I’ve survived another night in the wild, and much more eventful than the previous one too. It was already dark outside around eleven o’clock and I have retreated into the tent leaving mosquitoes and rain outside to read a book under a flashlight. About half an hour passed when someone or something begun scratching tirelessly on the side of the tent. Scratching went on for about a minute and then stopped just to continue several moments later. The itchy-scratchy visit lasted altogether some 10 minutes during which I pretended blithely to be completely immersed and consumed by the book, too busy to even care who or what that might be. But inside of me adrenaline was produced in gushes and my heart was racing. That’s the end of it, I thought, what a miserable way to go. Whether a curious bear or an uninvited trigger happy hillbilly taking a break from shooting his gun, whatever it was it would have to either knock on the door or rip open the tent for me to come out.

Even though bears are shy animals and at least in Finland, as far as I know, the last time a bear killed a human being was so long ago no one even remembers. But for all I know, this peace treaty could be broken over my cadaver. And I already imagined the headlines selling the yellow press the next day: “Stupid camper sets a tent just outside a bear den”, or something similarly scandalous and stupid.

I thought if I ever get out of this alive, I won’t be able to get any shut-eye for the rest of the trip. Just how wrong I was. Next thing I remember was waking up startled only the next morning, trying to figure out where I was. I circled the tent looking for clues or traces of my nightly visitor but found none. I now proudly belonged to mountain men, afraid of no one and nothing. Even though it is a statistical fact (if that’s not an oxymoron) that in Finland it is much more likely to get killed by your ex than a bear. There you have it.

Feeling content, I could concentrate on other more important things such as gathering breakfast. This is probably a single most rewarding thing when being out and about in the wild, getting your own food right from nature’s bosom. And there was plenty all around me. Freshly picked bilberries and just ripened lingonberries went straight into my porridge bowl. It was fantastic and I clung to the moment for as long as I could. Which wasn’t all that long as now besides restless mosquitoes I had deer fly attacking me too.

Deer fly were a complete novelty to me when I arrived to Finland a couple of years ago. Never before in my life have I seen an insect so clumsy as a deer fly. Upon my first encounter with the Lipoptena cervi I begun to think this must be either a very young species, or it managed to trick the ways of survival of the fittest by being incredibly cunning at something. I vividly remember wondering through the forest a couple of years ago and only after returning home I’ve noticed tens of these tiny slimy-like flies firmly attached to my scalp, clinging so hard that it took a lot of time, profanities and patience before I got read of little critters.

The interesting thing is that they really aren’t slimy at all, but have an elastic and glassy body that gives impression of sliminess. Deer fly bodies are so elastic that it is actually quite difficult to even squeeze them between a thumb and a forefinger. And boy, do they know how to irritate. But once I learned that their ending up on humans is really just a big mistake, I started treating them with compassion. Just think about this, L. cervi mistake humans for either deer, elk or any other bovine animal. Not that I’d wanted to be mistaken for a deer by anyone or anything, it’s just that they hardly ever bite humans, drink human blood and deposit their eggs under our skin as they like to do so much on their true host animals. Now that’s what I call devotion, it won’t touch it if it ain’t on its diet and reproduction list. Quite some creatures, I must say. We became instant friends.

After picking all the unlucky deer fly off me (I didn’t want to carry them too far away from their families, after all) and explaining how sorry I was that they will have to try their luck somewhere else, I flung them off just to see their ever clumsy flying.

I was on my way to cycle around lake Pielinen today. Lake Pielinen is the fifth largest lake in Finland (check it out here, it’s that dark splotch in the middle). It covers the area of 868 km², so there’s really no way to pretend you’re cycling around it by accident. It took me much of the three days to complete the task. The circumference of 200 kilometers might sound daunting, but there were aplenty boring villages, tiny hamlets and other amusing sites on the way that kept me entertained like a good album on a long driving trip can.

Just a few hours into the ride I saw a perfect bathing spot right off the road. It was invincible. I simply had to wash away all that dust and sweat from the previous two days somewhere and this place was as good as it gets. I pulled off, took the towel and soap and went for a dip. The whole experience ended up more like a quick shower than a nice bath as water was excruciatingly cold and as far as I could recall even avanto was more akin to steamy bath than this was. Sure enough, after I emerged from the lake I stank no more, but it took me hours to rise my body temperature from 13 back to my preference of 36,5°C.

By looking at the map there are countless town names scattered around the perimeter of lake Pielinen, but when you’re actually out there, half would not elicit even a though of naming, let alone placing that name on a 1:200 000 map. But there they were in all their glory marked on the map, being no more than a handful of abandoned train stations and half-deserted houses on both sides of the road. But there was something special about this place after all.

Never before in my life have I seen so many bus stops as I have during these several hundred kilometers. Most of the time I was cycling on back-country roads, but there they were, faithful like a dog, hundreds and hundreds of them. In Finland for every ten trees by the road one bus stop is erected, or so it seems. Not that many buses drove by during my whole trip, but even just a bus stop sign conveyed a certain amount of feeling that I was closer to civilization than I would have wanted to be. I am sure that they have built such an extensive public transportation network just to convince the locals to stay put in such remote places. Just who would have otherwise wanted to live some place called Talviniemi without being assured that all it takes for them to leave is by hopping on the next bus.

As I cycled along the eastern shore of lake Pielinen between Lieksa and Nurmes, two incredibly dull towns, I thought this is it, I am tired of all these hills. But just as I fell into simplemindedness of propelling the bike up and down all those hills, I spotted an unusual sign by the road. It was Mätäsvaara abandoned molybdenum mine. A narrow boarded path led off the road down a narrow slit in the rocky hill. I propped my bike on the wooden hut by the entrance into that really narrow and steep gorge, left the helmet on my head, took my camera and flashlight, and set off to explore the mine.

Already after few paces into the slit the place became eerily silent and dark. But I wasn’t even entering the mine at all. After reaching the end of the slit a truly impressive rock pit with a pitch black pond in the middle opened up in front of me. Mätävaara’s molybdenum mine was one of the largest in Finland in 1930s and 1940s when it was in its heyday. They’ve dug it several hundreds of meters deep and its tunnels covered some 11 kilometers altogether. I was lucky enough to meet a local visiting the mine at the same time. A strongly built older gentleman explained that as they were digging deeper and deeper, they miners taking everything that wasn’t molybdenum a few kilometers away from the site where piles of debris grew into several hills. But everything that is left of Mätävaara’s mine today is this pond hiding kilometers of dormant dark water-filled tunnels beneath its placid surface.

They say that the pit has peculiar acoustic qualities, so today it is used as a summer outdoor stage for concerts. It would be amazing to hear a concert here, I thought, but I didn’t want to waste much precious time as in meantime I had made my mind that tonight would be the last night I’d sleep out of doors. I was only 170 km or so away from Kuopio. If I wanted to check out another cool thing on the road I would have to prolong the trip for two more days, which would endanger my engagements for the upcoming weekend, namely another fine summer party. The plan immediately sunk in and I was determined to get as close as possible to the town of Nurmes on the northern tip of lake Pielinen, spend another night in the wild and cycle home the following day.

I don’t know if it was just me or was the last day objectively by far the most dull. Hills, hills and more hills. Some smart aleck came up with speculation that origins of word Suomi are to be found in suo, a Finnish word for a swamp. During this last day of cycling it wasn’t difficult to solve the riddle of Suomi. Suo was complemented with mäki, a Finnish word for hill. There are countless swamps in Finland, but there are just as many hills, if not more. It was almost hypnotic, especially when going downhill, and delirious whenever it was time to climb that next hill. I was getting tired of this not just because I would cycle 150 km on the last day, the exhaustion was mental too.

During those four days I’ve cycled some 500 km. It was fantastic. I’d do it in an eye-blink again, I’d just pick a different tour this time.

Mladen

This is the fourth and the last part of the Koli cycling trip series. Here you can find the first, second and third parts.

I slept like a log even though last night before I fell asleep I had vivid images appearing in front of my eyes of a bear limping around my silvery tent thinking what the hell is this and then without any further notice just tearing it up and helping himself to some warm meat. Now it was obvious that these ominous thoughts of mine were nowhere near as ominous as I’d wanted to believe they were. I was actually even disappointed to find that bag full of food I had hanged on a nearby tree before heading into the tent last night appeared to be untouched. And my disappointment grew still as I found that it was not bears who had helped themselves to my squished bananas and a couple of hard-boiled eggs, but it was throngs of slimy yellow slugs that were nipping at my edibles. I’d much rather see a bear munching on that banana.

Soon enough I completely forgot about all these really just minor details, because almost instantly after crawling out of the tent I had a cloud of mosquitoes buzzing around me each tirelessly trying to get a sip of my blood. I repeated the hand wriggling workout of the previous evening, this time as I was trying to pack the tent. It all happened very quickly and I was on my bike as soon as I flicked off the last of mollusks from the food I believed I still wanted to consume that day.

Cycling from Kajoo seemed to go with ease I couldn’t recollect feeling the day before. But sooner than I had wanted I was reminded that landscape had not flattened overnight as sure enough I was again climbing one hideous hill after another. Nevertheless, the first 30 kilometers to the small town of Juuka on the shore of lake Pielinen were incredible fun. Which did amuse me at least a bit, as I had expected not to be able to move at all after covering quite a considerable distance yesterday. In fact, I thought I wouldn’t be able to get out of the sleeping bag in the morning. It is much more likely that it was the thought of breakfast in Juuka that made my brain produce unthinkable amounts of endorphins out of nowhere.

Although I’d expected Juuka to be an old cozy small Finnish countryside town with its much written about old wooden buildings forming the town’s core, it was almost all but. Sure the wooden buildings were there, but these were incomparably outnumbered by modern concrete boxes, swallowing what was left of the Puu Juuka (or wooden Juuka) I had read about. At some point or another I had realized that practically any Finnish town older than 50 years could boast about having a wooden heart. In reality this image of almost romantic warm wooden structures was rather bleak and it seemed that it served much more the purpose of touristic propaganda than it actually reflected what was actually there. In the end the most important attractions in Juuka on a Saturday morning ended up being running water and a store where I could replenish my supplies of apples and porridge.

Knowing that I had laboriously pushed the pedals the day before, I was not only determined but sure that today would be the day when I would reach Koli. On the map it is situated only about 20 kilometers to the south of Juuka, but since I opted for the scenic route of back-country logging gravel roads I somehow ended up cycling almost twice that distance. On more than one occasion I though I was even moving backwards, that’s how slow I was going up and down all those hills. Here for the first time I faced hills so steep that they looked dangerous, only to find a similarly perilous drop after climbing for several tens of meters. And this game of going up and down seemed to be never-ending. After several hours I finally emerged on a bit wider gravel road where a sign instructed that everyone turning right will reach Koli, but to my surprise only after following the road for 9 kilometers. How could this be possible? I murmured a rather loud expletive to myself, obliged the sign and turned right.

All along the way multitude narrow driveways leading off from the main gravel road to houses concealed in the forest accompanied me with incredible regularity. Of course, it was only rows of red mailboxes standing by the main road that revealed their owners’ property at the end of each driveway. What stunned me was how mailbox decoration had quite suddenly changed from occasional kitschy boys stretching an accordion to what was now incredibly consistant decorating of mailboxes with differently sized statuettes depicting wolves and bears. I wondered for a moment or two just what could be the reason for this shift. Was it just that Karelians had a different closer to nature preference than people in the Savo region did? Or was I finally entering the mountain men country? It was difficult to tell as forest on both sides of the road was eerily quiet and seemed so lifeless all along the way anyway. But night was still hours away and these uneasy thoughts were soon replaced by more immediate threat of yet another long stretch of uphill road leading to Koli itself.

The threat, however, turned out to be completely groundless. Koli, after all, is nothing more than a teeny-weeny hill reaching a pathetic 347 meters above sea level. By no means could it even be compared to mountain tops I have scaled while cycling as a teenager in Slovenia when only climbing two kilometers above the sea level on a continuously ascending twenty-something kilometer long road was considered a climb worth a mention. Cycling in Finland is a completely different affair and all I could aspire for was a meager couple hundred meters high hill and climbing it wouldn’t bring any bragging rights whatsoever. But as its granite gneiss top stands almost untouched even by the ice age erosion and glacier movements at least a hundred meters above all the other hills, which were rubbed down by movement of glaciers, you actually do get a feeling of standing on the top of the world. On a clear day the view stretches as far as 80 kilometers in all directions. It is absolutely amazing. I perched myself on the exposed bedrock and enjoyed the sight for nearly an hour.

Geologically speaking I was resting my derrière on one of the oldest bedrocks in Europe dating as far back as three billion years. Just imagine, I was sitting on the very same rock that was around when our protozoan ancestors crawled around. As I was thinking these prosaic thoughts, it also couldn’t escape my mind that Finns had built a hotel right on top of the very same hill on that very same rock. Although I cannot really say how happy I was that this was Finland, because if it were in the US, I’d be staring at a shopping mall. Even though I would build no more than a log hut, if anything at all, I was in a way also grateful that the discreet two-story hotel did not even reach treetops of surrounding pine and birch trees. And Koli rising an unimaginable 200 or so meters above the lake Pielinen, it would be a shame to forgo the chance of rezing the forest on the side of the hill for the skiing slope. So come winter and you can watch people standing on splinters of wood sliding down one of the oldest hills in Europe. Quite nifty.

But along with the title of the national landscape come also throngs of mindless tourists. No it was not a bus-load of shouting Italians who would ruin the whole experience. It was really just a peculiar individual that proved visiting Koli does grant bragging rights after all. As I was walking towards my bike, an out-of-breath man approached me and asked where Koli was. “Well, sir, if you’d had at least three neurons inside that cranium of yours you’d know that you’re standing right on top of it.” “But no, really, where is it?” “Why are you asking if you don’t believe me?” I couldn’t even imagine I was having this conversation. And then he nails it saying “Oh, alright then, I have to hurry up as I have a cab to catch to go back to Joensuu,” a town some 80 kilometers to the south of Koli. I couldn’t have been more happy continuing my trip on the endless gravel road knowing that chances of meeting similar specimens would be very thin.

It was late afternoon and since camping within the boundaries of the national park is not allowed, I decided to put in another 30 kilometers along the Pielinen’s western shore before the end of the day.

Along the way I have stopped to visit the Devil’s Church cave, which with its 33 meters also happens to be the longest one in Finland. Considering cave’s rather ominous name and ghostly silence in the woods surrounding it, a steep descent towards the cave entrance at dusk gave me chills. I didn’t know exactly what to expect, but was determined to examine the cave nonetheless. I strapped the flashlight on my head and entered the cave squatted and in a duck-like motion. Devil’s Church (or Pirunkirkko) is an entirely different type of cave than any of the caves I’ve seen before. It is really just a half meter wide and some three meters high crack in the granite gneiss bedrock in the shape of letter Z. The information board diligently informed visitors that the cave is probably as old as the hill itself, but due to the hard bedrock it retained its incredibly minimalist and almost straight lines. Even though having headlamp might have made me feel more comfortable, it was absolutely unnecessary as daylight shone through various cracks and I didn’t even feel like being in a cave at all.

Slovenia being a country of caves where about 100 caves are discovered each year on top of 8.800 already registered ones, I have learned to associate caves with stalagmites, stalactites, water dripping everywhere, silence, darkness and claustrophobia. All of which, except for silence, were missing in the Devil’s Church. There was really nothing devilish about it, except maybe the myths of it’s shamanic past.

After I left the cave I wasn’t far from the national park boundary anymore, but decided to continue cycling until eight o’clock that evening. I’ve found an incomparably more agreeable camping spot than the last night’s was. I pitched the tent in a thin spruce forest listening to some gun nut continuously firing his gun and was trying hard to ignore the disturbing sound. It reminded me that I was closer to civilization than I had wanted to be and yet again realized that if there was anything to be afraid of out in the wild it wouldn’t be stumbling upon a bear, but a demented gun nut.

Mladen

This is the third part of the Koli cycling trip series. Here you can find the first, second and fourth parts.

The sweet revenge of the bitter Grandmas United Against Pedal Pushers Club in Munkkivuori, Helsinki. I wonder what caused the installation of this fabulously hilarious and absolutely nonsensical speed bump for bicycles. Were residents of this quiet area riding their bikes too fast? Too reckless? I really wonder just what the hell was going on here that someone actually took the trouble of bolting the bump onto the concrete path tiles. And it’s not that it would require incredible effort to ride around the bump, it’s the sign that scares the bejesus out of me: “No thoroughfare.” I’d much more expect to spot something like this in one of the German speaking countries, not Finland.

I regretted so much that I was on foot, as otherwise I would gladly engage in an act of civil disobedience and ride right through. Boohoo.

Mladen

It was just as I was standing on the edge of a swampy forest looking for the right spot where I would spend my first night on the road that I could really understand why in Finland they annually organize mosquito killing competitions. All my fingers, both palms and hands were flying in all directions trying to ward off the nasty tiny blood-sucking insects. As I begun fiddling with my tent trying to set it up, the situation became even worse. I was trying to pay more attention to the tent, but what I was doing resembled juggling with invisible objects more than anything I’d actually tried to do.

And I was very much aware that I am probably not even getting close to the worst of what mosquitos can offer when they gather in large quantities. I couldn’t have possibly imagined what must it feel like to do anything in Lappland in July, both the right place and time for a mosquito paradise. And considering that I’ve slapped only about 50 or so in the last half an hour, I probably couldn’t even qualify for the first round of any insect swatting competition anywhere.

The first day of my cycling trip to Koli area was almost over. I have only a very rough idea of how I want to get there and what I want to see on this trip. However, it might just as well be that the whole trip itself was a very good excuse for me to go cycling. It’s the journey that matters much more than the actual destination.

If everything had gone according to plan I came up with while I was surprisingly enough, lying on the bed at home in Kuopio one evening, then right now I’d been setting my tent somewhere very close to the town of Juuka. Incredibly enough, getting from point A to point B by dragging a finger on the map seems to be much easier then when you actually set out to cycle there. Juuka is situated on the eastern shore of lake Pielinen and is not very far from Koli national park. But it was already 8 o’clock in the evening and being some 30 kilometers away from Juuka, there was no way I’d reach it while the sun was still up. So I decided to camp close to the hamlet of Kajoo.

I’ve been dreaming about a cycling trip like this for about two months how. All I’ve been waiting for was the right opportunity to go. The weather had to be right, bike had to function properly and I needed enough time. And during those two months preparations were almost all the time under way. The biggest challenge was fixing the bike, as first of all I did not even know what exactly needed fixing. All I knew was that there were too many clicking and squeaking sounds a bike shouldn’t be making at all. Now, I really don’t know anything about fixing bikes so this great source on bike technicalities helped me immensely. After getting all kinds of different special wrenches, nuts and bolts, I finally fixed it the night before I took off. It’s not difficult to imagine you shaking your head thinking “This is not too smart, pal.” I know, I was skeptical myself. But then again, what the heck, I’ll see on the road how good of a job I’ve done.

Physically I haven’t undergone any particular preparations either. Sure, I still run now and then, but not being in good shape did not prevent me from going anywhere anytime earlier either. So I’d merrily spend several evenings sitting in front of a map making really bold plans. 180 kilometers the first day sounded quite right and it didn’t look that far either. After sitting around all day, eating warm dinner and 180 km being there on a piece of paper, that is. But being actually on the road cycling the whole day, being hungry, those 180 km turned out to be something completely different. Sure there were no mountain passes on the way and there won’t be any to come, not anywhere near to where I’m going, but it’s not like I’m cycling in the Netherlands either. It’s rolling hills all the time. And when I say all the time, I truly mean all the time.

Another issue was cycling with panniers. Lifting up the back of the bike with all that luggage attached to it just two minutes before departure was not too encouraging as I could barely lift the damn thing. How in the world am I going to cycle hundreds of kilometers with this? It didn’t sound like fun at all. There was no way I’d cycle 180 kilometers the first day. I didn’t even want to weigh the whole thing. It simply ceased to matter as there was absolutely no way I could have taken less things with me than I did. And I proved to be right on that upon my return home, as of all the things I’ve taken along there was only one long sleeved T-shirt which I have not used. Everything else was in use at least a few times during the trip.

Raindrops hitting the window glass woke me up on the morning of departure. At that point I was still convinced that I’ll just have to delay my trip for another day or two. But as I was reading the paper and eating breakfast, sky begun clearing up a bit. I packed my stuff as quickly as I could and left around noon. The feeling of going on a trip without any particular constraints other then those linked to my personal fitness is probably one of the most liberating feelings of all. Cycling gives a sense of liberty.

Although I might have felt free of the usual everyday concerns, new ones started haunting me all too soon. Not even an hour into the ride a storm was approaching so quickly that my attempts to escape it turned out to be rather futile. Even though I did try riding faster, I knew I’d loose this game. Rain, or rather, large buckets of water were poured on me by the time I reached the Puutossalmi’s cable ferry some 25 kilometers south of Kuopio. Even though I wore my poncho I was wet through and through by the time I stepped of the ferry only a few minutes later.

Not minding the rain too much, I was wondering more about just how well the public transportation is organized in Finland. True, in some places city buses are absurdly expensive and you’d be paying 5,2€ for a single ride, but then there are also such absurdities as cable ferries, or lossi, as they are called around here, which are free of charge. They are considered a public service. You can actually think of it as a moving bridge: they operate 24 hours a day and if the cable-pulled ferry is not on your side of the shore when you want to cross, you ring the bell and there it comes. Probably the most famous one is Föri in Turku, which has been in operation since 1903 and was originally powered by a steam engine. In Turku lossi transports people between the banks of the Aura river, but they can be found all around Finland.

Cycling in Finland is great. There are lots of cycling routes, maps are well made and pretty much all roads are in good enough shape and extremely well marked. Unless you’re daydreaming or go on a trip without a map, there’s almost no way you could get lost. Well, maybe you’d still do just fine even without a map, although meticulous following of small brown signs carrying a bike pictogram with an arrow and a number would be a must. These carefully placed signs mark the national cycling network around the country and are to be found everywhere. I remember wondering about them even before I was aware that such a network is maintained when I spotted quite a few in Jyväskylä a couple of years ago.

Finland might be sparsely populated country, but you’d be amazed to see that not even a few kilometers go by without at least one building visible from the road. Before I set off I thought I’d be alone on the road, but I couldn’t be more wrong. Traffic was sparse, but there was just enough of it to feel safe in case something goes wrong on the road.

As kilometers went by the landscape hardly changed at all. Forest on the left, forest on the right for as far as the eye could see. Only occassionally there was a meadow, a pasture or a lake interrupting this incredibly regular pattern. But it sure made me cycle like crazy. With every single hill I climbed and turn I took I awaited with anticipation possible unseen landscape feature around every turn. But to no avail. All the time it felt like I was cycling around the lake and over the hill.

And there I was, 130 km away from home, sitting by the tent, eating and trying to catch the last rays of light on spread out map, making big plans for tomorrow.

Mladen

This is the second part of the Koli cycling trip series. Here you can find the first, third and fourth parts.

Soon after I moved to Finland to study in Jyväskylä I’ve heard about the Koli national park. And just how couldn’t have I. Not only is it regarded as a natural treasure rich in flora and fauna, but it has also earned a status of a national landscape. There aren’t many places in Finland which could claim the same.

Since the rise of national romanticism at the turn of 20th century every important or even aspiring Finnish artist visited Koli area for inspiration. As writers, painters, composers, poets and other artists came here to seek roots for their own work, they pulled along the whole nation and Koli soon became a tourist attraction. However, the national park itself, covering mere 30 square kilometers and including the famous Koli hill, has been established only in 1991 (although it has been a nature reserve since 1906). Since Koli is today as popular as ever and on top of that easily reachable from anywhere in Finland, there probably aren’t many Finns who have not visited it at least once.

Both Koli hill and the national park run along the western shore of lake Pielinen, which has throughout history of human population in area occupied an important role. The area around the lake has been populated by hunter-gatherer and slash-and-burn cultivating communities. Lake Pielinen was also en route between the Gulf of Bothnia and lake Ladoga (in what is today Russia), a frequently traveled route. The lake had a very important connecting role until the 1930s when easier accesses were established on land.

Such historical and cultural details accumulating in my mind over the last two years resulted in my growing interest in Koli and its surroundings. It became a must-visit destination and I was sure that seeing it would importantly contribute to my knowledge and understanding of my Finnish culture and history. Visiting the area thus just became a matter of time and, as it turned out, style.

It might be a bit difficult to imagine, but 72% of Finland is covered in forest. Let’s put it this way, it is world’s 11th most forested country. For comparison, 32% of Germany is covered with forest and 28% of France is. Both Germany and France are considerably larger than Finland, but it is only when their total areas of forested land are combined that the total barely amounts to more forest than there is in Finland alone. Numbers aside, I thought that visiting an area like Koli by means of motorized transportation would be, to say the least, inappropriate.

That said, I went to a nearby bookstore, picked up a map for cyclists for the area, went home, studied it a bit and drafted a rough plan for the trip. As it turned out Koli was not as far from Kuopio where I currently live as I had first imagined. However, I definitely wanted to avoid traffic as much as possible and thus opted to follow the national cycle touring route of Finland as much as possible on my way journey. As it was probably conceived with leisure in mind instead of efficiency it is a winding road and is far from being the shortest and easiest way to get there. Since there are hundreds, if not even thousands of lakes between lakes of Kallavesi and Pielinen, road was as twisty as it gets. But I knew immediately that it was definitely what I was looking for as it turned out it offered as much nature and silence as one could get from traveling on the road.

Before taking off I’ve only had a pretty solid idea of my route for my first day including a place I’d want to reach by the evening of that day. The rest, I’d decide on the fly. Each evening of the trip I’d sit down holding a well deserved meal in my hand and facing a map spread out on the ground, deciding where I wanted to go the next day. Even though the whole journey lasted only four days, it was fantastic.

So this is the first and introductory of four parts about my cycling journey to Koli. The remaining three parts will be published each a few days following the previous one. Enjoy the ride.

Mladen

This is the first part of the Koli cycling trip series. Here you can find the second, third and fourth parts.