Journey: Salpa Asema – Kayralemmon – Ahvionkoski – Kotka – Porvoo
When you live in a van 24/7 with someone you have very little privacy or personal space. This makes things like present buying/wrapping difficult. I’d managed to snaffle a bag of gingers into the van unnoticed and hid them in my bag intending to wrap them up in an old map…but had not got a chance. So at 5am when Mark went to the toilet I quickly pulled map and sweet bag out of bag wrapped and put on it on the kitchen worktop. Phew job done. Markles woke at 8am saw his present and unwrapped…a bag of dog treats! 😂🙈 I still can’t believe I did this, but in my defense it was dark and I was half asleep. After we had stopped laughing I did dig the right bag of sweets out of my bag for him. What a plonker!
Our first walk of the day was the forest fortress Salpa Asema and it was so well camouflaged you could hardly see it until we were right up on it. They used spikey stones to stop tanks, trenches, machine gun bunkers…its crazy to imagine them living in these hideaways.
We then drove on to Kayralemmon where they had a little doggy beach and fenced in area so the dogs could be off the lead (their first time in 3 weeks!). The pups loved it, and made friends with two locals. It’s especially nice for Ernest as he hasn’t had much doggy socialising and gets very over excited on the lead when he sees new dogs. Another huge perk of this place was they had public showers! This was like a birthday present for both of us, as we could have a leisurely shower and feel properly clean for the first time in ages. The road dust gets everywhere so you always feel a bit grubby.
All spruced up and even wearing a dress I took Mark into Kouvola town to a wonderful cafe that had vegan cake (thank you Happy Cow!). High on sugar and caffeine we were ready for a third walk out in the sticks at Ahvionkoski. Turns out it was more of a scenic spot and didn’t have any trail walks from it so after a little potter and three dead ends we called it quits and drove on to the old capital Kotka.
I’m already getting apprehensive about being in cities again and expecting parking woes but we found somewhere easily enough and had a lovely walk around a manmade water park and the sculpture promenade. Ever the weather psychic Mark suggested we head back and we made it to the van seconds before a massive rain storm.
Our luck was not to hold out though as we opted to have dinner at a bar in Porvoo that was stated as the best pizza in town…only they weren’t doing pizza…but they did have vegan burger so we ordered that, and sat in the only half dry seats while the heavens opened up once again. Our burgers were delivered raw, cold and with sticks of cucumber. At €16 each I wasn’t entertaining that for a second and despite being British we sent them back and waited patiently for fresh meals to be cooked. Their second attempt was much better with proper side salad and vegan majo. It was scrumptious 😋 I was absolutely stuffed and walked back to the van where mark ate a wierd chia seed pudding I’d made him (a cross between frog spawn and rice pudding…he ate it, is still alive…may or may not eat more of it).
This evening he is buried in his book and I’m wondering if I can lift my still full tummy of the sofa to do my exercises.
SofaWolves 