting areas, washing up sinks and charging stations.  Everything is maintained daily by a huge lot of staff and volunteers.

Today we used a washing machine - there's only one bank of them in the entire campsite so timing is the key to not having to wait too long.

So far the orienteering has been great fun - the Swedish forests are a delight - particularly after mostly-treeless Ireland and Scotland. The complexity of the orienteering has been so much fun - so despite making plenty of navigational errors it's just a joy to be here.  I love it.

During our time off we've been swimming in the sea and also in some beautiful lakes nearby - we've got a car as well which makes it easy to get around.

 Back to the orienteering the indoor event was insane - we entered the 'hard' class - which had a lazy 900 competitors, many taking it very seriously. The winning time was around 27 minutes.  Zali took 37 as she has a knack for solving the problems of each leg as there were barriers, one way passages and stairs to nowhere. Jett and his mates took around 39 and Jon took 1hr 13 minutes - I would have taken even longer but I followed Zali from start to finish - panicking every time she dissapeared around a corner. I voluntarily DSQed myself at the end as I had to step over a barrier to keep up with her at one point.

Indoor is fun but I definitely prefer the forest!  Each event has quite long distances to walk to the start - today I walked 3.2km then completed my 3.4k long course (of course I went longer than that with route choice and circling around being confused!). I'm trying to stay in the top half of the 150 strong field but it's been hard going as I recover from being sick and have made lots of mistakes (not that it matters).   I'll be sorry that there's no more Swedish orienteering after tomorrow - I guess we can look forward to coming back next time!

Ireland Day 4

Sunday, 21 July 2024

Northern Ireland has been strange. There’s no acknowledgement as you cross the border from Ireland but the road signs change to miles, currency is in pounds and there are English flags and Northern Ireland Ulster banners absolutely everywhere – some houses have 2 or 3 plus strands of red white and blue pennants. There are also heaps of banners and murals and town arches commemorating some English victory or bravery in the past.  Memories are still really fresh I guess.  

Today we went to the Belfast markets which were ok, then on to check out Jon’s mum’s university and her childhood homes. 

During the walks and drives around we got a good sense of the city and aside from a few areas in my view it’s mostly pretty bleak. It probably didn’t help that it rained most of the day but it definitely didn’t help that there was a lot of rubbish, abandoned buildings and graffiti.  People in the UK also haven't learnt how to clean up after their dogs yet, which is gross.

The botanical gardens were quite nice. 

Getting out of the city and up into the hills between Belfast and Dublin was much nicer and we found another little woods to stroll around along the way.

Crossing back into Ireland again went without fanfare but did see the end of the overt English nationalism and the return of much more flag based support for county sports teams contesting finals in the upcoming weeks.  We stopped in at Decathlon to buy a cheapo tent for our next week of camping in Sweden (paying the extra $ for a bag on the plane was going to be a lot cheaper and easier than trying to get one in Denmark or Sweden on the way), then once we made it to our little house (which backs onto a gaol) I just had to check us in for our Ryan Air flight tomorrow – which is where the day has gone downhill.  While filling in the passport details I accidentally got the month of Jon’s expiry date wrong which is not only unfixable, but also un-ignorable as part of the check in process is scanning the chip in the back of the passport which is rightly saying that the details I entered and the passport details don’t match.  I immediately joined the help queue (in spot 331) and was down to spot 78 when the office closed. Fingers crossed we can sort this out tomorrow or only 3 of us will make it to Copenhagen tomorrow night.

We are just back from a pizza place nearby which was nice and not too expensive (Ireland has been the cheapest for food and meals of anywhere so far).