The flight to Helsinki left at just before 8 getting us there at around 12.30 in torrential rain. I was the longest walk ever to get to the car hire and the pick up directions left us wandering around a multi-storey before finally finding our car.
We drove round the ring road and found a lovely reserve with wet woodland, pools and reed beds. The view from one of the tower hides was great and a walk along a boardwalk brought us to a hide which was very welcome shelter from the rain. There were mallard and coot pottering around the lake, blue tit, sedge warbler, grasshopper warbler, reed and great reed warbler singing in the reeds and several singing thrush nightingales, with one hopping around on the end of the boardwalk. Several gulls were flying around and Common tern and Caspian tern gave very good views as the hawked over the pool and a Lesser-spotted woodpecker flew out into the reeds.
The walk back was through the wet woodland were we heard chaffinch,garden warbler and several wood warbler calling and feeding in the leaves. Back at the carpark we enjoyed the sight of house sparrows and some cute barnacle geese goslings before setting off for our long drive north.
It took time to get out of Helsinki with several very slow traffic jams before we were travelling more freely. The stands of various coloured lupins were a really lovely feature of the journey north.
Around 7.00 we started to look for accommodation,the first couple of places were full and we found a place that stated they were open but clearly weren't. We called into a campsite which seemed to have cabins, also full but they called the last hotel and we returned to meet the owners who sorted out beds for the night.
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