Friday 12th July:  Weather: 18°C to 22°C misty morning with mosquitoes, sunny afternoon

Time:  7.40 Bus to Hogbacka, Walk 26k 8am to 4pm, 2x30 min stops: Bus from Siikaniemi: Asc 518m Desc 520m

Accommodation: Brobacka apartment Nuuksio National Park

245A Bus stop at Hogbacka

4.5k Trail 2000 blue and white mark

4.5k then 5.5k to Salmi

10.7k Circuit Tapion Tavel

Coffee at Salmi 

Turnoff to Kattila exposed roots 

Camp ground on Lake Pikku Parikas

Kattila bus stop and angry bus driver

Day Trippers on Korpinkierros Track

A wonderful 26k day starting with the 245A bus to Hogbacka, then Route 2000 to link up with the Circuit of Tapion Tavel, a track in the northern section of Nuuksio Park near Salmi with really wide good tracks and very good signage.  Then back to Kattila, Haukkalampi to Siikaniemi to catch the 244 bus back to Brobacka.  The day was marred by an incident with a black muslim bus driver!

I’m awake at 5am then doze off to 6am and hurry to shower, have a cup of tea, then race over to catch the 6.57am bus to Hogbacka.  I’m waiting just a few minutes when the bus arrives, but sails through - I’m on the wrong side of the road.  Back to my room for a cup of coffee, before walking back to catch the next 244 bus at 7.38am on the other side of the road.  I’m the only one on the bus again, and 17 minutes later he drops me at Hogbacka where I start my walk at 8am following Route 2000 on a very wide forrestry road with not a car or person the whole way to the junction of the Tapion Tavel Circuit.

There’s misty rain for the first half of the circuit to Salmi, with hoards of mosquitoes, and signs to reindeer but I didn’t see any.  I can’t stop to look at the map, nor scratch, just try to hit these mosquitoes on the run.  I get to Salmi at 10.15am after walking 10k, firstly 4.5k on Route 2000, then  k on the first part of the Tapion Tavel Circuit. As per usual, at Salmi there’s a bus stop, a car park and a toilet, and luckily a picnic table where I sit in the slight breeze to avoid the mosquitoes and have breakfast of Meusli with a cup of coffee.  This end of the Nuuksio Park is really nice, different, with good tracks and clear signage - just more mosquitoes as it’s a bit more swampy. 

Returning south down the second part of the circuit it's just as pretty, and there’s a few bike riders about. At the bottom of the circuit I take the connecting route to Kattila, which is a narrow track and a bit rooty. At 1pm, I’m back in Kattila where I had been yesterday, and sit at the picnic table to have lunch of tomato, cheese, butter and bread with another cup of coffee and cream.  

Bus 245A pulls in and I decide to take a photo to enhance my blog - just the bus, the bus stop and P for the car park.  The bus driver calls me over.  I think he’s going to ask me if I need the bus, but instead he rants on about needing permission to take photos of buses in Finland.  I tell him that’s news to me, and walk back to finish my lunch at the picnic table.  The bus driver leaves the bus and comes over demanding my phone so he can delete the photo.  I put it in my pocket and say no.  I’ve heard this story before when we were in Turin in 2016, where a Muslim lady tried to wrestle Ian’s camera from him after he took a photo from the Turin Bridge of the Superga temple on the hill where a plane crashed in 1949 killing 27 members of the Turin soccer team.  She was shouting she would call the police, and when Ian refused to hand over the camera, she said her family would be after us.  This driver was the same,  Threatening to call the police and demanding to hand over my phone.  I slipped it into my pocket so he couldn’t grab it and held his stare as I could see there was a cyclist coming towards us, and the girl who had jut hopped off the bus was not too far away.  He saw them too and left with the same threats- I’m calling the police and my family will be coming after you!  I was left a little unsettled but not completely stressed with two people within screaming distance.  I know from past experience, that some - not all - Muslims don’t like having their photo taken for some superstitious reason.  But I figured my phone and my safety was more important than his religion.

Moving on to Haukkalampi, where again I had been yesterday, I follow the signs to the Korpinkierros Circuit, of which I had done the eastern half yesterday.  Now I turn right to do the western half and meet lots of day trippers and campers probaby staying for the weekend.  These campers were BIG boys carrying gear that looked like it weighed 30kg. At 3.30pm i’m back at the bus stop at Siikaniemi, hoping that the next bus driver isn't Mr Angry.  It isn’t and 17 minutes later I’m at Brobacka at 4pm.  I sit outside with my red wine vinegar and a few nuts and chat to Rachel for a while, relating my bus driver story.  She thinks I should report it to HSL, the Finnish transport company, but I don’t have time for that.  I’m leaving tomorrow.  

Another watered down McGuigan’s drink while I blog, the dinner of mushrooms, onion, tomato, pork and two eggs.