When I first came to Finland and was driving around the industrial estates, I noticed a complete lack of burger vans. I remember telling my girlfriend “I don’t know where truck drivers eat here”. It was 20 years of driving in the UK speaking through me: I just never assumed they eat in restaurants, like civilised people. Every industrial estate, every small town and even many villages have lunch restaurant, where usually for 11-13 euros you can dive into freshly cooked “all-you-can-eat” buffet. There is a similar difference when it comes to other roadside facilities…
When I first stopped at the Finnish motorway services, I had to make a Twitter thread, because it was shocking for me that those facilities are designed for convienience of a traveller and not for money making, like in the UK. This even gathered interest of one of the British portal and they asked me to write a short piece about my trucking experiences in Finland, which you could find here. With time I got used to civilisation and creature comforts, I also drive all over Europe now and I can see that Finland is not always great: for example, apart from the major routes, it is hard to find a shower, as while there is plenty of travel stops with ample truck parking, fuel, restaurants, supermarkets, shops and many other facilities, they usually only have standard toilets – but I only learned about it when I started to drive across Northern, sparesly populated parts of rural Finland. However, Finland being a country of over 180 000 lakes and people who are not afraid of the cold, this is not a problem in the summer, and I saw another trucker, running from his truck to skinny dip in a lake and back to his cab as early as March this year…
Still, there are still times when I stop, get out of my cab and say to myself “Gosh, I am so happy I am not driving in the UK anymore”. Today was one of those days, so I will share with you.
As I was closing on my 4.5 hours and mandatory break was drawing close, I saw a sign that a cafe is open nearby, so I pulled in. The car park was just a deep layby, enough for a few trucks and several cars. It was surrounded by greenery, there were several benches and tables, a small children playground and ample bins, it was of course clean and with no potholes in sight, but the best thing about it, it was located at the lake (google maps)
The cafe was located a bit to the side, with a wooden bridge leading to it. It had a wide range of snacks, such as pieces of quiche, various sweet and savoury baked goods, small range of sweets, crisps and drinks, and a kitchen open till 21:00, offering a small range of home cooked meals. The local had plenty of tables in tasteful, rustical style interior, a few on the veranda and there were also several tables outside. There were clean washrooms (paid for non-customers) and a small gift shop, stocking some artwork from some local artists.
I ordered a pork chop in wild mushroom sauce with baked potato wedges and salad plus a small non-alcoholic beer, which came to 19.40 euro – less than half of a Finnish driver’s daily allowance for drivers in national traffic. The freshly cooked meal arrived in less than 15 minutes as I was enjoying the view on the terrace. One of other drivers asked me to keep watch over his wallet and phone as he went to swim.
After my meal I went for a walk. I noticed there are several bothies behind the coffee, but I had not enquired if they are available for overnight stay. Instead I went in another direction. I noticed the information that you can pay a small fee and try salmon fishing and, as if it was staged, another truck pulled in and the driver jumped out of his cab holding a reel and some other angling equipment.
There was another notice saying that motorized watercraft is not permited on a lake, but the rowing boats are available for hire from the cafe, at 2 euros per hour. If not that I only had less than 15 minutes left of my break was in a bit of the rush, I would probably hire one just for fun. But I was still able to go on a water. After walking past several sets of benches and tables (some of them under cover, so they could be used in bad weather too – the fact that the best you can hope in Scotland even in most touristy places is some old bench and table covered with a moss was always beyond my comprehention) I arrived at the end of a small peninsula.
There, tucked in the corner was another shed, in which there was a bin for organic waste and special table, clearly for gutting fish. There were some knifes and other tools lying there. But this is not what I came for. I wanted to go onto the lake and this is where the floating bridge was anchored. A few hundred metres long, with several benches and a small plank allowing you to walk onto the rock in the middle of the lake, it was just enough to take in the nature, take a deep breath and stretch one legs.
On the other side of the bay, there was a Barbeque shed with a load of (free to use) firewood stacked next to it:
There was of course also a composting toilet nearby:
and the wooden path was leading to some other bits of infractructure in a distance. I think I was just about able to make another BBQ shed, and I think some more bothies.
This is actually not unusual in Finland, such BBQ places are provided free of charge in many places – from national parks to some private estates and city parks – and are just one of many wonderful things about being a tourist in Finland, but I doubt this one was aimed at people looking to get some peace and quiet, as we have to remember we were still very close to a busy road. Busy by Finnish standard, that is, as I had to wait a minute or two before I was able to snap a picture of a truck passing by:
The maximum allowed time at this car park was four hours. This is a perfect solution for a driver – they can either pop in for a quick coffee, eat their lunch taking their 45 minutes break – like me – or spend a couple of hours there, swimming, fishing or walking in the woods, and then drive somewhere else to stop for the remaining 9 hours of their daily rest. I can’t imagine anyone looking at this place, and saying “nah, mate, I’d rather park at the piss-stinking truck bay at Hilton Park North on M6 and then wade through the crowds past WH Smith, stands selling overpriced tat from China, vaping shop and some one-arm-bandit machines, because up there I will have a choice to eat my meal in KFC, Burger King or Greggs!”. I, for one, surely don’t miss British roadside facilities (or the tourist ones, for that matter).
If you are not familiar with the standards of British roadside facilities for truckers, a couple of years back I had a podcast where with my guest Mat Ireland we discussed the issue:
