*sniff* Ah, fresh air!

 

 

Nuuksio is a Finnish National Park. It is located in the second largest city of Finland and Helsinki's western neighbor, Espoo. PW's sister JY and her family are currently visiting us and we decided to do a hike in the park. We chose a circular route that's called "Korpinkierros", the Raven's Loop. It's 7.2 km long, about 4.4 miles, with lakes and hills and tree roots, so meant to people in ok shape. Turns out I am in ok shape, because I managed. 

We saw no ravens, but we were almost thwarted in our quest to walk the Raven's Loop by something delightful: blueberries! Every half a kilometer we saw fields of blue between the trees. The foragers among us went crazy. I and JY only ate a modest amount straight from the forest, but JY's husband, her son and PW all picked berries in a frenzy into the bags that had held their lunch sandwiches.  

I'm pretty sure we saw many pretty views, but the trip was definitely dominated by blueberry picking. AY wanted to try to make blueberry juice, so he picked a lot and we drank a delicious fresh drink in the evening. PW picked a lot because he couldn't leave the berries there! Fortunately he decided to make a pie/cake out of them on Sunday. Yum. And we've enjoyed the blueberries that PW's brother-in-law picked with our breakfasts every morning. 

 

Things to know about Nuuksio: The park includes forests, lakes, rocky hills and swampy lands. The lowlands have wetter forests with fir trees and blueberries, in the higher areas pine trees rule. You can see different types of lichens and moss on the rocks and forest floor. Besides blueberries, also lingonberries grow here, but they were not yet ripe. Nuuksio is also the home to Haltia, the Finnish Nature Center, which teaches visitors about the nature in all of Finland. We didn't visit this center, but I'm sure it's worth seeing. 

 Nuuksio isn't super easy to get to or get away from by public transportation. It took us 1 1/2 h to get to the southern end of the Ravens Loop from Eastern Helsinki by bus, metro, train and bus. It took us over two hours to get back - we had to wait 40 min for the bus. The buses also don't go very late. This is probably a problem in most of the national parks of the world. They are mostly located in remote places, and public transportation does not reach remote places. I shouldn't complain too much... 

We were only five during this adventure, as IT had his first day of school (!) - More about his school later.