Today we wanted to go to the border, and possibly a bit beyond. However, we managed to take a wrong turn, as it were, and walked on the wrong track for about an hour before we realized our mistake.
Reached Piilolakoia, another open cabin very close to the border at half past 2pm – and had a nap there. Then we crossed into Finland at Piilolaporten, ate a few blueberries there, went back to Norway where the blueberries taste better, and walked back to Ellenkoia.
The countryside was relatively flat and the track follows the shore of the Ellenvann most of the time. There were a few muddy places and rivers to cross (either by hopping from stone to stone or, where that wasn’t possible, by using some rudimentary bridge the maintainers of the track had put there). We never got wet feet.
There’s a number of info posts along the track that tell about e.g. an old partisan hut that was used in WWII by Norwegian and Russian resistance; hunting methods; farming; and wildlife.
Very much to our surprise we didn’t see any of that wildlife. No reindeer, no elks, no lynx, not even a tiny bear. Most of the time, there weren’t even any birds to hear and it was frighteningly quite in the forest. The only seriously dangerous (due to their numbers) predators we encountered were the local mosquitoes.
