Day 34 – to north side of Pallas-Yllästunturi National Park

I awoke to the lure of the Adelaide Oval and watched a good part of the rugby Test, Australia and South Africa. The fine morning weather wasn’t going to last today though, so I took the dog into the National Park again, on the same route we had taken two days ago, but headed up along the stream. The dog’s good at following streams, of course spends most of the time in them.

Then it was into the town of Äkäslompolo to stock up at the supermarket, recycle, and fill up water.

The Finnish sale of alcohol laws are similar to Sweden but the percentage they can sell in supermarkets was elevated a couple of years ago, to 5.5%. In Sweden it’s 3.5%. It leads to the major brewers preparing beer at just those strengths.

Next door to the supermarket is the Alko, the state run hard liquor store, where you can buy alcohol, including beer, at more than 5.5%. But they are state run, so offers are limited and there is no competition.

Here’s my purchases.. apparently, the woman told me in the Alko store, the porter is traditional Finnish, dating back many hundreds of years. Sounds interesting.

I then drove an hour, or 60 kilometres, to the north side of the National Park. The road was very quiet, except for a few reindeer. I had thought they maybe a problem, as the deer on our roads tend to run across and can be a serious hazard. Here they tend to be much more aware of traffic, and rarely run, just saunter, rather like our cows and sheep on roads. Nonetheless, I don’t drive above 80 kph, even though the speed limit is 100. The smaller sealed roads, as I was on today, are single lane with passing places, as in the far north of Scotland or on the islands.

We arrived at the car park at the trailhead as the road ends just as the rain started. It had been forecast, a front coming through, most likely 4 or 5 hours. I hunkered down

Intended to the Test Match, became aware I’d missed the bigger of the two rugby internationals, and read.

The rain eased, but up here at 450 metres asl we are still in the cloud. I took the dog out briefly, then settled in to watch the final session from Old Trafford.

From previous courses in Scandinavia, two with mountain biking groups and my own ride back home from Tromso, I knew that the culture and environment suits me probably more so than anywhere I’ve been. I was aware that it might tempt me to spend more time here. Up here in the Finnish Arctic, that has certainly proved to be the case. I could certainly live here. As we head further north the scenery will be more desolate, treeless and weather-beaten, not as varied as here with its lakes (twice as many as Sweden at 200,000), forests and boulder-strewn peaks. The weather is much more serious at its extremes. It will be interesting to see if I find it as appealing.