Ok, ok, not exactly downtown, but I did take my kid camping on an island so close to central Helsinki that at night I could hear cars revving on the Hernesaari straight. I checked on Google maps, and the distance from the campsite to mainland is 500 meters. The island in question is Pihlajasaari, which has served as an public recreation area for capital dwellers for a hundred years. In the summer you can take a short ferry ride (9€ for a return ticket) to get there, which is what we have done a few times now, but this was the first time we stayed the night after the last ferry left.
I thought it smart to introduce this element of no going back when camping with a six year old, so that we wouldn't be tempted to make snap decisions in the night. We met a family on the way who had been making trial runs on their balcony and their grandparents' yard before committing, but we had only put the tent together once in the hallway of our building, just to make sure we had all the parts we need. The tent we borrowed from a friend of mine, along with a Trangia outdoor stove. We had bought a cheapish sleeping bag for the kid earlier in the summer, and all we needed to invest in now was sleeping pads for both.
Pihlajasaari is not very big, and we mostly knew the area from our previous visits. This time we got there at five in the afternoon, which is pretty late for day visits, and the season seems to be winding down with the hottest summer already behind us in mid-August. We hurried to pitch the tent and fill the sleeping pad, for I was eager to discover any problems while we still had a way to abort the mission and get back home should something go wrong. Soon our camp was ready and we felt confident enough with it to head out and do a bit of exploration. We checked out the Aalto sauna which you can reserve for a fee, and walked around a bit on the naturist part now that the weather was cold enough for there not to be any nude people hanging out. What we saw instead were old cannon positions, but without knowing anything about them, we soon lost interest. The coastal rock provided a good backdrop for photos, and drawing influence from some posing done by a nearby couple, we ended up with a kind of photoshoot of our own.
The weather had quickly turned cold after the long heatwave in July, and I have to admit we weren't completely ready for how frigid it would turn towards the night. I felt bad for the kid, for I at least had a shell jacket, whereas she only had a packable rain coat to shield her from the wind. We tried out the Trangia in the evening and managed to heat up some hot dogs, but the Burger King we had before leaving did most of the heavy lifting meal-wise. We laid down to do some reading at about nine and the kid was soon asleep. I stayed up reading The Color out of Space for a while longer, and sipped on a bit of Two Stacks whisky to keep me warm. They sell small 100 ml cans called Dram in a can, and the format was well suited for such a situation.
The night went pretty well. The campground grew quiet after a larger group of barbecuers left on the last ferry, even though there were about ten tents pitched there. Most of the soundscape composed of the breeze in the trees, interspersed by man-made noise in the form of boat traffic and what I suspect to be fireworks for Katri Helena's farewell concert. I noticed that in addition to leaving home too lightly clothed, I had also not packed earplugs that might have helped with sleep. This was a serious oversight, since as someone who usually doesn't sleep great, I try to pay attention to my sleeping arrangements. Throughout the night we had short bits of rain, nothing major, and all our stuff was still dry in the morning. I woke up a few times in the night, and the kid was first roused around six in the morning. We managed to drag it out until eight before getting up. After breakfast we decided to head back to mainland on the first ferry at 10:40.
Camping gear is fascinating, while also being a bottomless money pit. Because we managed to borrow the tent and the camping stove, I only went out to buy the sleeping pad solution. I came away with the Big Agnes tent floor pad, which is 130 cm wide at the top and basically covers the whole floor of the tent. Sleeping on it was comfortable, and the inflating wasn't all that bad. I also picked up the Exped DownPillow L inflatable travel pillow and the Black Diamond Moji R+ lantern, which both worked as expected. Next year we should probably invest in a tent of our own, and I can already foresee the hours of research and a big wad of money spent in this endeavor. Maybe a three-person tent would give us flexibility when heading out with the whole family while also providing more space when it's just two of us. We'll see about it later.
Overnight camping was exiting, and we're already looking forward to the next chance to head out to sleep. The Pihlajasaari ferry will stop operating in September, so for our next trip we'll have to choose somewhere else. There are plenty of campgrounds around, in the Nuuksio national park for example, and I'm sure we'll find beautiful places to visit here in the metropolitan region. I might have to upgrade the kids's sleeping bag though. 🤔
