Safe Return Doubtful

After 107 days in the country, I left this morning Norway to enter Finland. Though Norway is not in the EU, it is in Schengen and its land borders are usually open. Occasionally there is a customs officer who does random stops of vehicles, but I passed through without delay today. 

Yesterday I had driven for about three hours through Alta to Kautokeino. In Alta I stopped to fill up with LPG gas for the cooker, as there are no suppliers in Finland, it is being phased out. Using LPG to fuel cars is prohibited, despite it being seen as a form of green energy in other countries. This fill up will need to last me until Estonia, at the end of September, which should be no problem. 

Not far out of Alta and the scenery becomes vast expanses of forest interrupted by lakes. The road climbs to about 250 metres and stays roughly about that height, with few mountain peaks much higher. This means the area is subject to extremes of weather, much more so than the coast. In 5th January of this year the lowest temperature for 25 years in Norway was recorded in Kautokeino, dropping to -43.5C, though one farmer near to the town reported a temperature of -49°C. Though on my visit it was considerably warmer, in the early 20s as Roja and I had a walk around the town. Kautokeino has recently had a new sports facility, and a new secondary school, both are hubs for a population that regularly travels more than 50 kilometres to use them. The school has a weekly residential hostel also. 

I was not far out from the van, and on the main road, when I was hallooed by Sara, the young Finnish woman to whom I had lent bike tools in Forsøl four days ago. We chatted for a while, remarking on the coincidence, and said that we may even meet in Akaslompolo later in the week, as we were both headed in that direction. 

I stayed in the car park of the Sports Complex, though there was a bit of noise from the road, and a succession of children’s football coaching sessions during the evening, the latter I am used to. 

This morning I found a route to explore just out of town, about 8 kilometres, and decided it was time to actually run it. Roja was happy because, on another hot day, up to 25C, the route took in four lakes. I was happy because I had no hip-related problem at all with running, though quite slow, and the ground was easy going. 

In the early afternoon I crossed the border into Sweden across the Muonionjokki river to call in at the tiny village store of Muodoslompolo. It was here where the owner, Susanns, had received and looked after my Swedish Visa extension card which had arrived by post a few weeks ago. Say back in March I had found her on the map, noticed that her business had excellent reviews for being very friendly, and asked if she would help. It may seem a minor thing to help someone with, but to me it was very important, and essential. 

I then retraced my tyre tracks across the Muonionjokki river and drove another half hour or so into the Pallas-Yllästunturi National Park. I have been here before, two years ago almost to the day, but was unable to do the hike I wanted to do with my injury, and besides, the weather was cold, wet and windy. 

I’ll have a few days in the National Park before moving on. I’ve put together a rough schedule for Finland, but some of it is weather dependent; at the moment it’s very dry and consequently there are only a few mosquitoes around. The ones that are, are dopey and slow. If wet weather arrives while it’s still warm it may awake more and result in those areas being less pleasant to be in. If it remains relatively dry for a week or so that should be the end of them for the season.