AUTUMN 2003

- Reaching this area, was no piece of cake, I thought so, but I was so wrong. When you look at the map, the route to here looks quite simple. Just park your car or other vehicle to some of the roads going in Niinisaari and walk a few kilometers. But there is one really big but in the way. The construction of new harbor in Vuosaari. Even old maps show this area to be quite confusing, with some strange roads going all over the place and still there is no roads.

- The Vuosaari harbor project really made this trip difficult and physically heavy. First you need to go around the power plants located in Niinisaari. It's definitely not a safe idea to take the shortest route through the construction area, because they are using explosives to blow up the ground here. There are warning signs, so you cannot miss the text on those. After you have gone around the power plants, the route looks easy, until you again come across the construction area, that stretches deeply towards the bottom of Porvarinlahti (Bay of Porvari), going parallel with the bay. So again you need to walk away from your target. Going around the construction area also means, that you need to climb over the abandoned dumb pit of Vuosaari and that's not a very safe place either. They are pumping the natural gases there and the place is filled with signs, warning about not to light a fire there, because of the danger of explosion. Really relaxing atmosphere. After I finally got to the point where I could start walking again towards these caves, I was exhausted and loosing my hope to reach this area. It already had taken over two hours to reach this point and the idea that I still needed to walk at least an hour to reach the caves and then walk back, got me thinking that do I want to continue. Yes I do...

- The whole trip toke nearly five hours and I was able to find only one of the two caves located here. I just didn't have the strength to wander in the woods and try to find the other one.

- But still I must say, that you wont believe how I felt when I finally found one of the caves. The joy of finding something, located quite far away from the city and behind such a difficult journey, is something I cannot express with words. You have to experience it yourself. There are no graffiti's in this cave and no visible evidence of too many people visiting this place.

- If I would visit this area again, I probably would start my journey from Mustavuori and walk towards the Porvarinlahti. This route looks longer on the map, but it probably would save a lot of time and energy, because I wouldn't have to climb over those garbage mountains. While taking this route, the only thing you would have to keep in mind, is that you need to end up on the western side of the bay and not the eastern. There's nothing much to see on the eastern side of the bay.

SUMMER 2005

- Reading the official inventory of the fortifications in Helsinki, it doesn't mention two caves being located here. However the website: www.novision.fi/viapori/ clearly marks two caves to this area. Most of the fortifications in Base I, were never completed, so it might be that the other cave which is suppose to be located in this area, was planned but never constructed.

- Picture taken at the top of one of those garbage mountains. It felt like being in Lapland, because of the heavy wind and the absolutely amazing view from here. The small light yellow field located on the left side of picture is where I need to be heading. It's just that I need to start walking straight to left, because the construction site is straight ahead. Not much from it is visible, because they are digging something underground, but still there is no way to cross it safely.

- Ok, here we are, but the good question is that where exactly, because I cannot see a thing from those canes.

-"Shooting Range. Danger to Life"

- Seriously, where the hell am I?

- Ah, ok, now I know where I am. This is the old and abandoned shooting range that is shown on the map also.

- But I wonder what they have been using as an ammunition, when the result is like this?