This next 2 days of the trip are about getting to Nordkapp, the most northerly point in Europe that is accessible by road. This has now been turned into a pretty major tourist attraction by all accounts, with flights, bus trips and sailing routes all converging. Because of that I was originally going to give it a miss, but had a change of heart later and so here we are, en route.
It’s a 2 day (~600 mile) ride north from where I was staying near Rovaniemi and so I chose to spend the first day riding up through Finnish Lapland to the Inari region and then cross the border into Norwegian Lapland on day 2 and onto Nordkapp itself, where I will spend the second night. Then its about turn and start heading back south down the Norwegian coast.
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Before we start though, I’ll just share this picture I took at a quarter past midnight where I was staying last night. It did eventually go dark at about 1am but then the sun was up again at 3am. Welcome to land of the midnight sun - its quite disconcerting, the next few stops will have no darkness at all I believe.
For most of the morning I was riding through pretty heavy rain with just the occasional break as I rode through one storm system before entering the next. These presented welcome opportunities for a break, coffee from my flask and warm up. It wasn't cold exactly (about 5-7 degrees C) but with the constant rain and added wind chill, it was still slowly working its way to my bones.
Another hour or so of rain later I came upon a welcoming looking coffee stop in the middle of nowhere and so pulled in for some sustenance and a gander at the souvenir shop - no room in the panniers so no temptation to buy anything!
The coffee hut was a wooden ‘yurt’ type of construction, apparently a remake of a traditional house structure, with a central log burning stove, so lovely and warm for the chilly traveller. The local speciality was pancake with ice cream, cream and cloudberry jam - very tasty indeed!
Outside there were the last remnants of snow, being presided over by a motley collection of gnomes. The owner told me that they still had a lot of snow up until last week. It seems that hot spell that I encountered in the baltics also affected Finland who had a very unseasonal 3 days of 15+ degrees and pretty well all of the snow melted. The land is all still low also, nothing more than 150m so far.
The road I was using was generally following the river Kitinen which every so often spread out to form a lake over which the road would cross or swing around, making the riding a lot more interesting despite the rain.
The section from Sodankyla to Ivalo was particularly nice;
With some nice sweeping bends and vistas.
I found a campsite, next to a small lake, that also rented log cabins (I was feeling a little chill by now and didn't fancy fighting with the rain to put the tent up)
A nice quiet little location which even had a restaurant - sorted!
Somebody is in need of a wash!
By tomorrow evening I should be at Nordkapp all being as well.
The only way after that is south.
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