- Joined
- Sep 10, 2009
- Messages
- 589
It wasn't really a 'road-trip' so I think I'll post it here in general.
I just got back from a really fun trip to Italy and Switzerland but had a nightmarish flight schedule to get back home. Rome to Helsinki to Manchester to Chicago to Seattle - ugh!! Worse yet, I'd have an 8 hour layover in Finland from 11pm to 7 in the morning...
A quick check of DGCR showed a course (Simonmetsa DGC) around 3 miles from the airport...but with the early morning flight was I doomed for night golf in a foreign country? Nope, a check of sunrise/sunset times showed that Helsinki starts getting sun rays at 3am in the morning - how perfect :hfive: After printing a google map, I forgot all about it for most of my trip until the day I started the long travel day back home. Arriving in the Helsinki airport at 11pm or so, I found it nearly completely empty with the exception of my flightmates. All but two of them headed out of the airport back to their homes leaving a big empty airport for three of us who were going to stick it out overnight. Nothing to do now but sleep for a while, the sun set around midnight and didn't rise until 3. I built my clothes into a nice makeshift mattress and caught some zzz's. Alarm buzzing a couple hours later was a pretty harsh bit of reality and I woke up questioning whether it was a good idea to head out without knowing where I was going and not really having a clue about the language. Couldn't pass this up though.
Trusty compass in hand, all of my clothes (and Hero 235!) in my backpack, and well-worn map printout, I hit the road from the airport at around 2:30 in the morning. The clouds looked a bit forboding but in the darkness it was hard to tell. Having proven my rather old raingear pretty much useless while hiking in Switzerland, I knew I could be in a tough spot with the cool temps if it started raining too hard.
The walk started out tricky with not many friendly looking options for walkers leaving the airport. Eventually, I found a small trail beside a parking garage which put me under and past the access road to the airport. Soon enough, I found an excellent paved walking path and was bearing East - perfect! Much of this walk is through farmland and some forest with small pockets of residential areas. With street names like Kvesvedsvagen and Osmankaamintie, I was hesitant about every turn and made good mental notes so I could at least get back no matter what.
I was passing old farmhouses and walking mostly along the rural roadside. If I was confident about my directions and street-names, it would have been a relaxing walk with beautiful scenery and lots of birds I had never seen before. It looks and smells much like Northern Minnesota, definitely my favorite part of the US.
After about an hour of walking, I popped out into a much more residential area with several three story squarish buildings that looked like dormatories. Wait, I had seen these before on the aerial satellite on Google Maps - now I was sure I was on the right track and closing in on my final destination! But would there be baskets?
From here, there was a small shortcut trail through the woods that appeared to go in the direction I was looking for. About five minutes down the trail, I nearly stumbled over an old Mach III and a giant smile instantly washed over my face
The course itself plays through a very pretty park like area inbetween these buildings. Mostly flat and open but the course was solid given the rather 'blah' terrain that they had to work with. There are a couple of really fun holes including a possible par 4 hole with nasty rough and a fun pitch up and over a huge boulder rising up from a small pine forest. I had a few navigation woes but eventually figured out all of the holes just in time to start the walk back to catch my plane thankful for the chance to stretch my legs and enjoy a bit of Finland!
If anyone ever has a layover in Helsinki, I've posted up beta on the course page
Also found this on google maps - basket 4 with 5's cool rock fairway on the far upper left side of the picture:
I just got back from a really fun trip to Italy and Switzerland but had a nightmarish flight schedule to get back home. Rome to Helsinki to Manchester to Chicago to Seattle - ugh!! Worse yet, I'd have an 8 hour layover in Finland from 11pm to 7 in the morning...
A quick check of DGCR showed a course (Simonmetsa DGC) around 3 miles from the airport...but with the early morning flight was I doomed for night golf in a foreign country? Nope, a check of sunrise/sunset times showed that Helsinki starts getting sun rays at 3am in the morning - how perfect :hfive: After printing a google map, I forgot all about it for most of my trip until the day I started the long travel day back home. Arriving in the Helsinki airport at 11pm or so, I found it nearly completely empty with the exception of my flightmates. All but two of them headed out of the airport back to their homes leaving a big empty airport for three of us who were going to stick it out overnight. Nothing to do now but sleep for a while, the sun set around midnight and didn't rise until 3. I built my clothes into a nice makeshift mattress and caught some zzz's. Alarm buzzing a couple hours later was a pretty harsh bit of reality and I woke up questioning whether it was a good idea to head out without knowing where I was going and not really having a clue about the language. Couldn't pass this up though.
Trusty compass in hand, all of my clothes (and Hero 235!) in my backpack, and well-worn map printout, I hit the road from the airport at around 2:30 in the morning. The clouds looked a bit forboding but in the darkness it was hard to tell. Having proven my rather old raingear pretty much useless while hiking in Switzerland, I knew I could be in a tough spot with the cool temps if it started raining too hard.
The walk started out tricky with not many friendly looking options for walkers leaving the airport. Eventually, I found a small trail beside a parking garage which put me under and past the access road to the airport. Soon enough, I found an excellent paved walking path and was bearing East - perfect! Much of this walk is through farmland and some forest with small pockets of residential areas. With street names like Kvesvedsvagen and Osmankaamintie, I was hesitant about every turn and made good mental notes so I could at least get back no matter what.
I was passing old farmhouses and walking mostly along the rural roadside. If I was confident about my directions and street-names, it would have been a relaxing walk with beautiful scenery and lots of birds I had never seen before. It looks and smells much like Northern Minnesota, definitely my favorite part of the US.
After about an hour of walking, I popped out into a much more residential area with several three story squarish buildings that looked like dormatories. Wait, I had seen these before on the aerial satellite on Google Maps - now I was sure I was on the right track and closing in on my final destination! But would there be baskets?
From here, there was a small shortcut trail through the woods that appeared to go in the direction I was looking for. About five minutes down the trail, I nearly stumbled over an old Mach III and a giant smile instantly washed over my face The course itself plays through a very pretty park like area inbetween these buildings. Mostly flat and open but the course was solid given the rather 'blah' terrain that they had to work with. There are a couple of really fun holes including a possible par 4 hole with nasty rough and a fun pitch up and over a huge boulder rising up from a small pine forest. I had a few navigation woes but eventually figured out all of the holes just in time to start the walk back to catch my plane thankful for the chance to stretch my legs and enjoy a bit of Finland!
If anyone ever has a layover in Helsinki, I've posted up beta on the course page
Also found this on google maps - basket 4 with 5's cool rock fairway on the far upper left side of the picture:
