Week 21, 2020
Turku, Finland

Even in pandemic times, there are many things happening during one day. Furthermore, the days continue passing by quickly. I believe if one day I am able to harness the challenge to cope with time, I can say I succeed in one of the biggest quests in life. Anyway, this post is not about time, but about paddling at Kuuskoski.

Thursday May 21 was a public holiday in Finland, the Ascension day.  In this day, Mikko and I decided to go paddling as the weather was perfect: sunny and “warm” (note: warm can be a relative to interpretations depending the context). I didn’t review how warm was it, however for this post I researched this information and according to the Finnish Meteorological Institute and should have been around 13C, as we left late in the afternoon

 

The follow up question after taking the decision to go paddling was:  where to go? . To give answer to this question, Mikko shared with me a map  (Side note: this map is well done by the  the Foundation of the river Aura). The selection was: Kuuskoski.

 

We reached our destination, approx 40km from Turku center. The first sign we saw was the placate from http://koskipirtti.com/

Due to the current regulations for covi-19,  we were not able to visit the the museum (behind the yellow house of the photo above) as it was closed. Next time we will visit it. What called my attention was the private home next to the museum, which is BEAUTIFUL.

At first I thought it was a church. However, a sign down a road (next photo) indicated that it is a private property. Nevertheless, I got many questions about this unique construction.

 

The next decision was: which direction to paddle ? We had two options up stream or down stream.  Down stream was a family already enjoying the water, as you can perceive in the photo below. With this photo serves as evidence that in Finland to keep a distance between people to avoid covid-19 transmission is relatively easy 😉

While searching for our start point for paddling, we got a closer view to the rapids” . Note the following photo with my shadow 🙂

We decided to paddle upstream. Thus, a large rock was our departure spot.

 

In total we paddled approx 10km. I can’t believe it!

The following screenshot indicates the point where we return from our paddling.  Where the Jalkalanjoki intersects the Aura river.

That was approx 5kms in one direction and 5 kms back.  The river was calm and beautiful.

For the human eyes and ears, it is undeniably we are in the middle of spring. Many trees still do not have leafs, at the same time the “lemon-green” starts to be noticeable in the landscape, and one can listen birds singing. This is, unquestionably, a beautiful time.

As we advance paddling the landscape changes.  The naked tree photographed below was magnificent. The photo does not transmit its grandeur.

Suddenly, one could see more  spruce trees as we can observe below (I think those are spruces, I need to ask).

Of course Risen Bear was present all the time 🙂

In the next photo has the purpose to show a bird house hanging from a pole, which in my opinion was a big bird house with a large hole. Wondering who could be the tenants of such a house? (my knowledge of birds is literally nonexistent).

The following  bridge also call my attention. Wondering if I can find information about it. Apparently is a wooden bridge, and with all the calmness of the water look alluring to my eyes.

A closer view to the bridge.

A photo after we just cross it, underneath in our way back.

In this trip I called my mom, who has been inside her flat since mid-march, with the intention  to bring her along and let her see the beauty and calmness of nature.  Also I attempted that she listened to the birds.  However the build-in mic of a mobile phone does not have the quality to capture the birds’ signing. Something to look for: a good mic.  I hope she was able to enjoy some of the landscape.

In our way back the calmness was more evident and the birds were louder, maybe indicating us that it was time to go to sleep.

Getting close to our departure spot.

It was a wonderful and recharging time. No wonder Finns are happy, quality time in nature is unbeatable.

— Yop!