Thursday 11th July:  Weather: 17°C to 21°C: Overcast Morning, drizzly rain afternoon

Time:  Bus 7.20am Brobacka to Siikaniemi: Walk 22.4k to Katilla, Haltia, and Brobacka: Asc 525m Des 546m

Accommodation: Brobacka apartment Nuuksio National Park

A long day through the forests and around the lakes.  Beautiful, but not spectacular, just very special.  I took bus 244 to Siikaniemi, which I thought was a little village, but it’s a bus stop with a toilet, a carpark and a few signposts, then walked 22.4k around as many trails as I could follow, avoiding the narrow unsigned tracks which tended to have too many exposed roots and rocks

My bed is very comfortable, and it’s so quiet here.  I “sleep in” til 6am, then check the bus time tables and plan to leave at 7.20am on bus 244 for Siikaniemi.  After a  cup of tea and a small hunk of dry bread, I pack my big Deuter back pack which is more comfortable than my cabin back pack which has no waist belt.  I’ve packed everything including rain gear, breakfast, morning tea and lunch and my MSR water cooker, gas can plus coffee etc.  

I leave at 7am and walk 100 metres to the bus stop on the opposite side to where I came in yesterday, and wait for the 244 bus which arrives at 7.20am exactly and I’m the only passenger.  Most of the buses I’ve been on are only one quarter full but they still run every twenty minutes.  Must be a well financed public transport system.  It’s only 30 minutes to Siikaniemi, and I’m amazed to find it’s not a village, but just a bus stop with a car park and dry thunder box toilet.  I start off at 8am following the signs for Korpinkierros, a 7.2k circuit of which I’ll do the first half.  It’s a cool, but overcast morning and while there’s four cars in the car park, I don’t see anyone on the track which is not so rooty as yesterday.  

 After three k, I turn off and follow signs to Haukkalampi, apparently a popular spot to start hiking.  I’m almost there at 9am when I enter the camping area of Mustalampi, where the sign indicates that in summer 2,000 people per day pass through.  There’s a picnic table, a good spot to stop for breakfast of coffee, with bread, butter, cheese and jam.  There’s even a dry toilet tucked away in the bushes.  Just 1k down is Haukkalampi with a few more cars and a few more day walkers, and a coffee hut which isn’t open.  

It’s early at 10am and rather than go to Haltia I decide to go a bit further to Kattila, another “village” that also turned out to be just a bus stop, a car park and a toilet.  The yellow diamond signs were easy to follow to Kattila but thenI turned around to walk back down the road - I saw one car, one bus and two cyclists for the next 30 minutes before turning off at Hogbacka on a route marked with the number 2000 on blue and white signs.  This is a a Natonal Trail of 110k circuiting the Nuuksio Park, so it was well marked.  There were some very steep ups and downs crossing valleys on this section.

It’s 12pm when I’m back in Haukkalampi and there’s a few spits of rain - which was forcast for midday, so I  keep walking towards Haltia which is 4.5k further on, where there's a visitors centre.  It’s only drizzly rain but you an get very wet after an hour in drizzly rain so I stop to put on a rain jacket and a rain cover on my pack.  I walk in to the visitors centre at Haltia and chat to the assistants about a possible walk for tomorrow, then go to a small “lounge”, more designed for kids with books and colouring pencils spread on the tables.  I have lunch of bread, butter, cheese and vegemite.  

I’m there for 30 minutes and the rain has eased so I walk down to the lake level and have a coffee for 15 minutes, before heading off down the main road which has a dedicated cycle lane running beside it.  There’s not much traffic, and it’s a pretty road with a bit of up and down.  I’m almost home to Brobacka when it starts to rain a bit more than drizzle, but it’s not cold.  My umbrella has been handy, and keeps me dry for the last 15 minutes ”home”.

It’s 4pm when I walk into a warm room and hang up the wet gear before having a small wine with ice to dull the vinegar, plus a few nuts, while blogging.  It’s been a long interesting day, a bit damp, but not cold, even when it was raining.  I cut up a few things for dinner, then shower. Dinner is fried tomato, mushrooms, onion, diced piece of pork, egg (thanks Rachel) with last nights left over noodles, with a glass of sweet vinegar aka McGuigans Shiraz.

There’s no wimbledon on TV and the only chanel in English is National Geographic.  It’s mostly about plane crashes which I don’t fancy watching since i’m flying home on Saturday. Bed at 9.30pm, having decided to get the bus to somewhere near Kattila as early as I can in the morning