Massive crack cave at Korkberget

Korkberget is probably Finland's largest cave, with 300+ meters of tight tunnels underneath massive boulders. But, there's also a cliff... and if you climb half-way up the cliff, you will find an amazing crack that leads underground.

The crack is a known but difficult geocaching location. Getting to the end of the crack and the cache means a chimney climb maybe eight meters high, on top of a gradually tightening crack. If you fall... it is not clear that you can get out.

I've been here once, first time with the Finnish Caving Association's (Luolaseura) excursion. On that excursion Paul, an experienced caver and climber helped me, the scared beginner to get down to the bottom of the crack.

This time we visited Korkberget on my Swedish friend Per's visit to Finland. In the small group with Per, Tor, Ralf, Jarmo, and me we had more time to explore this crack, and it just seems even more amazing, but still scary. I didn't want to explore to the lowest part, but some of the others did visit it.

Quite an experience. To my knowledge this is the biggest and possibly the only crack caving location in Finland. Much recommended, but only for experienced climbers and cavers!

See below for more photos, most of which are from Jarmo's camera by the way (he takes great photographs!)

Climbing in the crack:

Climbing up to the crack:

Exit from the middle of the cliff back down:

See all the caving stories at planetcaver.net, or take a look all the stories at Blogspot and TGR! This article has also appeared at TGR. Tämä artikkeli löytyy myös suomeksi Relaasta. Photos and text (c) 2019 by Jarmo Ruuth and Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.

Siuntio bunker tips from Dutch tourists

Having researched the locations of the Russian bunkers in Porkkala for years, I was surprised to learn the location of another bunker from Dutch tourists on their first day of visiting Finland. They pointed us to a small bunker few hundred meters from the large one we had visited earlier, based on their geocaching explorations.

And of course, Jarmo -- who is always well organized and has a database of locations -- knew about this as well, but he had not visited the other bunker either.

The bunker turned out to be of the small, most common format used by the Russians during the occupation. Like many others, the bunker was destroyed, perhaps partially blown up. But unlike most other bunkers, it was filled almost to the brim with rocks; one had to crawl to move inside.

The coordinates for this bunker are N 60.13383 E 24.195347. And once again, Jarmo has taken many of the photos!

Per going in:

The team, Ralf, Per, Jarmo and myself:

See all the caving and urban exploration stories at planetcaver.net and theurbanexplorer.net, or take a look all the stories at Blogspot and TGR! Photos and text (c) 2019 by Jarmo Ruuth and Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.

Afternoon swim at the abandoned underground submarine base

It is always nice to dip in to sea for a swim. Even if you're visiting an abandoned underground submarine base.

An interesting place, of course. A number of side tunnels, connecting an underground hangar carved into the mountain that would protect any maintenance that you needed to do on the subs. Darkness. But very clear water, even if one could see some submarine and docking junk at the bottom. Clear waters.. probably 10 meters or so deep, clear visibility to the bottom.

As I walked deeper into the tunnel, a loud kaboom sounded behind me. A sharp sound; turned out that someone jumped into the water from the entrance tunnel, a 16-meter drop. Not for me!

Of course, I also went for a swim, but wanted to do that in the dark end of the tunnel. The only problem was that I was alone, and that there weren't really proper places to go down, you could only jump down from a floating platform. I figured I'd just push myself up when coming back, but it turned out to be harder than expected. After some scratches on my skin, I did manage to get back again. I could also have swam back out of the tunnel, and catch the easier beach rocks outside the tunnel. But it was a scary moment, still.

Graffiti in the tunnels:

Dark waters where I swam:

Exit:

Views:

More graffiti:

Views to the bottom:

See all the caving and urban exploration stories at planetcaver.net and theurbanexplorer.net, or take a look all the stories at Blogspot and TGR! And don't forget the swimming stories at planetswimmer.com! This article has also been published at TGR. Photos and text (c) 2019 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.

More cave

A sign for a cave? Intrigued. It turns out that it leads to the "Cave Bar More", one of the bar's listed in Business Insider's 50 incredible bars you should drink at in your lifetime list.

The Cave Bar More is a bar underneath the More hotel in Dubrovnik, Croatia. The cave was found during the construction of the hotel, and sports among other things a high vertical cave shaft, with a glass floor in the middle to view the water at the bottom of the cave.

Bar:

The sign:

The vertical room:

And the sea outside is... wonderful:

See all the caving stories at planetcaver.net, or take a look all the stories at Blogspot and TGR! Photos and text (c) 2019 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.

Lights on ... again

The lights on my car are on. Again. On without the engine running... need to check them every time.

Photos and text (c) 2019 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.

Cave Church

Budapest's Gellérthegyi Barlan (or the Gellért hill cave) is a cave turned into hermit's hideout, turned into peasant home, turned into a church, and then closed and sealed behind a concrete wall by the communists. Oh, and the communists also executed the head monk.

But fortunately, the concrete wall was taken down and the church reopened on August 27, 1989.

Today the church can be visited by paying a small fee for the ticket. The main church rooms themselves are inside the hill in the cave, but there is also an attached monastery, Pálos kolostor, built in front of the cliff.

The church is on Gellért hill, and there's a great path leads from the church up to the top where you can find the Citadella fortress. The walk up is much recommended, with great views over the river and Budapest. But the fortress itself is sadly closed at the moment due to the structure being unstable.

More pictures:

A window at the cave church:

The entrance:

View from the top:

The additional churches on the side of the hill:

See all the caving stories at planetcaver.net! Photos and text (c) 2019 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.

Diósgyőri vár

What a mixture of styles! The Diósgyőri vár or Castle of Diósgyőri sits in the town of Miskolc. A medieval castle, next to a traditional church, next to regular houses, next to a massive wall of Soviet-rule era apartment blocks.

Also, the restored castle is very nice and well worth visiting.

Text and photos (c) 2019 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.

Dungeons of Castle Eger

Janne and I visited Castle Eger in Hungary (Egri Vár in Hungarian). I loved the sign, "no ballet dancing on the top of the walls"?

But the castle was also great. The castle has seen many changes during its thousand year old history. There used by be a large gothic palace or church, but today only ruins remain; the military defence designed evolved over the years as cannons developed. The castle is best known for defeating the Turkish invasion in 1552.

There are interesting dungeons, tunnels, and prisons to explore at the site.

Tunnels:



The cathedral ruins:

Crosses:

A view from the well:

A view from the top of the walls (no, I was not ballet dancing):

See more urban exploration and caving stories from theurbanexplorer.net and planetcaver.net! Text and pictures (c) 2019 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.