07-Aug-2002 -- We started our journey towards the confluence point N62° E29° from the city of Varkaus on 7th August 2002 at 12:00 UTC. We had been planning this trip already for a week. The point is situated about 68km as the crow flies from Varkaus. We drove from Varkaus through the town of Kangaslampi and shortly after that there was a short ferry crossing, which is typical in this part of the country. The ferry crosses the Tappuvirta strait in about 20min. intervals (http://www.tieliikelaitos.fi/lautta).

The scenery on the route was typical to the Lakeland part of Finland with fertile fields, flush forests and of course lots of inland lakes. The Finnish summer weather was at its best that day, sunny and hot – a perfect day for this type of outing.

We had acquired a map of the area where the confluence spot is situated so we parked the car to about 1km away from the actual spot. At this point it still appeared that the spot would be in the middle of the forest.

From the car we walked along the edge of an oat field and when the distance to the spot was about 300m we entered a thick forest, full of spruce trees. After a short walk we entered more luminous birch forest and soon we were just about 20 metres from the actual spot. We realized that next to the spot there was a small forest road, which we weren’t aware of, so we could have driven just 20 metres away from the actual confluence point.

Very soon we found the confluence spot pretty accurately, but it wasn't easy to get the exact spot 62N 29E in 3-digit accuracy. There was a large spruce tree just on top of the spot so we were going around it in search of the right reading. The exact location was found at 14:20 (UTC).

South of the confluence point there was thick forest and to the north there was a narrow forest road. About 50 metres north from the road there was a sound (see picture) called Sulkavansalmi. It is about 100 metres wide and it connects two lakes, Pieni-Sulkava and Iso-Sulkava, together. The confluence point is situated about 5km northeast from Savonlinna airport (SVL).