2018 Sep Finland: hike up Oejberget, old Vaasa, finishing up

2018 Sep 05 Hike around Öjberget 

Getting to Öjberget required a car and then a little walk, which made it clear this was one of the few hill-like areas in the region. The third/rightmost picture is some kind of ski mascot (found at the base of the skiing hill, around which the nature trail wanders.


View up the hill:


The hiking scenery was entirely different from Svedjehamn. Included wild blueberries and lingonberries (left picture).




The whole place was pure granite, mostly one giant boulder-seeming formation. Regular signage mentioned how inhospitable the granite is, and it becoming forest started with lichen, then moss, and these two built up some dirt-like substance that eventually brush and trees could take root in. Note: fuzzy looking stuff (left picture) was not fuzzy.


Interesting rock formations included the "Giant's Cauldron", formed as ice receded but was still moving stones around inside other stones, forming a hollow.



The signage by the following boulder explained that during the stone age,  this part of the hill was at water level, so it was an island with a boulder outcropping. Seal-hunting was clearly what people were up to there in the area, with stone-age tools found under the rock where people must have sheltered from the weather/storm/angry seals?.


This next thing, a field of stones, was also created by retreating ice effects/formerly being under the ocean. Called a/the devil's garden, I enjoy the supposition that the Devil would gather up rocks to make more rocks, and that was what he was interested in harvesting.

View from the top of the ski hill, down to the start of the hike. This from atop a tower like thing that seemed to be somehow used in winter as well, maybe as the start of some kind of ski-jumping part of the hill.


In the tower was a map explaining how the area looked over time. You can notice the meteorite crater, and how Öjberget started as a neighboring island and became a nearby hill as time and land uplift went on.


View of the crater from the tower:

Bike rides: old Vaasa and some of the open air museum

During the next few days, we took some bike rides, including swinging by "old Vaasa" on the way home. The prior port/harbor is now solidly on land, which is part of why Vaasa moved. The rest being that Vaasa had burnt down a few times, and after 1852 they gave up and tried to build in a way to minimize future fire danger, with very broad streets and alleyways forcing spaced between the (even now) largely wooden buildings. As a result, old Vaasa ruins is mainly the mostly-stone church:


The signage on the church is pretty funny.  It talks about the various expansions, including one where they made something larger, and the local peasants demanded they remove the support pillars to "make it more airy", and it promptly collapsed. They tried to fight having to pay for the repairs, to no avail.

The area around the Open Air Museum (aka a small swedish settlement that didn't want their old farmhouse buildings anymore, so they moved them and made them a museum) was very pretty, along the shore.



Given it was post-tourist-season for the open air museum, one could walk around it but not actually get inside of any of the buildings, which seemed to be the most interesting part. Enjoy an odd windmill:



Also saw on our bike ride a very very green house, next to a totally standard red house.

Parting thoughts on Finland

I think Finnish is a language where one would have to live there to learn it, and it would always be quite a challenge. It is nice that this region has Swedish as a very common language. 

Temperatures were, as highs, between 17 and 20C. Definitely a great range for outdoor activity, and when on/by the water, it felt quite toasty.  It was supposed to rain one day, but didn't (still spent the day checking out outlets and sports stores to see if any brand there fit well/better than what I could get in Germany for a softshell or allweather shoes).  

Sauna every day, especially with the option for somewhat brisk ocean water to cool off, was really lovely and relaxing. I may join a gym here just for sauna access. Well, and, you know, to exercise a little.

Side-note: public and private toilets alike seemed generally stocked with what I would call a "Finnish bidet". Which clearly also doubles as a tool to wash your hair in the sink or maybe even hose off your feet if you need (all bathrooms and rooms with water-using appliances have drains in the floor and tile or linoleum floors).

Fly home: 

If you zoom in, to the right of the airplane tail, is a totally normal house, just looking out onto the runway.


Last views of Vaasa from the air:


Til next trip (or, you know, I write some of the backlog of travel blogs I keep intending to write ;) ).

pre flight "chilling" in rocking chairs at airport