72.85km –10H59’
Altitude : 54m
15000km in 206 day 05hours and 55 minutes
For the past two days Serge alternates running and walking because his knee hurts; first there is pain, then it blocks. When he arrived yesterday he said “you see, you can never be sure of anything” and I see him sway between worry and serenity. Not very talkative, it is his morale that keeps him going in spite of everything and now we have clocked 15,000 km. I don’t know the average number of kilometres driven by French motorists but the comparison makes me smile.
The temperature is warmer even if the sky remains gray; a bit of warmth doesn’t hurt. We are now about 50 km from Tallinn, the end of the line before we take the ferry to Helsinki tomorrow evening. There may be a delay in posting tomorrow’s log, since we will go through Helsinki straight away, which will mobilize the entire team.
Serge is happy and talks to us about the Polar Circle and about Santa Claus. He hopes to go as far north as possible and repeats this every day. Heading north like this gives us the impression that we are making progress, then we will head back toward Germany, via Sweden and Denmark.
Finland, like the Baltic countries, is unknown territory that we will soon discover. I have the feeling that in Finland, as well as in Sweden, the scenery will be different from what we have seen these past two weeks, that is, forests, lakes and marshes!!! Perhaps we will see reindeer and elk and have time for a sauna. As Serge says “don’t make outlandish plans, just enjoy this 207th day and our 15,000 km, which we wish to share with the gallant members of the support team who have taken their turn with us since we started.