Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Lapland trip and something else

Hello everyone, for a long time! This post has been a draft since August 10th when I originally wanted to write this post. But my try failed when my school started on August 7th.... School has made a busy as always and matriculation examinations are coming closer and closer. I'm writing only one subject this fall and rest three next spring and I'm graduating from high school (wohoo!).

BUT the main point of this post is my Lapland trip (July 30th - August 4th). My sister was in 10-day-long language course in Sweden so my mother and father decided to go Lapland / Northern Norway. We left home early Wednesday morning and drove to Saariselkä for first night. We stayed in hotel and enjoyed about the lanscapes even though it rained as usual in Finland. 

Next morning we drove through Ivalo and stopped some kilometers later next to the highway. There was a turist point and there was a HUGE erratic block. A legend says that a bear has slept over winter inside the rock and there was a huge cavity in the rock. (coordinates for parking area: 68°48'59.96"N, 27°18'54.90"S or 68.816755, 27.314355)





After that pause we drove through Inari and Sevettijärvi to the Finland-Norway border line in Näätämö. We drove from the border to Kirkenes and stayed a night nearby it on a camping area (coordinates: 69°41'51.54"N 29°57'2.76"S or 69.697659, 29.950784). We stayed in a little camping cottage which had only heating and electricity (photo below).



Next morning we drove back to Neiden, where the little road intersects to Finland. We stopped in Neiden to see this wonderful "white-water" where salmons tried to jump while going upstream. 




A bridge over the "white-water".



In Lapland distances between towns are quite long...



Some photos more  :)







We drove for some time and then stopped for a parking area to look more beautiful landscapes (coordinates: 70° 0'27.29"N 29°12'8.71"S or 70.007611, 29.201459). 





After the pause we continued driving and drove through Varangerbotn town to Vadsø but we stopped for a lunch break some time after Varangerbotn town and watched beautiful landscapes once again (coordinates: 70° 6'57.45"N 29°12'33.21"E or 70.115960, 29.209219).



Vadsø town where it rained a lot.




Vadsø church.



We didn't found any camping areas nearby Vadsø so we went to hotel :)

View from hotel's parking area.




Awesome view from hotel's breakfast room :)



After breakfast we drove to Vardø where is the end point of European road 75 (E75). In Vardø we visited in local fortress and walked through the city anyway.











Moat of the fortress.



Local cemetery. That big thing behind the cemetery is a memorial for persecution of witches victims.



Beautiful little river between Vadsø and Vardø.




From Vardø we drove through Vadsø and Varangerbotn to Tana bru, which is a village by river Tana and only 18 kilometers away from Finland's northest point, a village named Nuorgam (which is 1000 kilometers away from my home).



Road to Finland.



Some little streams.




We stayed that night in a camping area 4 kilometers away from Tana bru.



Amazing sunset (:



Next morning we drove to Utsjoki and from there to Karigasniemi. We ate a lunch during that trip by amazing landscapes of river Tana (coordinates: 69°57'30.45"N 26°37'26.42"E or 69.958429, 26.623729).





From Karigasniemi we drove to Karasjok, which is a city in Norway.




We continued driving and ended up to Kautokeino, where we stayed last night before long trip back home. We styed in a camping cottage again but this time we had shower and toilet on our own!





We slept well that night and left early next morning and drove the following route: Kautokeino - Enontekiö - Muonio - Kolari - Pello - Tornio - Kemi - Oulu - Rantsila - Pulkkila (nowadays Siikalatva) - Kärsämäki - Pyhäjärvi - Pihtipudas - Viitasaari and FINALLY back Äänekoski (this is the shortest route and it's still around 860 kilometers) *phew*. The photo below is from Pello where we had a lunch break (good food after eating mostly only sandwitches for few days!)



And then we finally arrived back home! I was a bit butt-hurt it was worth of the long trip back home :)

I had some days before school started so I just did a recapitulation for my matriculation examination.

Oh, I explained a bit too much, sorry -_-


EDIT (2014/08/29 - 18:06): fixed coordinates and added another ones :)