Day 9, It’s Not Where You Start It’s Where You Finnish!!

We left lovely Lulea, and had to make a decision. Do we go straight to Narvik (Norway) and then onto Senja, or do we divert and nip into Finland and follow the River Torne up?

We decided on the the most adventurous route, albeit a little longer. Lyn has been to Finland twice in winter, to Helsinki with work, but this was to be my first time.

We stopped at the Swedish border town of Harparanda, there was a huge Ikea! We had a quick Max burger, and called in two outdoor pursuits outlet shops but couldn’t afford anything! We could see a lot of activity in one shop so wandered over to see what it was. It was a shop selling alcohol, and the car park was full of Finnish cars, obviously shopping for cheaper booze. We didn’t buy anything as it was still quite expensive and we were worried about being over the strict customs limit to enter Norway. Plus the queues were huge!

Crossing the border was easy, we just drove across a short bridge across the Torne into Tornio in Finland. The Torne acts as the border between Sweden and Finland and is 354 miles long. It is the largest free flowing river in Europe, and because most of it flows above the Arctic Circle the sun never sets on it around midsummer.

We just drove, and drove and drove! We took every opportunity to fuel up, mindful of the cost in Norway. The roads were empty and the scenery spectacular. There was, however, one major hazard, the amount of reindeer wandering about on the road! We saw loads and had to either slow down or come to a stop completely to wait for them; it is their home after all.

Slowly the scenery changed as we gained height, from millions of trees to fairly plain tundra. At one point we over 2000 feet in height, the temperature had dropped to 7 degrees and there was snow on the mountains. We passed through into the Arctic Circle. The Finns don’t make much fuss about it; there was just a shop and a big sign. We pulled over, had a nap, took a photo of the sign and carried on. This is my second time to the Arctic Circle, and Lyn’s third. We came in January time to Tromso a few years ago to run some of the Polar Night races. I did the 5k, Cian did the 10k and Lyn did the Half Marathon. He returned later on the same year with Phil, to run the Midnight Sun Marathon.

We stopped at an idyllic little beach at the river for a rest. It was beautiful and I could have stayed there longer.

We drove on and Lyn took us to a spot he had visited before with Phil when he did the Tromso Midnight Sun Marathon. It is basically a tiny bridge you can walk across the Torne to Sweden. It is very rickety and right in the middle of nowhere. It is obviously used by fisherman and wilderness junkies to access huge areas of wilderness in both countries. There are not many bridges across!

We stopped to watch the sunset, and I cooked dinner; puy lentils with soya yogurt and avocado, with salmon. Not particularly Instagram worthy, but it was fast and tasted good. The view through the van windows was amazing, but so were the mosquitos!

It was now time for the final push; and to navigate the Norwegian border and customs without looking too guilty! They have very strict alcohol limits, and we have very strict alcohol needs! Luckily we sailed straight through, with no sign of anyone official. It was late at this point; and we realised there was a time difference between Finland and Norway. Finland was an hour in front (GMT +3) whereas Norway was GMT +2. It was about 11pm by the time we got to our wild camping place, but still full daylight. I was just glad to get to bed, it had been a long day.