#6: [19-Jun-10]

#5: [05-Aug-07]

#4: [10-Jan-06]

#3: [16-Mar-05]

#2: [16-Aug-02]

03-Feb-2001 -- The reading on temp meter was -23 Celsius (about -9 F) on beautiful saturday morning, when me and my co-adventurer Olli headed out towards N61 E25. The winter here in southern Finland had been exceptionally warm so far, so you can imagine our amazement, although we had prepared well and were not caught off-guard (unlike the semi-frozen ATM around the corner where I live, which refused to return my bank card after I withdrew some money to fund the trip).

"This might turn out to be an interesting day!", I thought to myself - and like we found out, the ATM incident was just the beginning. Soon after we had left Helsinki behind us, it became apparent that the car needed re-fuelling soon. We did pass several gas stations, but decided that the amount we had would be enough to reach Tuuliharja, a truckstop not too far from Lahti. A bit of additional excitement! I casually joked that if Tuuliharja would be closed, we'd have problems. Well... surprise, surprise... IT WAS! So, we ran out of gas - what a silly thing to happen. Luckily there was a lot of traffic, so we hitched a ride to next gas station and back, bought some gas and after a short time we were back on track.

As the confluence spot came closer and closer, the roads kept going smaller and narrower. Navigating to target area was surprisingly easy for a firstimers like us! GPS, wonders of modern science. About 800m from the confluence we parked the car in courtyard of nearby farm. After explaining our mission to the farmer's wife, she instantly asked: "This is not one of those EU things, is it?" (the European Union and its agricultural legislation is like a red cloth to most Finnish farmers). We told her that we would pose no threat to her and her daily routines, all we needed to do was take some pictures and then we would be on our way.

Getting to actual confluence site wasn't hard (well, it included some desperate attempts to avoid deep ditches covered with snow), it situated 440 metres off the nearest road, in a corner of a farmfield. Due to the temperature and chilling wind, our visit was quite brief. Let the pictures speak for themselves! A typical Finnish countryside view in wintertime, but next confluence we bag will hopefully be more pittoresque.

-- Olli-Pekka Savela