It’s another chapter of Ice Swimmer’s Harakka an Island. We’ve climbed down from the top and we’re ready to go. Lead the way Ice Swimmer.
Chapter 8- East Shore to Vellamo
1. A Birch and Särkkä, ©Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved
A bit to the south of the crossroads, there’s birch and we can see the island Särkkä in the southeast. Särkkä is next to the Suomenlinna Sea Fortress and the fortfications in Särkkä were built to support the main sea fortress. Nowadays Särkkä is used by a yacht club as a base and there are two restaurants there.
2. Footprints or Whose Island Part 3, ©Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved
Also on the eastern shore, webbed feet are quite numerous.
3. Strawberries ©Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved
Wild strawberry plants were plentiful, but there were very few berries.
4. Stone Ruin and Vellamo Cottage, ©Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved
The Vellamo House/Cottage is a nature fairy tale house for kids featuring books and educational play facilities.
5. Entry, Ice Swimmer, ©all rights reserved
This mystery path through the bush starts next to Vellamo.
6. Duckboards or Pitkospuut, ©all rights reserved
The mystery path features duckboards, in Finnish pitkospuut (free translation: lengthwise planks of wood), to walk on. We don’t (or more like, I didn’t) want to get ticks so, we leave the mystery be a mystery.
Next, we’ll go to the front yard of Vellamo to take a look east.
(link to previous post, Harakka an Island: Chapter 7)
Wild strawberries are never common -- too many critters enjoy eating them as soon as they’re ripe.
Damn the ticks! Go down the mystery path!
yeah. the strawberries were probably all gone a while ago. I would love to see the mystery path sometime!!
Oooh mystery path! Boo to off-putting ticks.
Mystery path that was not walked? Unconsciable!
Yet another reason to hate ticks.
Nooo! I want to enter the mystery path! Ticks? Knowing me as I do, I’d probably go in and only think about ticks later. You know, back home, when feeling an itch, moving my hand to scratch, and realize it’s a tick. Damn ticks.
busterggi,
True. I count myself among such critters, but other critters beat me to it way too many times. That’s why I planted them in my garden… :D
Pfft, ticks only live in tall grass, that mystery path is totally safe!! (Well, I’d go down it… I love the look of it.)
That row of large rocks would be an object of touristic interest, here. :D It’s funny, you hit the Estonian border and it’s like someone drew a line ‘here be rocks’, because people have rocks of culturally significant size suddenly sitting in their front yards. (Yes, there is also a registry for rocks of culturally significant size.)