I thought an overnighter would be a good way to reset myself from the work life and start the summer vacation. A more traditional Finnish way to achieve this reset would be a bottle of vodka, but that's not really my style. Toni was also interested in an overnighter and he had scouted a good location on the Kimito Island earlier in the week. Everything was thus set and I took the car to Kimito to meet with Toni. Around 19:30 on Friday evening we started our ride.
We started with around 30 km of road riding.
Riding in front of Toni is a strange looking alien with long arms.
Looking for the final approach. This was the wrong trail, or rather not a trail at all.
Better.
The forest opens up to the sea.
Toni has his 907 fatbike with 4.7" tires on 100 mm rims.
The photo sessions could not be avoided.
Purple loosestrife.
I had my Krampluk, a Salsa Mukluk fatbike with 29+ wheels and tires.
A small pine has chosen a rather poor place to grow on.
Sailing would also be a perfectly acceptable activity on an evening like this one.
Beach pea.
Can you spot Toni?
Bladderwrack on land.
There he is.
I am but a shadow of myself.
Almost there.
First things first. After having found a suitable place for the night, we put our beer into the great refrigerator. The beer is a local beer from Rosala, hence the name.
My sleeping spot. A NeoAir Short sleeping pad on the Alpkit Hunka XL bivybag, a summer quilt and my wine bag pillow, all under a minimal bug net.
We had pancakes planned for dinner, but I had forgotten to bring a bowl for the pancake batter. In a situation like this, a lesser man would probably tear his hair in despair, but my hair is too short for that and I like to think outside the box. One of my drybags came to the rescue.
The most noble outdoor food.
Eating pancakes and watching the sunset.
Who can sail when the wind won't blow?
Eventually we ran out of pancakes, but the beer was now cold and the sunset colours continued.
Some final photography before going to sleep. Toni does a long exposure shot.
Our camp. There was now some moisture coming from the sea, so I actually slept inside the bivy bag in order to not get wet.
The next morning was foggy.
Toni still slept well, so I took a little morning stroll.
Sea aster.
Mossy stonecrop.
Toni is awake and ready for photography.
Morning coffee.
Wild thyme.
Gradually the fog was dispersed by the sun.
Sea cale, another perfectly edible plant. It tastes pretty much like cabbage.
Bladderwrack in water. This is also edible, but I haven't tasted it myself. It is supposed to taste a little like rucola.
Toni packs his bike.
On the move.
Red water, perhaps because of algae. There are also iron bacteria that can color water red, but those seem to occur mostly in boglike water.
A few more pictures by Toni.
The Swedish name of the mossy stonecrop translates roughly as yellow fatboy, which would enable a cunning caption, but not in English.
Leaving the trails for 30 km of roads.
The 30 km road section went quite rapidly and we finished off with some very nice trails near the Kimito village.
A great outing at a very nice place again. A perfect start to the vacation. Thanks to Toni for the company. Toni's report is here.
PS. The TahkoMTB 240 km took place a week before this one. It didn't go to well for me, though, but I might still write something about in in the blog.
No comments:
Post a Comment