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Merv-IOM
Subscriber
- Joined
- Jul 27, 2011
- Messages
- 2,284
- Points
- 113
- Location
- Isle of Man
- Member No
- 2,034
- RV Type
- A Class
- Model
- Winnebago Journey DL 34 HD
- RV Experience
- Since 2011
After a few days at the golf club, it was time to head north. Effortless drive up and over the arctic circle and onto Jokkmokk. Sandra had to drive slowly past some Reindeer near Vilhelmina but that was the only thing on the endless, tree lined roads. Jokkmokk resembled a true American village, lovely wooden houses with huge wide streets. We did wander off deep into the woods for about 5km in our search for bears and moose – but nothing! When we were nearly back 'home' we spotted bloody moose poo,about 50 metres from our RV!! Bugger, if we'd stayed put with our feet up, we would have seen the blighter......
Oh well, we decided to head a little further north to Gallivare, hopefully staying at a campsite there, but the place was all (damp) grass and we daren't stay there as we would have sunk! So we drove a little out of town to Dundret ski resort and Hellner Nordic Skiing centre. All empty of course so we dived into the Hellner stadium camping place – stayed the night for free with elekky!! Not a soul about. Yikes, when we got up it was snowing heavily so we shot off earlier than planned.
We soon arrived at Pajala (our furthest point north at N67.25883) on our way to Pello, Finland.
After a lovely drive we stopped for a snack at Pello when the heavens opened – hailstorm this time....and drifitng too! So without further ado, we trundled our way into the countryside stopping o/n at a picnic spot 60km on our way to Rovaniemi.
Rovaniemi is a fantastic place – completely geared up for tourism, but in a nice way. It is now the largest city in Europe!! They moved the city limits to include all the Rovaniemi Kommune, some 8,000 square km's – smart eh? The thing is 80% of the city is forest......
We couldn't come to Lapland without tasting some local fayre - so we swanned into a Lappish restaurant and ordered 2 different Reindeer dishes. Sandra had Rack of reindeer with reindeer liver and I tried a traditional Lap sauteed reindeer. Hmmm not unpleasant but nothing to write home about.................until the next morning!! It's nice on the way in, stinks on the way out:crying: Donner und Blitzen springs to mind in many ways!
Midnight sunshine, and I mean sunshine...we were wearing sunglasses at 1pm (I never imagined I would ever be doing that), is spectacular and well worth seeing if you get the chance.
But it's time to head south now (midsummers day) so we're off tomorrow morning down through the middle, Fjords and mozzies.........can't wait! Helsinki and Estonia await.....
Oh well, we decided to head a little further north to Gallivare, hopefully staying at a campsite there, but the place was all (damp) grass and we daren't stay there as we would have sunk! So we drove a little out of town to Dundret ski resort and Hellner Nordic Skiing centre. All empty of course so we dived into the Hellner stadium camping place – stayed the night for free with elekky!! Not a soul about. Yikes, when we got up it was snowing heavily so we shot off earlier than planned.
We soon arrived at Pajala (our furthest point north at N67.25883) on our way to Pello, Finland.
After a lovely drive we stopped for a snack at Pello when the heavens opened – hailstorm this time....and drifitng too! So without further ado, we trundled our way into the countryside stopping o/n at a picnic spot 60km on our way to Rovaniemi.
Rovaniemi is a fantastic place – completely geared up for tourism, but in a nice way. It is now the largest city in Europe!! They moved the city limits to include all the Rovaniemi Kommune, some 8,000 square km's – smart eh? The thing is 80% of the city is forest......
We couldn't come to Lapland without tasting some local fayre - so we swanned into a Lappish restaurant and ordered 2 different Reindeer dishes. Sandra had Rack of reindeer with reindeer liver and I tried a traditional Lap sauteed reindeer. Hmmm not unpleasant but nothing to write home about.................until the next morning!! It's nice on the way in, stinks on the way out:crying: Donner und Blitzen springs to mind in many ways!
Midnight sunshine, and I mean sunshine...we were wearing sunglasses at 1pm (I never imagined I would ever be doing that), is spectacular and well worth seeing if you get the chance.
But it's time to head south now (midsummers day) so we're off tomorrow morning down through the middle, Fjords and mozzies.........can't wait! Helsinki and Estonia await.....
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