Saturday, 08 May 2010 00:00 Last Updated on Thursday, 20 May 2010 23:36 Written by Billy van Graan

Today was a magical day of riding and one I won't forget in a long time. I have been getting a little bit bored and agitated with waiting but today I felt a bit of spark again. Riding north past Lulea was still very much the same as the rest of Sweden but when we crossed over the Arctic Circle (even a bit before) everything changed. The snow was still thick everywhere on the ground except for the road and most of the rivers were still frozen solid.



It was cold and my fingers even went numb through my new expensive gloves but the scenery kept me distracted and at least the sun was shining all the time. This northern part of Sweden and Finland is also known as Lapland and is the place where reindeer out number people and it is also claimed to be the home of Santa Claus. Not so long after we crossed the Arctic Circle everything began to change. The forest floor was still covered in a thick layer of now and the reindeer began to appear on the road much more often. These reindeer aren't the most intelligent animals alive. When they just stand and stare at you till you very close to them and then they just run in any direction. A lot of the times they run away from you in the opposite direction which means they stay on the road. You drive behind them but they just keep on running down the road instead of running off the road into the forest.



We stayed in a tiny town in Finland called Muonio. It was the most expensive place to sleep yet on the trip at 55 Euros for the night but it was a nice room and it was just too cold to camp with our -2C sleeping bags and summer tent. We walked around Muonio and realized that it was already nearly 10 but it was still completely light outside. Muonio was also still covered in snow and in some peoples gardens the snow was still over a meter thick. Tomorrow will be another 500km day up to North Cape. Well actually 35km south of North Cape where we will stay with a CouchSurfer in a very small village.

Tags
Biking  Cape 2 Cape  Finland  Sweden