Ivalo – Feb 17
Feb 18th, 2020 by rallyadmin
The alarm goes off at 6:30 and a quick look out the window. Rain, wind and slush. Up and a quick breakfast . We have a long day’s drive to Ivalo. We finally leave the coast and head northeast toward Lapland. Hopefully, we won’t be driving the entire way in a driving snow storm when the road leaves the coast.
When we leave the hotel the rain has subsided to a heavy drizzle. After the first 50 kilometers, it has stopped altogether and the road starts to dry out. There’s a fair bit of traffic but it is Monday morning and life moves on in Finland just as anywhere else.
We’re getting pretty close to the Arctic circle. I check an Android app for the current latitude (of course there’s an app for that) and the app says that we are at 66°33N, almost there. Officially, the Circle is at 66°44N.
We start looking for a monument or marker. No luck but as we round a bend in the road we find Santa’s Village/Arctic Circle, a huge collection of resorts. There may be a marker here but you’ll never find it among the reindeer sleighs, husky dogsleds, gift shops, tour buses and Japanese tourists. There’s a big sign for Santa’s Village/Arctic Circle. That’ll have to do.
We escape and continue driving northeast. The traffic has lightened now that we’ve passed Santa’s Village. The speed limit has gone up from 80 kph to 100 kph and there are much fewer speed cameras. Another 100 kilometers and the sun finally breaks through and the skies start to clear.
We stop for lunch at a roadside petrol shop. The food is pretty good (doner kebab wrap for me and a big salad for Barbara.) Then back on the road.
As we go farther north, there are fewer and fewer buildings and farm and the ones the we do see are usually closed for the winter. Logging seems to be the main activity here which means that the traffic is the occasional log carrier doing warp 9 headed south. Since this area has been getting a great deal of snow and had a few inches last night, every time a log hauler goes by we end up blinded by the snow dust for a second or two. Time to think pure thoughts.
We pass an open area and see our first reindeer out in the open. The only reindeer we have seen so far have been hitched to sleighs at tourist attractions. This dozen or so are in a field grazing. On one side of the field there’s road the heads off into the forest and there are a couple bales of hay left for the reindeer.
We stop and pull to the side of the road as far as we can. We can’t actually pull off the road because of the snow banks. But the road is wide and there’s very little traffic. We take a few pictures and move on.
For the last 200 kilometers, the sky has been clear and blue. At this latitude, the sun is low on the horizon which gives long shadows, dark green of the pines and brilliant white on the snow. The snow is newly fallen and even the snow on the road is a brilliant white. I’d forgotten how beautiful a day like this is in the Arctic.
We get to Ivalo, our stop for the night, in the middle of the afternoon and check into our hotel. We have an “apartment” which turns out to be a large room with a kitchenette. It on the second floor (schlep the bags up the stairs) and looks very nice.
We get settled and then go out for a walk. Ivalo may be the local metropolis but it only has about 3,000 people and there is only one main drag. It is the intersection of the highway that leads to Murmansk which is 300 kilometers east.
I had asked at the reception desk if the road is open in the winter and the lovely woman at the desk said, “Of course. It’s actually better in the winter than in the summer. The road conditions are better in the winters than in the summer.” That’s not surprising. Arctic roads are much easier to maintain when they are frozen than when they are thawed. Probably doubly so in Russia.
I make a mental note to look at a map of this region to see if there’s a chance of doing a trip around the Baltic, say London to London via Murmansk. Maybe, Hamburg to Hamburg. Hmm….
The walk turns out to be short. Ivalo may be the local metropolis but it’s a very, very small metropolis as your average metropolis goes. Back to the apartment (which is also very small as your average apartment goes.) Check email and look for Aurora trips to book for probably tomorrow night.
AntoA good dinner at the hotel. Reindeer escalopes on mashed potatoes with pickles. (Bet you haven’t seen that plate on the food network. Well, maybe on Anthony Bourdain’s show.)
At 10:30, I get dressed and head out to check the sky for auroras. But there’s a high overcast and no stars and, therefore, no aurora that you can see. Maybe tomorrow.
Obi-wan
