Country: Finland
Distance travelled: 484km
Weather: Warm

This morning started with a drive. As we were getting ready for bed last night the full light on the toilet cassette came on. It was decided that we would drive until we found a pit toilet, or earth closet as they are called here, but limit it to half an hour. If nothing had been found by then, we would change the cassette to our spare and wait to empty at the next loo we saw. No luck, fully equipped rest stops seem to be getting scarcer as we get further south.

Eventually we pulled into a rest stop with nothing more than a stretch of bitumen away from the main road and an information sign (it must have been interesting as a number of people stopped to read it). Breakfast was eaten, we showered and took care of the everyday chores required to keep things in order. By midday we were back on the road, we hope to put in a few kilometers and get to Helsinki by tomorrow night.

Finland Summer

The lakes are nice...

Another pause in another Finnish town while we searched for an internet connection we could use. Once connected, we were disappointed to find no reply to our initial query regarding accommodation at the bed and breakfast I had found online. We decided to try elsewhere and finally committed ourselves, booking the ferry and accommodation online. Now we are committed and have to get to Helsinki, about seven hours away, as the ferry departs Monday evening.

It was quite late in the afternoon by the time we started off again but Mark wanted to cover some miles before we stopped today. Eventually we found a suitable place at about 10pm, quite a large rest stop with a caravan already set up for the evening and, more importantly, with pit toilets. We warmed up the last serve of our Swedish meatball bolognese for tea and then went straight to bed.

Lepavirta