The plan had long been that, after reaching Nordkapp, we’d bum about a bit in northern Norway, travel south through Finland, then home east via the Baltic coast. Well, we’re well on our way, here’s an update.

We did indeed bum around in Norway a bit more. Rode around the the most easterly bit of Norway, peered over the border at Russia. Took a short hike to the “triple border” where Norway, Finland, and Russia meet. Only Norway guards it, and the very civil national service lads explained the rules. As you might expect, nobody was allowed to approach the Russian segment. Then, to our surprise, they said that, since Brexit, we were also not allowed on the Finnish segment. I’ve no idea why. Happy Europeans romped around it, taking pictures with the guards. But we got our first glimpse of Finland, and saw another lump of Russian forest, while we picnicked in Norway.

Finland was going to offer us miles and miles of peaceful gravel roads with us wild camping where we pleased by a lovely lake for a swim (sans, obviously though mysteriously, any biting insects). It was not to be.

Firstly, the Finns have tarmaced a bigger proportion of their roads than we’d assumed. Which is just as well, because, well, of us.

Our access at home requires passing 50-500 metres of roughish track, that has to be taken slowly because it’s so uneven, and also quite crowded. I (Gid) feel quite chuffed that standing up on my 500X, I can take some of it at nearly 30mph/50kph quite comfortably, and remembering driving cars in Canada, and riding dry tracks on a slick tyred MTB, I thought biking on well graded gravel would be fine. However, our home surface is mostly quite compacted, so firm under tyre but, err … faced with a real gravel road, that’s a lot flatter, but also usually rather looser, I can go …about the same… Clare’s somewhat slower (and actually standing isn’t feasible on her MT07). Well 50kph max doesn’t really cut it if you want to ride 300 kilometres a day. Plus, it’s uncomfortable sitting, and arduous standing for long periods (my longest was about 25km, I think). It’s also possible that our firm and rather slick road tyres and Clare’s firm suspension don’t help – we both recall enjoying a led trip on CRF250s around Fuerta Ventura’s dirt tracks: Although that probably wasn’t much faster, it felt a lot more natural: tyres, pressures, soft springs and lightness probably account for that. And also, perhaps critically, neither of us has the skills to use offroad steering techniques (ie slinging the back end out to use drive to make the turn, whatever it’s called), and have to corner at speeds where the front wheel can get enough grip, which was often “dead slow”. A real eye opener, and if we aspire to do longish trips where the roads are gravel, we need to resolve.

So, we pretty much stayed on Finland’s tarmac. Mile after empty mile of it. Little traffic. Lots of trees. Occaisional reindeer, who own the road. Seriously, lots of trees. And so, mostly, formal campsites, too. They usually have pretty good facilities. Even some informal, but known, campsites had toilets, which was nice. And everything seemed a bit cheaper than Norway, though not by much.

We had some nice stops as well, especially those connected with Sami culture. Ok, and Santa’s HQ. Clare found out about a famous hiking trail, the Bear’s Ring. Of course, we got to the tourist info for it at 4pm on Sunday, just before it closed. To be told that the bus link to resolve the logistics ran on Monday at 9am. But not on Tuesdays. Cue absolutely frantic getting ready-ness. We’d been scratching our heads about carrying capacity, couldn’t resolve it. My ancient 35 litre packable sack would suffice, both it and me groaning, but Clare had only a micro bag. In the end we bought a new 50 litre rucksack, Intersport’s cheapest. I took the heavier stuff and Clare took the bulk.

The Bear’s Ring is 82km, and the terrain is middling for a hike. We took the default 4 day/3 night option, although a slight misunderstanding of the (must be used) camp locations put us a bit out of sync with other folks from the bus: But, maybe the peace was a good thing.

Apart from a cafe in the middle, good for 1 meal, there’s no resupply option, so food has to be carried. We were super lucky with weather, fine, fine, fine and fine… until, literally the last, steepest, hour. When it rained in biblical fashion. Before we could don waterproofs, we were soaked. After 30 minutes, wading up and down the torrential path, we spied a shelter hut, crowded. Where we all sat and stood the last of it out. Before leaving, we emptied our boots. I was wearing shorts, and my boots had cupfuls in. Clare’s fabric trousers had at least deflected such gross amounts. Let’s be clear: We both had decent waterproofs, but it happened too quick to don our overtrousers.

We indulged in an hotel for a night to recover. The boots took a few days…

From there, it wasn’t so far to Helsinki. Where starts, really, a quite different phase. From wildness and scenery and lots of camping, we’re now faced with dense history, a border every week. A cultural and historical tour of a part of the world that our anglo-centric history gives us little knowledge of. Another post, I think.