I woke up this day another year older. It was my 31st birthday, I wish I could say it was a night of solid sleep, but the people moving around all night looking at birds kept me up half the night. The thing is, we should have known, since we did camp in a public bird viewing area.
So when we got up we ate breakfast and then packed our tents, sleeping bags, and gear. The whole time people were coming and going. While we were packing the tents a little mink came out of the forest to check out what we were doing. I have never seen one in the wild, but I must say, the way they move like a slinky is humorous to watch.
When we broke camp and got on our way, we figured out that we left at exactly the right moment. If we had waited any longer there was a huge group of people coming from the parking lot to use the grilling area. We departed with the idea of stopping in Parikkala to refill our snack supply and get some drinks.
It turns out the local S-market came with a view overlooking Simpelejärvi (Simpele lake).
Then we moved on to the south and made a stop in Simpele, which you would expect to have a view of Simpele lake. Instead we were treated with a view of kivijärvi (rock lake) from the top of the hill near the local church.
Before leaving Simpele, we stopped at the Teboil fuel station/restaurant to have lunch. Mind you, I was a little worried at this point about eating at greasy spoon lunch places. Despite my worries though, we ordered some burgers and fries, and luckily they weren't bad. It was also a good time to take a break, because I was feeling and looking pretty tired at this point.
This day we had to travel 70 miles, and sadly had to use the highway a few times. It was extremely scary, especially when the big trucks loaded with trees would pass. Each time those trucks would pass we would be grabbed by the air pocket behind the truck, and it would pull us forward. Luckily we only had to use them for a few miles at a time, but it was still the scariest place we had ridden.
The rest of the ride made for a really nice day though, and we continued our path winding south down the border.
Not as much gravel as we wanted, but these paved back roads were almost as good, almost. Eventually we made it to a city called Imatra, where we knew there would be a laavu. The first laavu we came to did not permit camping, so we moved to another one right in the middle of the city. The next laavu was on the top of a high hills and came with some awesome views that extended all the way into Russia.
At the top of the hill was a giant ski jump which we climbed up to get an even better view, and take a selfie with the Russian landscape.
We had a basic plan to camp at the top of this hill after we cooked dinner in the laavu, but that plan was changed after we realized that ALL (small exaggeration) of the teenagers from the town were messing around on the hill. So even though we had already had a long day of riding we decided to ride another 10-15 miles to find a laavu outside of the city.
When we made it to the entrance of the trail we heard some crashing in the forest and then something making snorting noises from behind the trees. We couldn't see what it was, I assume a moose, but we hightailed it up the trail as fast as we could after that. The next laavu was on top of another hill which was quite steep so we had to hike the bikes up the hill. The view from the top felt like we were in the mountains though.
We visited many laavus along the way, and many had funny names including this one. It was called sikalaavu (pig laavu). Maybe they give them funny names to make people laugh, I don't know.
It was a long, long day of riding, so it was really nice to finally relax in our camp spot for the night. It was a little bittersweet knowing this was the last night of the trip and we would have to go back to real life soon. So one more evening camp fire until next trip.
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