Well yes, I know I'm already in the Lake District but I have to find a general title for the places I visited. One thing I'm sure of is that I stayed at a series of YHA hostels. So based on the hostel locations, my guess is that I stayed at Windermere, backtracked north to Derwent Water, and ended up in Keswick. I probably caught a bus for the longer stretches and walked between hostels otherwise. The Lake District is fairly compact and you could make a walking holiday of your sojourn.
The lakes are in valleys so a short walk will get you to higher ground where you can survey the lovely lakescape.
I think the subject of this photo was the mill over the stream. From the bluish cast either the photo was underexposed, or it was a gloomy moment.
My walk took me past small farms. At one field a friendly horse came up to the fence as I approached, hoping for a lump of sugar or similar. Alas I didn't have anything but some pats for it. I also remember petting a friendly farm cat. Out of the city, farm animals are less fearful of humans.
I can't locate these pictures precisely but from the similarity to other photos on the Internet, I think they are of or around Derwent Water, between the River Derwent and Keswick.
I remember it also rained at times so I had to use my raincoat.
The English have also kindly provided rest spots along walks and this vantage point featured one.
A closer look at the lake, or more likely, the tarn.
The body of water in the photo is too small to be Derwent Water. Looking at a map it could possibly be Watendlath Tarn reached by a short walk from Derwentwater Hostel. At the time I visited, this was a YHA hostel. I see that they are now an independent hostel.
Not many hostels have a waterfall just behind it. I was so gobsmacked by the sight of a waterfall from the window of my dorm, complete with the hissing sound of falling water.
A typical Lake District country road.
Probably Derwent Water, on the way to Keswick.
At Keswick I visited the Cumberland Pencil Museum. Graphite used to be mined in Cumbria, and pencil making was important at the turn of the 20th century. These days tourism is king of course. The displays were very informative. I remember learning how the pencils are made from two slats of wood with a row of grooves to receive the extruded graphite leads. The slats are sandwiched with glue (you can see the join if you look closely) then individual pencils cut from the sandwich. The pencils are then finished to a hexagonal or circular cross-section.
Finland is a land of lakes and I wanted to see some of them so I travelled northwards to Tampere, Finland's second largest urban area. Alas, its latitude is only 61N so I was nowhere near the Arctic circle. It's the furthest north I have been on the planet so far.
When I got there I rang up Arto, a Finnish hosteller I had met on my travels before Finland, I seem to recall in Switzerland. Unfortunately he had just come back from a long trip elsewhere in Europe and was simply too exhausted to meet up. We sent each other postcards occasionally over the following years until we lost touch.
I don't remember where these photos were taken from. Obviously some high vantage point overlooking the city.
Strangely one thing I remember of the hostel was that the best option for dinner was a pizza from the restaurant downstairs. It wasn't too bad either. It may even have been run by real Italians.
As you would expect, products like paper pulp from coniferous wood are an important mainstay of the economy.
I watched the operation of this canal lock for a while. At that time in my life I hadn't seen many canal locks yet.
The low angle of this shot suggests that I was actually on the boat going through the lock so perhaps I took some kind of tour.
I have no pictures of the return trip to Helsinki, and thence Stockholm. I've already posted the pictures of Stockholm in a previous entry so the story will continue in Malmö.
One of the most scenic railway trips in the world is the one from Oslo to Bergen via Myrdal with an excursion to Flåm on a branch line. Flåm is at the head of the longest and deepest fjord in Europe, the Sognefjorden.
You can spot traces of reflection from the window glass so these pictures were probably taken from the train. I'll keep the commentary to the minimum required to maintain the layout.
Swift mountain stream.
Mirror like lake.
Snow on the peaks, even in summer.
I remember that it was a very comfy train and that sections of the line were protected with snow shelters. If you look at the left of the picture you can see a protected section of the line where we had just been, or were about to go.
It looks bare in summer and probably just all white in winter.
At Myrdal I changed to the 20 km branch line, which descends to sea level at Flåm. As you can imagine, the views of the valleys are spectacular.
This is probably the Kjosfossen waterfall, within view of the line and one of the main reasons tourists take this trip.
I think those spectators came by road from Flåm since train passengers would have to wait for the next service if they made a stopover.
Another waterfall, perhaps Rjoandefossen.
Nearing town of Flåm, at sea level.
And I was there, with the sign to prove it.
Flåm did not have a youth hostel, and other accommodation would have been expensive, so I returned to Mydal and proceeded westwards to Voss where there was one. It's close to several lakes. One was walking distance from the hostel.
I overnighted here and took these pictures.
Local flora.
