27th May - Pushing north through Lapland

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.

- - - 

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.

26th May - Lapland and onto the arctic circle

As forecast it rained overnight and in the early morning but then things softened and drizzle became the norm for most of the day with occasional bright spells.  

I travelled north east from Kuopia where I has spent the night, heading roughly towards Kemi on the Gulf of Bothnia, the plan then was to pick up the road to Rovaniemi and head for the Arctic circle which crosses the town.  Decent and largely empty roads was the norm for the day.

Yesterday I remarked on the price of fuel being higher than the UK, well it seems to be slowly increasing as I go north.  But the other interesting thing that struck me is that here, diesel is significantly cheaper than petrol.  Interesting as in the UK it is being artificially taxed higher to discourage use on the supposed grounds that it is less environmentally friendly than petrol.  The Finns, who are generally very environmentally ‘with it’ don't seem to have the same issue.  It will be interesting to see if the same is true in Norway.

The same fuel station where I took the above shot had a rusting steam engine on the grass verge - no indication as to why, though.  I love these random finds!

My target for tonight was the Arctic circle and , just after Rovaniemi, there was a tell tale sign.  

Now you may notice that the sign also points to Santa Claus - I am now of course in Lapland.

Although the Arctic Circle itself is just a line on a map, the Finnish Tourist Board, understandably cant leave it at that.  This area is big business, attested to by the many large car and bus parks in the immediate area - all pretty empty at the moment though.

I hang a left and head for the Arctic Circle Centre cafe, hoping to get a coffee and an Arctic Roll or something - unfortunately it’s closed!

So I ride a little further on to see if the giver of presents is around.  Again I am out of luck.  Well it is late Sunday afternoon, so perhaps he has gone off for his tea.

I head off to a campsite that I found not far away near the river.  

Apparently the camping area does not open until June,  and so I have to make do with a wooden cabin overlooking the river - that’ll do nicely thank-you!.

So I make myself some tea and settle down to take in the scenery.

Its very pretty, though not looking particularly Arctic yet .... I wonder if that will change.

Tomorrow I’m continuing to head north deep into Lapland - see if I can spot some Reindeer.

25th May - A Finnish entry to Scandinavia

My alarm rang out at 5am and it was daylight outside, I wondered what it would be like later in the week when i was so far north it never actually went dark.

This morning’s early start was necessitated by an 07:30 ferry departure from Tallinn to Helsinki, prior to that I had to get up, load the bike, take the keys of the apartment to a drop off address and then get to the port.  All went smoothly and pretty much on time we set off, just as the forecast rain started to fall over Tallinn - a sign of things to com perhaps.

True enough, a couple of hours later as we moored in Helsinki, it was chucking it down.  It was also Saturday morning and the city was busy already so I dispensed with any thoughts of a ride around the city itself and picked up the highway signs to head north.

The highway allowed some miles to be put to rest relatively quickly, albeit unpleasantly.  There was a lot of traffic and with the continued rain the spray was horrendous, luckily the new gear I had brought for this trip (Rev-it Poseidon 2) was living up to its claims and not letting in a drop, though it was getting a little chilly, so I stopped for a coffee and comfort break.

For some reason I was enjoying the wet weather highway miles in Finland much more than the hot and sunny ones in the Baltics - weird!  The positive impression continued when I went to the loo in a service area - the Fins had thoughtfully provided a shelf to put ones helmet on as well as a nice view out of the window.  Things were looking up 😂

After a couple of hours riding  I left the highway and headed north east towards the Russian border.  I was heading for an area of Finland renowned for its lakes - their lake district if you like.  In particular  I planned to ride along route 62 which runs from Imatra through Puumala to Mikkeli.

Despite the lousy weather, the area and the road lived up to its reputation.  

The area is unlike anything else I have seen.  Whether it should be thought of as a land mass with thousands of lakes or a water mass with thousands of islands is perhaps debatable.  There are alleged to be around 55000 lakes of more than 200 metres width in the region.

The road is curvy and  undulating making a very enjoyable ride as it  snakes around the land masses until it can get no further,  then it crosses the water via a bridge or simply a raised  road built through an area of shallow water.

The land is never more than a hundred metres or so above the water level, I climbed up at one high  point to get a better look.