Saturday 05.08.

What do you think about when you hear Finland? After snow and sauna surely come the mosquitoes. And with the latter we had a real problem this morning! You can count how many mosquitoes we found between the inner and outer tent!

The dismantling went faster than usual. It was almost an escape from the mosquitoes!

By the way: we are now already further north than Umeå!

Back on the road, we soon found a bike path. We had already heard that Oulu is one of the most bike-friendly cities in the north, but that the influence reaches so far we would not have imagined! This beautiful bike path led us safe and sound to Oulu, where Tilman got Magic cards from Lord of the Rings.
In the city center we enjoyed the sun until Susanne, our Warmshowershost, joined us. Then we continued to enjoy the sun warming our faces. Susanne is extremly cool. She has only recently moved to the north due to the rising temperatures in Germany and had a lot to report.

As the sun disappeared behind the houses, we set off and Susanne showed us the good cycling infrastructure of Oulu. Ingenious! As a bike, you mostly have your own paths and hardly come into contact with cars. That's how it should be. So you don't get on each other's nerves!

Susanne lived on the outskirts of the city together with her cat Wurz. She was somehow not so enthusiastic. Maybe because of our smell? Who knows... Even after an extensive shower and the clothes in the washing machine we could not really become friends...
Therefore we got along all the better with Susanne and chatted until far after midnight! What one notices with the local light conditions always too late.

Sunday 06.08.

Sometimes it's handy to have an extremly relaxed host like Susanne! The much needed sleep could be caught up in peace. Only sometimes interrupted by Wurz's meowing. Maybe he didn't like the two smelly intruders?
Susanne and we woke up at about the same time and all agreed that a relaxed breakfast/brunch was just the right thing. We had semolina, which you can get everywhere in the markets here, and home-picked currants from the garden.
One plan for today was to go to the botanical garden in Oulu. However, we realized too late that we had been chatting a little too long for it to be worth it. So we just walked around the area a bit. First over the disc golf course, which really seems to be a thing in Finland! Some players were more professional than others. At least judging by the number of discs in their disc golf backpacks. Yes, there are special backpacks for disc golf :-)
We continued to the beach and an artificial headland, where we could look at the Baltic Sea in beautiful weather. Somehow crazy this weather in the north!

On the way home we found wild raspberries. Fortunately, we had already eaten enough currants from the one box, so that there was room for new berries again!
Arriving back at Susanne's, we ended the evening by making pasta with eggplant filling ourselves. The effort can only be justified by the endless time we had. But it was fun! Not only making, but also eating :)

Monday 07.08.

The time with Susanne is just too nice and somehow we managed to delay our departure until 14:30. Eating and chatting takes its time...
Although the bike day was comparatively short, it did its best to squeeze a lot of crazy things into this short time.
It started with us meeting a velomobile rider from Sweden during a small break along the way. Of course, we immediately got into conversation and he said we should follow him to his friends in a few kilometers, because something was broken on his velomobile. Since it was on the route anyway, we just drove after him. Such a velomobile can be really fast! A few minutes later we arrived at his friend's house and were served ice cream. Very nice!

Then he unpacked his velomobile to be able to put it on the side. Somehow amazingly much storage space there is in the little thing! We put it on its side and he explained that the speedometer no longer shows the speed. There's only one thing to do: get the magnet in the spokes back to the right height. Said and done. But it took some time to put it back in place. Especially since he liked to chat on the side. Together we drove sometime further, until he left us due to his speed. A little later we met him again, sitting at a café. There we discovered that one side of the bracket of luggage carrier from the cargo bike was broken. Somehow, this was a recurring theme of our trip. In that case it wasn't too critical a spot and we decided to continue and take care of it as soon as possible. Of course, we headed for one of the lavuus again. Really nice, right on the beach! A car with caravan was there and we got into conversation with the family. They were beekeepers and are now driving through Finland to promote their special honey. He asked us which was the best Christmas market in Germany, because you can probably sell the honey very well. We even got some samples!
For the night they drove on, because the school vacations of the children ended soon and they had to go home urgently.
Tilman made a fire to cook food and I fought against the mosquitoes to set up the tent. Once again we were really lucky with the camping site! What could be better than falling asleep to the sound of the waves?

Tuesday 08.08.

A very untypical Finnish morning: 25°C, sunshine and beach. Accordingly, of course, we dawdled a bit and even went into the water with our feet. On the way back to our route, we drove past many houses with large properties and garages. At one of them we stopped because we had seen someone outside and the luggage rack needed a repair. Tilman spoke to the man, who then went to get another man, but he didn't know English either, who then went to get his wife, who spoke some English. But the good thing was that our problem could be explained well without words. Apparently we were outrageously lucky again, because when we drove into the garage/workshop, we saw a metal smelter, welding tools, and more. Obviously we had landed with the right man - a metal worker :-)
Very quick he had an idea and no 10 minutes later, we had a perfect, new part! You don't even notice that it wasn't commercially made! We thanked politely in Finnish: Kiitos!
Very happy and overwhelmed by this quick solution, we continued and soon met another cyclist. Together we rode a little bit through the forest, but since we were going slower, we soon parted ways.
Today we also crossed the border to Lapland. At 30°C in the shade. Very unusual. Actually we went to the north to have some cooler weather.

In Kemi we had a break and ate half a kilo of ice cream in the block and lay down under a tree at the harbor - we were really not used to these temperatures anymore!

Judging by the number of people who approached us, we were on a very busy road. An Englishman and his Finnish wife talked to us for a very long time and were even able to give me some tips regarding our mission in Rovaniemi.

As the heat slowly subsided, we also swung back on the bikes and were just blown up by the wind. The heat robbed us of some of our desire to go further and so we stopped at an earlier Laavu. This time it was already "occupied" with a Dutch and a French camper. The Dutch had already made a fire and we put our pot of water on it.

The Dutch were extremly cool and when the thunderstorm came, we all took shelter in the lavuu and watched from a safe distance as the lightning shone in the distance.

Wednesday 09.08.

We spend almost the whole morning with our camping neighbors having breakfast.
Afterwards we followed the Kemijoki river followed by little rain in the direction of Rovaniemi. In Muurola we stopped again at the hospital. Don't worry - none of us is hurt! There is only the assumption that my grandma worked here as a nurse during the second world war. So I walked around a bit and took a closer look at everything. And even had an unexpected encounter. Suddenly, out of the path on the right in front of me, a reindeer appeared! It was probably as surprised as I was and so we both stood there staring at each other. After it realized that I am just standing there in peace, it started to pee and pluck leaves from the tree and to eat. Funny encounter! And the first reindeer on this trip!

For the evening we found again a lavuu on the river. Inaccessible to cars, we had our peace but unfortunately no firewood. Well, that's how it is sometimes.

Thursday 10.08.

"It rains, it rains, the earth we wet, we lie in the tent and do not get wet". (Germany childrens song) And just keep sleeping until it stops.

No sooner said than done. When we dismantled, one or two drops still came down, but we can cope with that.

In not so pleasant weather we arrived in Rovaniemi and drove first to the Lild to have breakfast. There we were approached by someone who had also made frequent small tours by bike.
Our first goal in Rovaniemi was the local historical museum, with which I had already got into contact with via mail for the purpose of family research. The referred us then again further into the "Arktikum", where there should be a historical exhibition. Before we went there, we sat down on the river bank of the Kemijoki River, which we had followed since the mouth of the river. The Germans unfortunately destroyed a very large part of the city during the Second World War according to the principle of "burned earth", so that the cityscape is nowadays dominated by modern houses. The church, newly consecrated in 1950, was very beautifully painted from the inside and very inviting. While Tilman looked at the church from the inside, I stood under a shelter to not get wet. At some point a van drove up and I helped people unload the trunk with plenty of bread for the food bank. As a thank you we were given a delicious yogurt :-)

Arriving at the Arktikum, we decided that I would go in and Tilman would wait outside. After all, I was interested in the history.
The Arktikum is a museum, by the way, which I would recommend to anyone who is in Rovaniemi. In the middle is a bright, large hallway with a vaulted ceiling made of glass. This creates different impressions inside, depending on the weather. The right side of the museum was about the local history of Lapland and a few animals, while the left side was about the current changes in the polar regions of the earth. To go into detail here would blow up the already long blog entry, but you are always welcome to ask by mail or otherwise :)

Shortly after the Arktikum, my bicycle chain broke at an absurd incline. So the broken chain links out, chain back together and wash the hands in the museum. Next time we simply replace the entire chain, with the new from Romania.

The landscape around Rovaniemi is really beautiful! Rivers, lakes and forests! And just behind the city: Santa Klaus village and a wrongly positioned "Arctic Circle" sign. 66°33′49.6″ is the current latitude and the sign was placed a few kilometers in front of it. For natural scientists who sometimes take it exactly - an unsatisfying sloppiness....

Behind Rovaniemi, navigation is also much easier. There are just not enough roads anymore and so we just followed the 4. We took a closer look at a lavuu right on the road and immediately decided against it. People can be so disgusting and careless... Everywhere used toilet paper and in front of the toilet someone just left his toilet in plastic bags and the firewood was of course also empty.
The next one required a bit more driving into the forest. The road led us to a parking lot where a few campers had already set up camp. A French family told us that they had passed us a few kilometers ago - even with a photo proof! They wanted to go to the lavuu in the forest to make a small fire. So we joined them, or rather drove ahead, since we also wanted to go there. The path was a wooden path above the bushes, so everything was accessible to wheelchairs. The Lavuu was on a small island in the river and you could hear the rushing of the water from every point. What we found at the lavuu was again pure luxury. Two fire pits with shelter, super clean compost toilets, and plenty of firewood.

The family also arrived at some point with their food and we sat together on the fire for a long time. It was really fun talking to them and when Tilman was already in bed, the parents and I still philosophized about the universe and everything in it.

Friday 11.08.

After skipping several alarm clocks, we slowly woke up and were glad to have set up our tent inside the lavuu. So at least it had stayed dry. At some point a youth group with their troop leaders came. Very loud and somehow it felt very invasive. Especially because a simple"good morning" was obviously too much for them... The noise continued when they wanted to make (actually already pre-cut) wood even smaller with the axe. In doing so, they used an absurd amount of wood, so that we no longer wonder why we sometimes find no more wood when we need it. In our opinion, one could deal with the given resources a little more in a sustainable way. Whether two campfires have to be started or not at 10 o'clock in the morning is another question.

Since they were also getting closer and closer to us without any consideration or communication on the part of the leaders, we decided to quickly dismantle and move breakfast to the parking lot in front.

There we could finally enjoy our breakfast in peace. A promising day! Whereby we would not have expected 27°C in Lapland... Since Rovaniemi there are unfortunately not so many roads and we have no choice but to share the road with the cars. An extreme contrast to the days before and due to the car noise I got at some point also a headache. Overall, however, it was a very nice day. We saw a lot of reindeer on the roadside and on the road. Once even a mother with a still very small reindeer. These animals are just extremely cool and we see them during a time when the antlers have almost reached the maximum. Very aesthetic!

Here and there we took a break at a lake and were a bit annoyed about the trash that some people leave behind.
Towards evening we headed for a beach at the river that we had spotted on the map. Unfortunately there was an explicit sign "no Camping". So we went on... Now we spend the night a few kilometers further in the forest and listen to the thunderstorm rumbling. Fortunately in our warm and dry tent!