Day 22: Week 4: Sunday 28th. May 2006: Clear and sunny - lovely: Bussed to Oulu and staying in a self contained (great kitchen) cabin in the delightful camping ground at Nallikari. We look forward to doing our own cooking again and having a decent meal, though we only had a snack tonight. We are a stone's throw from the water (Bothia Sea) and beach. Bus stop at the end of driveway takes us into town. Fantastic storm tonight, thunder and lightning. Day 23: 29th. May 2006: Raining: Into town by bus and had a walk around. Very pretty, interesting place with many beautiful buildings, parks and gardens. Home for lunch then a walk into town in the pouring rain across a long bridge, but I was determined to take some video here. so we ... read more

Day 19: Clear, sunny and cold: A train journey to Lahti, check into our hotel - hostel and a walk into town. Again the weather was cold, so we thought something hot to eat would be nice. Down by the lake are lots of eating places. We chose one where we queued up, cut off a chunk of bread and a slab of butter from the pat and then were given a bowl of home made pea soup with chunks of bacon in it, then a nice fresh doughnut. We sat outside at bench seats and table which overlooked the lake that goes up to Jyvaskyla (not the lake in the photos). Check out the "little bit of Australia" in one of the photos. ... read more

The flight across Japan, Mongolia and Siberia en route to Helsinki.... read more

A 3 day outback camping tour in the Pilbara and Karijini National Park, then our stay at Cossack in 2003 The Pilbara is the heart of Western Australia's huge iron ore mining industry. On the drive across the country into the Karijini National Park the landscape is so varied with colours from daybreak to sunset changing as fast as the sun moves across the sky. The heat of the day changes accordingly and when you step down into the gorges the temperature drops but the water may be freezing so hypothermia can be a problem. We camped out under the stars and beside an Aussie icon, the windmill, in sleeping bags that kept us warm at night but had ice on them when we woke in the morning as temperatures drop low after sunset. Cossack is ... read more