Country Archives: Finland

I stayed with my friends for a while and then returned home by bus, train and ferry. Here are a few photos I took during that time.

"Make sense, not war."

Today was the culmination of the awesomeness of the previous days. The weather was again perfect for riding fast (if a little chilly at times); the countryside reasonably beautiful to not be too boring, and not too exciting to be distracting either. Consequently, I stopped only a few times when hunger (or reason) made me want to eat (and when another spoke or two snapped and needed replacing).

I followed road no. 4/E75 through Sodankylä and Sariselkä and made it to Ivalo by half past 9 or thereabouts.
Crossing the 200km mark on the last 10km from Ivalo was the icing on the cycling cake, as it were. That’s 540km in three days, since Oulu.

I’m at my friends’ place now and will stay here for a few days. How I will return is undecided yet.

Cycled: 206km

Yesterday was an exhausting day. I set out from Oulu at 11am and followed E75 for a while, which was bad enough.
The ‘funny’ thing with Finish cycle lanes is that they are not very well sign-posted, that is, there are pretty much no signs telling me where a particular cycle path leads to. And while they usually follow a major road, their direction is not always obvious at junctions where they sometimes lead through tunnels underneath the road.

Anyway, I left E75 and turned north at Simo, to sample some of the wilderness of Northern Finland. I cycled on gravel tracks and did soon have to fight with the wildest and fiercest of Scandinavia’s inhabitants – mosquitoes. And a hell of a lot of them. I was quite unprepared for their onslaught when three spokes snapped in quick succession and I had to stop to install replacements. I put on almost all the clothes I had to cover up everything except my hands. Pitching tent in the evening was a similarly adventurous endeavor.

Today, then, I joined road no. 4 somewhere south of Rovaniemi, stopped there for lunch and to buy mosquito repellent, and continued north. Road no. 4 is the one I will follow up to Ivalo and a little bit beyond, that is, for the next 200 kilometers.

I pitched tent just a few meters off the road, behind some bushes, deep in mosquito territory.

Cycled: 176km

Cycled: 158km

Last night saw me at an annoying hotel in Pori, for lack of a camp site near-by. There was no reception and one had to book online in advance or through a terminal in the ‘lobby’. Payment by card only. Their mail server (DNS, really) is badly configured, so that I didn’t receive their confirmation email with the access code for the door, and had to call them twice on an expensive phone number.
The temperature inside the room, once I finally got there, was too high for my taste, but it was not possible to open the windows or to adjust the aircon.

Anyway, enough of the rambling. After yesterday’s maths puzzle I decided to hop on a train and travel to Oulu (takes ~650km off my route) on my ‘day off’ today. Finish trains are nice. Comfy, with uncomplicated wi-fi, and proper aircon. :)

Oulu is probably my favorite Finish city (for its location), before Helsinki (for its size and architecture) and Uusikaupunki (for its name). However, the fee of 23 Euros for staying on the local camp site is even more ridiculous than in Uusikaupunki.

Six years ago I came through Oulu on my way down from Ivalo. I wanted to stay on the same camp site I’m on now, except that they didn’t want me. Apparently I showed up a few minutes after closing time, and even though there were still people working at reception they didn’t let me in anymore. I can’t for the life of me remember where I ended up pitching tent. Maybe on their premises anyway, maybe outside.

From here it will be some 500km to the shores of Lake Inari, which should be easily doable in 5 days, Insha’allah.

Yesterday didn’t end that bad after all. Eventually, the sky cleared and the sun came out. I rode the 2 or so kilometers to the city for some dinner and karaoke.

Today was slow again. I had a late start (11.30am) and the winds didn’t help either. They had shifted by almost 180 degrees two days ago already and were blowing from northerly directions again today.
However, the (remainder of the) weather was fine: not too hot, not too cold, and no rain! And the wind turned out to be manageable as well. The route changed direction so many times that I enjoyed everything from headwinds to tailwinds.

I also did the maths and figured out that I won’t make it to Lake Inari until July 18 (still ~1200km to go).

Cycled: 119km