Yesterday

It was a good day. We had a proper breakfast at the hotel and set off. Within a few miles we took off from the main road and started cycling north along a gravel road towards the national parks and the city of Inari beyond.

I was excited about seeing more of Finnish wildlife and had my camera at the ready. I started by taking some action shots of Geir cycling and my own bike. That's also where I stopped. The gravel road was wet from recent rain and challenging to cycle on and very soon I had to focus completely on pedalling. Geir likened it to cycling in syrup, and I agree.

I did see on sketchy reindeer statue advertising rooms with sauna but I didn't have my wits about me to stop and take a photo.

After we were a little less than halfway to Inari we stopped at a roadside café in the middle of nowhere. It was run by a little old lady who didn't speak a word of either English or Swedish. That didn't seem to deter her, though, and she went on at length in Finnish about God knows what.

We ended up buying two ice creams and a cabin for the night. There was no running water and we had to use and outdoor toilet that turned out to be a bucket with a black rubbish bag under a plank with a hole in it. The outdoor toilet had carpeted floors, though, so don't make the mistake of thinking this wasn't a classy place.

There was no mobile signal and it was quite early in the day, so we had a nice lunch and went for a long walk. As a true Englishman at heart, we had to observe tea-time, even miles from civilisation.

I read a book while Geir had a nap, the I made us freeze dried wolf-fish stew for dinner. I can't say we were suffering at all. The mattresses were quite hard, though.