We haven't been driving long before we come across this funny roundabout.
Wondering if it's our master playing darts?
Finland must be the Nordics' answer to the Amazon forest. There are fir trees everywhere. Never have we seen such large forests. Trees as far as the eye can see and more. You can easily drive a whole day where you don't see much other than fir trees.
Finland has 43 times as much forest per capita compared to Denmark.
It would be a Mecca for Sus' father to come up here and gather wood.
Fortunately, it is also the land of the 1000 lakes, so you can't complain about the landscapes.
Since we are about to have an overdose of fir forest, we try to google a little to find out what you can experience in Finland.
We find an extremely interesting offer at bearcentre.fi, they have 29 hides in the forest, on the border with Russia. Here you can sit and look for bears, wolverines and wolves.
To that extent, we would like to, so we drive to Vartius and ask if they have an available hide that we can book.
They have. We just have to meet them at 5pm and they will show us the way out to the hideout.
We can just grab a bite to eat in their café and then we grab a little grandpa in the roof tent before we go on a trip.
We meet at 5 p.m. We will be given a bag with snacks, sandwiches and some drinks and a briefing on how it will all take place.
We start to go out into the forest and the guide shows us our hideout.
You must stay here until tomorrow morning at 7, when I close the door you must not open it until 7, he says.
It is forbidden to go out. As I said, there are both bears and wolves in the area.
Here is a picture of one of the larger hides in the forest.
We get to set up our camera equipment and arrange ourselves a bit in our 6 sqm.
Then it's just a matter of waiting and looking out. After only half an hour, Johnny is the first to spot a bear. A big teddy bear walking over towards us. How lucky can you be?
We take pictures of our lives and when it has disappeared again, we are completely high.
Stop by for an experience. Seeing a wild bear so close is pretty big.
We only have to wait a few hours and another bear will come. A little later there are bites again. So a total of three times we see bears before it gets too dark to see anything. Unfortunately, we don't get to see wolves and wolverines.
Since it's getting dark, we can just enjoy the full moon and take a nap before the sun rises at 5.
At 5 o'clock we wake up and sit down to look out again. However, no more animals come, so at 7 o'clock we have to go back to the camp without a guide. It is with a little tension in our bodies that we set off on the trip alone. Now we know there are bears nearby.
Fortunately, they stay away, and we come back safe and sound, full of excitement.
We have posted some pictures of the bears on Facebook, and one of Johnny's friends who lives in Finland comments on it and writes "hey, you are right near where I have a summer house. Are you not stopping by?”
We would like to. It will be fun to say hello when we are now on those edges. We drive about 30 km and find their log cabin, which they are expanding.
Of course, it is down to a lake and it is really cozy there.
The whole family has started building. We talk a bit about our Russia plans and are told that we just have to speak up. They have extensive experience in driving there, and can be helpful in arranging a trip.
As they say, Russia is the country where nothing works, but everything can be arranged if you are cunning enough.
So we just got an open invitation that we will say yes to at some point in the future.