1st of July - 4th of July
Having arrived to the top of the Västerbotten (the western part of the Bay of Bothnia) it somehow seemed natural to continue our journey north by car.
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| Spray over the impressive Storforsen falls |
Firstly we wanted to drive to Norway and see what the road to Narvik, via Kiruna looked like, the road that Easy Rider would be travelling on IF we went ahead with our plan to get her transferred by road. And also, Lapland, the Polar Circle, the Norwegian fjords, all sparked our imagination and our wish to drive through all these places.
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| Finally, the midnight sun! |
First we drove from Luleå to Jokkmokk to see the Storforsen waterfalls, the biggest in Sweden. It was a mighty sight! There, we were already in Norrbottens Län (Swedish Lapland and the Sami homeland). Just before Jokkmokk we crossed the Polar Circle: from that latitude onward, we could see the Midnight Sun (if you were lucky enough to have a cloudless sky and no mountains around…). The Midnight Sun is seen when the sun is at true north and its midpoint is visible. But then, of course the opposite is also true: there is also total darkness in winter… Madeleine prevented me from going to sleep after a hard day’s driving and insisted to drag me out into a mosquito infested field 5 minutes after 01:00 am to watch the midnight sun – and yes, it was worth every mosquito!
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| Enjoying a cold drink |
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| Our stuga (hut) |
Near Kiruna we stopped at the famous Icehotel in Jukkasjärvi, which is built totally out of ice in the winter. In the summer, there is only an ice bar where you can enjoy vodka cocktails out of cubed ice glasses at -5ºC (in a huge refrigerated hall). This was to be the last and only nice hotel on our trip – from here on we were staying in small, bare, self catering huts on camp sites. Fortunately we had taken some provisions with us but after some days even bear salami and reindeer ham becomes a bit repetitive.
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| weekend hut at the Norwegian border |
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| Norwegian fjord landscape in July |
We crossed the Norwegian border near Narvik, in a bleak and barren landscape with mountains still covered in large patches of snow. Along the way to Harstad we experienced the majestic sights of the tall mountains and deep fjords. Continuing even further north, we crossed the border with Finland at Kilpisjärvi, the place where Norway, Sweden and Finland meet. Although it is an abstract notion, which you cannot see, it is quite extraordinary to be there, so far north, the place where the big rivers form on the high, boggy plateau and run all the way from the Polar Circle down to the Bay of Bothnia. We followed the road (E8), which follows the rivers all the way down to Haparanda. The E8 runs along the border between Sweden and Finland.
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| Norway left, Sweden right, Finland straight ahead |
Now I understand why the water in the Sea of Bothnia isn’t salty: It is a huge delta for all these great rivers!
PS: We almost forgot:
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| Santa’s helpers in their summer attire on their way |
