Day 16 - Mid Finland

Had a good sleep and was in no hurry to leave Rovaniemi. Remember Lordi? The Finnish group who won Eurovision dressed as some sort of characters out of 'Lord of The Rings'. The people here were so proud of them, they renamed the main square 'Lordi Square'. They do like their Hard Rock up here...and the do like booze. So much so, that you cannot buy take away alcohol after 9pm. This guy keeps the booze theme going by converting a barrel to a luggage compartment for his trike.


I tried my best to find a bend in the road but was not very successful. Still, the weather was fabulous and I resorted to singing show tunes in my helmet. Finland is definitely a flat place and the only thing the roads have to avoid are the lakes. In my quest for local knowledge of 'biking roads', I got chatting to two guys in Oulu on the Baltic coast who told me that they go to Norway when they want some fun. They were actually Iraqi but had been here for 20 years.


I decided to head east towards the Russian border to see what that side of the country looks like. I stopped in a gas station and got chatting to the manager who got out his map and showed me the places to go, even wrote out a suggested route for me. I waited till a rain front passed through then set off behind it and the colours were just amazing. Evening light, just after rain is pretty special.


The sunset was spectacular with all the moisture in the air. It is a pity that I only caught glimpses of it through gaps in the trees until quite late on. This is the tail end of it. Camping wild tonight about 60km from the Russian border as I didn't stop until 11pm. Might even get dark tonight. That's a novelty.