Utsjoki – Feb 20
Feb 22nd, 2020 by rallyadmin
Esko arrives out on the ice promptly at 8:00 AM and starts hauling the cabins back to shore. It’s a beautiful clear day and we get a few last minutes out in the clear air and blue skies before our cabin is hitched up and slowly pulled back the parking area for the cabins.
We unload our gear and toe it in the car. Inside for breakfast and some last chats with Sampsa, Esko, Craig and Keira. Craig and Keira have to leave make a 10:30 bus in town to their next stop, the Saariselkä ski area. They’ve been fun to be with and share this fabulous place.
We only have about 120 kilometers to our next stop, Utsjoki, so we catch up on emails, post photos and update the blog. The out for a walk in the cold, bright morning. Back to the car. Load up and we’re off to Utsjoki.
The road starts go get a bit hilly and the sun comes and goes. At about 30 kilometers, the hills give way to a flat tundra the appears to run from horizon to horizon. It’s beautiful in the bright sun light, the trees wrapped in windblown snow.
We leave the flat and move back into low hills. As we’re driving between hills, along side a narrow lake Barbara spots some reindeer along the side of the road. We back into a parking area directly across from the reindeer and get some good photos.
The reindeer are burrowing into the deep snow to get to the ground and graze on the grass there. By the looks of the tracks and holes in the snow these 4 reindeer are part of a larger group that hang out in this area. These reindeer are semi-domesticated so they don’t get easily spooked by our presence. They’ll move off if we try to get too close but as long we stay our distance they ignore us. We move on.
The road north has some traffic and as we move farther north the clouds start to move in. It looks like the weather is going to change but that’s pretty common up here. And this area is known for its many micro-climates. We’ll see what happens.
About 70 kilometers up the road we come to a major intersection. The road we want continues north and the road to the left heads west into Norway. There’s a big sign with various town names and distances. The one that catches my eye is Nordkapp, 330.
Nirdkapp is the farthest point north in Europe that you can drive to. We’ve discussed going there just to say we’ve done it but there’s literally nothing there. And to make matters less desirable, the road is normally closed in the winter so you have to convoy up there, take your photos and convoy back. Not my idea of a good time.
We continue driving north to Utsjoki. Utsjoki is a very small town on a river that makes the border with Norway. The only reason we’re going there at all is because we’ve read that Utsjoki is one of the best places in Finland to see the Northern Lights. Other than that, there is no reason to go there in the winter. In the summer, this is a popular fishing destination.
In the winter, it’s just a wide spot in the road that ends at the Sami Bridge which is quite beautiful but not a reason to come here. We drive across the bridge and arrive in Norway, a first for both Barbara and myself. We immediately turn around and drive back in to Finland.
We find the apartment that we’ve booked for 2 nights. We have lunch in a very small cafe across the street from the apartment and find out that there is no restaurant in town. There is a hotel but they don’t serve dinner. Back in the car.
We call the contact number on our reservation and don’t get an answer. We are early for the supposed check in time, 4PM, so we wait a bit and call the contact number again. This time I get someone on the phone. He tells us to use apartment B and the key is in the lock box. The pin code is on the confirmation.
Duh. We thank the man on the phone. Go up to the lock box, try the code, it doesn’t work. I’m just about the call the contact back when I notice that the key has been left in the door lock. We try it. It opens. We move in. Unload and get comfy for our 2 days in Utsjoki.
Now that we’ve had a good look around this wide spot in the road to Norway, we start to wonder what the hell we’re going to do do here for 2 days. There’s a store down the street where we can get some food and the apartment has a full and equipped kitchen but we’re not going to cook for 2 days. And the weather has taken a serious turn for the worse.
We go to the store and get some freeze dried pasta meals (just heat water and pour) and some snacks and, back in the apartment, we start o think about blowing off the second night and going to our next stop a day early and spending 2 nights there.
Our next stop is a ski resort in Pyha about 400 kilometers south of Utsjoki. It has glass topped “igloos” so that we can lie back in our bed and watch the aurora without having to get all bundled up and go outside. (I’ll believe it when I see it.)
I get on the web and first find the right resort where we already have a reservation. (There are 2 almost next to each other. Who knew?) After some searching through emails we find the right resort. They have 1 “igloo” left. We book it (at about half the price of the first reservation). That seals it. We leave in the morning.
By now, it’s dark out, the wind is howling and it may be snowing though we’re not sure of that. The swirling snow may just be snow being blown by the wind. Whatever. There’ll be no aurora viewing tonight unless the weather changes dramatically.
We have out freeze dried pasta. A little wine that’s been with us since Ivalo. Connect to Amazon Video on the tv and watch some German thriller series re-dubbed in English. All with the wind howling in the background. Welcome to the Arctic in February.
We call it a night. Tomorrow we blow this town, err, wide spot on the road to Norway.
Obi-wan