Our third and final visitor arrived here in Finland this past weekend, and on her first full day we decided to rent a car and head up North. It was very difficult to find an automatic car for rent. America (I think) is pretty much the only country with the majority of cars being automatic & Finland doesn’t have much American tourism, but at the last minute we did find one.
About every mile there was a moose crossing sign, which made us think that we might actually see a wild moose, but that was not the case. The only wildlife we saw was a jackrabbit.
The scenery, however, was gorgeous! The landscape here is very similar to Northern Wisconsin or Minnesota, with tall, skinny pine trees.
The first thing we came across was an old church in Mynämäki. After getting out and exploring it we got back on the road again.
We drove along the coast, and saw these giant cranes that are used for cargo or cruise ships heading out to the Baltic.
There were several old churches along our route.
On our way back we drove through the Kurjenrahka National Park and walked along one of the trails. We didn’t see any wildlife, but found a variety of mushrooms.
It was the farthest North that all three of us had ever been at 61° N & we had a blast!
The Wild Rose 
Sounds like a fun day! Thanks for sharing the great pics!
Australia drives mostly automatics as well. I don’t know why everyone doesn’t. Why change gears when you don’t have to? That is one of the reasons we bought a car in Italy, because it is so hard to hire an automatic. We saw moose signs every where too when we drove through Finland but saw no moose.
I agree, although, I do want to learn how to drive a stick one of these days. I’ve been wanting to learn for a while, but I don’t know anyone who has a stick that I can learn on.
Britt’s boss told her today that you won’t see wild moose around Finland unless you’re really far North. But if that’s true, then why are there so many moose warning signs around here?!