Day 50 – to Guolasjávri Lake, Reisa National Park

The overnight rain was winding down first thing this morning, but it gave me the excuse of reading a book from one of my favourite writers before heading out, Georges Simenon, and a really good stand-alone novel also, called Old Man Dies.

I had not driven up the rough gravel road any further yesterday as I wasn’t quite sure it was suitable for the van. In the next few kilometres it ascends quite steeply around some narrow hairpins. There’s a footpath though also, that climbs between them, then parallels the road a kilometre or so away, so we took that. The rain gave way to mist rising which in turn gave way to clearing skies. It was a autumn day of high quality. The van in particular likes the sun, though as it’s angle in the sky lessens, it’s benefit to the solar is correspondingly less.

There were few people on the road. Several that I passed were her for hunting. The grouse shooting season opened last Friday. In a week the reindeer hunting season will begin, though it’s necessary to have a license, and record what is shot.

My further most point was a hut on a plateau of small lakes, bogs and heather at 650 metres asl. Just after a river crossing, that if it had rained much heavier last night, could have been awkward. Good job we had all that training, Scott, Eeva, the dogs and I, at lunch breaks from work at New Ing.

Here I did meet a couple who weren’t hunters, and actually had their small motorhome with them. They were mid-fifties and keen for a chat. I joked that is must be a rental vehicle if they had taken it so far up this difficult road. Actually, it was their own, and they were on a year away from work. I consider myself as something of an expert in ‘gap years’, having taken four at various stages during my working life, so my interest was immediately sparked. They will travel very slowly around Scandinavia, spending some of the winter in the far north, in the dark, then move to the rest of Europe. That they had got their van up to the end of the track, at 800 metres asl, 20 kilometres of loose stone, potholes and gravel, meant that I could surely get mine up there. They had spent two nights overlooking the lake, and were pretty much the only people there.

The specific attraction at the end of the track is the footpath to Halti mountain, which at 1328 metres, is the highest mountain in Finland, though, somewhat confusingly, is in Norway. But more on that tomorrow..

Back for a late lunch, Norwegian Jarlsberg (perchance..), then I drove, slowly, very slowly, meandering between shin-deep potholes, to the end of the track, but by now the afternoon was clear, and the views quite spectacular. I’m parked up looking over the lake in a place that ranks right up there amongst the very best I have been in.

There were a couple of walkers heading down from the mountain in the late afternoon, but now, just as the sun dips behind the mountains on the skyline, at 10 past 7, it is completely silent, and I am the only person around for many kilometres in any direction, no cell phone signal, so that wonderful feeling of wilderness that is so hard to find in the UK. Though it’s been 5C, the sun has kept it pleasant enough, but it’s almost time for the diesel heater…