We’re on our way, we don’t know where we’re going

Today’s theme tune comes courtesy of Simon and Garfunkel (I’m not the Queen of Corona…!) and tonight’s post is being typed out as we snuggle into our seats aboard the Star (a car ferry to Estonia!).

 We woke up in our little Finnish lodge around 6:30am, grabbed a cuppa, enjoyed the basket of snacky breakfast treats, showered, listened to a bit of news on BBC Radio 2 and headed to Vaalimaa, where Finland meets Russia.

Tone loves BBC Radio 2. He’s brought 7 whole USB sticks of Radio 2 recordings… Each USB has about 40 hours of radio. 7 multiplied by 40… That’s about 280 hours. If we listen to 8 hours of music a day… Basically, we have plenty of music.

We’d spent a lot of time talking about what we’d do last night: do we Russia or do we not Russia? Is it risky? Is it safe? By this point, the UK Government had advised against all travel to Russia and we considered our options thoroughly in light of the situation. We’d read about cyber-attacks on the Belarussian train systems, the solidarity of the other European countries and the economic climate, where Russians were struggling to withdraw their savings from their banks. We concluded we’d head up to the border and see how we felt.

Our taksi arrived at around 9am and we were in beautiful Hamina by 10am. The half hour drive from Kotka to Hamina was beautiful: snow-kissed fir trees, glistening snow and huge stalagtites from the banks of the road, where all the snow had been cleared to. The campsite where Tony and Teresa had left the van was even more beautiful. The owners had cleared away the snow from around the van and after a bit of rocking, jiggerpokery, towing and sliding on ice (the handbrake appeared to be frozen), she was running as sweet as a nut.

There was a bit of snow on the van!

We grabbed a coffee at the campsite, enjoyed a slice of scrumptious toffee cake whilst admiring the incredible views and took a toddle out across the Baltic Sea’s shoreline (this is the lake to you, Treez!), walking on top of the vast frozen water’s surface before us. Then we set off for Russia.

Just wow

I could have stayed here all day

This place was just incredible

We agreed we’d ask the official at the border what they thought about us going into Russia. He said it was probably safe but that it would be difficult to get money out over there. Just as we thought… We toyed with the idea of drawing money out from a local travel exchange on the Finnish side and the official told us where we could go (near another crossing into Russia).

We ummed. We aahed. First Covid stopped Tony doing this trip 2 years ago. Then Covid stopped Tony doing this trip 1 year ago. Then Russia’s special operation with Ukraine put some risk around things. And then the UK government advised all UK citizens against us going to Russia. Then there was a risk around getting money. Maybe we should give up and accept that this trip isn’t meant to be…

Or not…

We’ve now taken the decision to mix it up and we’re headed for Tallinn in Estonia to go into Russia from the continent!

Back down to Helsinki we went and we booked onto the next ferry heading to Estonia at 19:30. We’ll be in another country by tonight (well, within 2 hours!)!

We had just an hour to wait and we spent it repairing the van’s screenwash pipe (we’d driven – and when I say “we”, I mean “I” – in the low sun from Hamina to Helsinki without being able to see through the windscreen, strategically swerving behind larger vehicles when the road got wet to wash off the screen!). I found it a hairy drive, and central Helsinki was even more hair-raising as there are trams that drive alongside the traffic.

Our Tone trying to fix the water pipe at Helsinki ferry terminal

(our Stace helpfully standing around taking pics!)

Anyway, we’re safe and we’ll head a little along the route towards the Russian border at Narva tonight, when we disembark, before settling down for sleepsies in the transit hotel.