This day was strange: in thirteen hours of cycling in Lapland I did not encounter a single reindeer. Ever since I started this third leg of the Norway trip in Skjervoy, I'd seen at least a dozen reindeer every day, sometimes hundreds. Today while I was riding through a vast reindeer breeding zone I saw none.
Still in Norway, I started out at Karasjok by visiting the Saami parliament, notable for a building that resembles a yurt. Then I went shopping. Outside the supermarket I met the Italian guy from yesterday again. Since the time cutoff of the NorthCape 4000 has already expired, he plans on reaching Nordkapp in three days, reserving a whole day for Mageroya after he'd seen the profile. I recommended that he watch the sunrise and sunset there, if the weather plays along.
The scenery along the road was dominated by birches once more. Pines only slowly started to show up near the very end in Hetta. The terrain was as rolling as it had been since I first entered Finland, evidence of the peneplain stage of Lappland. Regardless, the region is beautiful. I spotted countless opportunities for camping along the road before the route joined the Finland-Alta road in the west. There were moments when I thought of stopping right there to call it a day.
I did not stop though. Stopping would have been a sin considering the weather and the mostly flat terrain. I reached Kautokeino, another important Saami town in Norway, and had a decent pizza there for dinner. At the fast food bistro I spoke with a bike tourer from Malmo about the train situation in Sweden; apparently it is still quite bad but might be better south of Stockholm. Not very surprising, Sweden has always been notorious for its hostility to cyclists, but disappointing nevertheless.
It was well past 8 p. m. when I finally reached Finland. Or past 9 p. m. on the other side of the border. Still not quite used to the night yet, it struck me how low the sun had already sunk towards the horizon at that time. It was getting quite dark by the time I reached Hetta but there's still a bit of glimmer in the north indicating a proper polar night. Not quite dark enough however to observe the Perseids, unfortunately.
gps tracks
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