HOLIDAY ESCAPE

Paddling the inland waterways

By Erik Plankton

July 14^th, 2015

CALL OF THE WATER

It was the first week of my summer holiday and I got a strong itch do take a few days of the grid. We went to visit my wife’s family at their summer cottage. After a night of plentiful eating and a nice sauna by the lake it was time to take off from Suonenjoki. Loaded up the Tarpon 160 straight from the car and dragged it gracefully to the river.

Suonenjoki river

I had planned a route that starts out with about 10km of river from Suonenjoki with some rapids toward some bigger open lakes. The river part was really enjoyable with a slow current and a couple of small rapids along the way. After the river there was a 10km stretch of open lake, which was luckily very calm and made for easy paddling. There was a thunder storm building up close by and I made it to my planned camp just before it started raining heavily. Lightning hit the hills on the side of the lake.

CAMP VIBES

I set up the tent on a small point in Jänissaari (Rabbit island). In this part of the lake region there is relatively few good places to camp since the shores are very lush and the ground is full of undergrowth. Luckily this place had some solid rock which was some what dry from the rainy summer. A lot of ants though.

eASY LIKE FRIDAY MORNING

I slept until nine but it took a whole two hours to get going since the weather was rather enjoyable and I had the luxury to just lounge around and not be bothered about the clock.

Nokisenkoski

After some relaxed paddling and catching a few small pikes I arrived at Nokisenkoski, which has some small rapids and good place to catch some trout. The rapid areas require a dedicated fishing permit so I just paddled on through the current and settled on to a enjoyable rhythm on the almost windless lake.

1337 o'clock

The sun was shining and it was warm, which is quite uncommon this summer. I noticed it was 13:37 o’clock so what the heck, it was also beer’o’clock.

fishy fish

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rautalampi

Spent the better part of the day dodging thunder storms and avoiding them with great success. I came to a town called Rautalampi and decided to have lunch there since I had been seven hours on the water. The landing point was Äijäniemi which translates roughly to “Dude Point”. On the map it shows a launch place for boats. It was so overgrown that it would be fun to see someone try to launch a boat from a trailer there.

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stormy dinner

While I was having a pizza that fulfilled my early quota of canned pineapple and bbq sauce all at once I also sat out a thunder storm. Being happy that I avoided the heavy rain I also realised that I had left some of my clothes to “dry” on top of my kayak. Sometimes you win some and lose some, but in the end you will be wet anyway. For the next few hours being in damp clothes was nothing compared to the “excitement” that the pizza caused in my digestive system. I would still call my self a winner since the island I aimed for had an outhouse…

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Rajasaari

At Rautalampi there was an outdoors map that listed all the shelters and fire places in the region, and I spotted and island called Rajasaari which had a Laplanders style hut open to the public. I took a little gamble to paddle there since it was friday and the potential to encounter alcohol concentrated juvenile mayhem was a reality. Luckily there was nobody to been seen. After setting up a fire and hanging all my wet clothes to dry I sat down to enjoy to evening. After about ten minutes the mosquito army arrived with full force and anger. It was impossible to sleep there so I had to retreat and setup the inner tent in the empty storage. I would rate this as one of my top three mosquito encounters of all time. It was bad. But once in the tent it was all good and I slept for eight hours happily.

Pike

I had arranged for my wife to pick me up from Rautalampi, so I had only around 7 km to paddle. I took my time enjoying the views and casting into the reed along the shore. There are lot of pikes in these waters and got a few bites within ten minutes of fishing. Got two small ones on the hook but released them gently to grow up.

Back to rautalampi

The weather was sunny and calm when I started paddling towards my pickup point, but I was caught by a small front that gave some rain and picked up the wind to around 8 m/s. No problem since I could use the cover of the shore and the rain was only light. I had the Lowrance Elite-4 sonar with the Navionics map card, which made for easy navigation. I have a moped battery for the device and it lasted easily for three days. Great to to have a map constantly in front of you especially for the larger crossings. You can just plot your next waypoint on the map and then follow the compass reading without having to fiddle around with maps or your phone.

BEACH PARTY

I reached my pick up point early and relaxed in the sun for an hour. There was nobody around for a while, until suddenly there was some ruckus on the shore. Some bum suddenly stood up from behind the rocks, took a piss and started up the grassy slope where he took a massive youtube like rolling fall almost all the way down to the beach back again. First he checked his bag that his beers were all intact, and then informed me where I was. Three times. Then he took a nap and I unloaded my kayak. Johanna picked me up and we headed home. On the way we stopped for burgers at Revontuli Bowling Diner, which is totally out of place as a road side attraction in the middle of nowhere in a good sense. It is a complete America style fifties diner replica with a bowling alley and darts room. The burgers where awesome and I would recommend this place as hidden gem on the route 9 in Finland. 58 km paddling the beautiful lakes of central Finland.