Sunrise 3:47
This was the day when we moved north for quite a bit. Starting from Sweden (which is in CET time zone) we firstly visited rapids on river Torne älf and learned how the locals were (and partially still are) fishing white fish with just a fish net on a long stick. This is only possible due to number of fish that is moving upstream for mating at this time of the year. With a single swing you could catch as much as 20 fish.
Our way led us back to Finland (which is in EE time zone). Despite Europe without border, Finish authorities were checking us thanks to Corona which is ruling the world in last 2 years. Since we were ready with all documents and green passes, there was no issue at all. Officials were very nice, and it seemed that they were happy to finally test their mobile application for checking EU green pass validity. They could hardly believe that also all children above 12 have been vaccinated and proudly told us that also he got the first shot of mRNA vaccination.
Around lunch time we stopped at a place where melting of ice left interesting traces. To me it looked as if somebody has dropped off some giant piece of Swiss cheese made of stone in the middle of the flat lands.
Highlight of the day was crossing arctic circle line, which tells us that we are very fast nearing our most northern point of our travel. We had to stop at Santa’s village to check upon Christmas presents progress. I can assure you, that Santa is at home watching children behavior all around the world, and elves are hard at work to get presents ready by Christmas. Despite only 151 days left, all is under control, production of presents is running smoothly and there is no panic.
After a long day of driving, it was time to look for a place to stop for the night. We wanted to park on a small hill in area of Inari national park but were shocked with number of mosquitos flying around. They were literally flying in swarms of millions, and we hardly dared to leave the caravan. Despite the nice view over the valley, we were forced to look for another place to spend the night. We found it only few 100 meters bellow the top of the hill, where “mosquito situation” was bearable and did not endanger our night rest. Then came then next surprise… We found out that sun will not set today at all. Since we moved so much north, sunset has moved past midnight (0:10 EE time zone) and so we could observe midnight sun, which went bellow horizon for just a bit longer than 1 hour.
