Suddendly we had beautiful and warm weather. We chose afternoon walking in Porkkala and it was definitely a very good idea!
Autumn colors are now the best possible… and sun sets nice golden flare everywhere!
4 kilometers walk took almost 3 hours!
Take a look of all the pictures here!
nature
We had an idea to do some hiking today. But first we needed to ride to the place where we wanted to hike… So we started quite early, we rode only about 190 kilometers to reach out destionation in Kilpisjärvi. On this ride we only made short stop at Enontekiö/ Hetta to fill the tank and in Muotkatakka which is the highest point of the road in Finland.
After midday we were already changing clothes and shoes and starting our Hike up to the Saana mountain. The motorcycle was parked behind Kilpisjärvi hotel, the elevation was about 500 meters there.
And we had about 4 kilometers walk up to the mountain where the maximum elevation is 1029 meters. So at the same time when we were walking 4 kilometers to the top we also had to climb about 530 meters up!
After first kilometer the trees are gone. This was the easiest part. The path was very rocky and we had to use also hands few times when the hill was very steep.
The landscape was simply incredible! It was difficult to concentrate to climbing when you have these amazing views all around you!
Can you see my bike?? It’s waiting there…
After 2 hours and 10 minutes we were at the top! 1029 meters above sea level and 550 meters above the lake Kilpisjärvi!
On our way down the weather was even better and more clear. We got some amazing pictures!
We had a nice apartment with sauna to spend the night. This was maybe the most amazing day of our holiday trip!
My wife made a video about this day:
The route of the day was like this:
This day was little bit cloudy and it wasn’t so hot. We started to ride the beautiful road to Karigasniemi. The route follows the Teno river and you can see to the other side of the river (Norway) almost all the time! From Karigasniemi we turned to Norway, this had to be done because it’s a really nice shortcut to Enontekiö (in western Lapland) -the road in Finnish side would be 340 kilometers:
And if the take the road from Norway side, it will be more than 100km shorter!
Almost right after we crossed the border it started raining! And we were riding in the heavy rain about 5 minutes and then the rain was light and it didn’t bother anymore -but the road was wet.
In Vuottašjávri we made a short sidetour to a small cape in the lake. There was quite nice sandbeach and I’m already regretting that I didn’t go to swim!
I also fell with the bike here but it was so soft sand so no marks to the bike!
It took awhile before the road was dry again and we could actually see some sun peeking behind the clouds. It was very nice to stop beside the road and take a good look around you. This part of Norway is called Finnmark and the surraundings here are simply amazing!
Maybe our visit to Norway was a bit short… We were back in FInland much too soon!
We chose the road to Näkkälä village (40 inhabitants) and this was again a very good choise! This kind of totally empty landscape (beside the road) is very rare in Finland!
This picture is about from the end of the road. There’s a beautiful creek (or a river) and this small village with few houses. Ofcourse in the deepest winter it’s little bit different here! (The sun doesn’t come up in 2 months, it can be -30 celsius with more than 1m of snow…)
We had very nice cabin from Kelotin Rantamajat and we went to have a dinner in Galdotieva -this was unfortunately the worse meal in our trip. Wife had the reindeer kebab and I had the “local steak”. Both of the portions were mostly terrible! Meat was almost burned and you couldn’t tell if it was pork, reindeer or pieces of soil from the yard… We do not recommend this at all!!
This cabin had the kitchen and toilet! It was very nice!
My wife made a video of this day:
The route for this day was like this:
It’s been quite many years since we had a real winter here in south Finland. Now we have! The snow came finally in the end of January… and now we have about 30-40 cm’s of snow. You can do cross-country skiing almost anywhere and the lakes and the sea has a thick layer of ice.
First picture from Hirsala (Väransby) is taken in 31st of January
Here I also made quite nice Droneflight:
8th of february we visited on the ice in the near lake. Took this picture:
And this video:
It was a long time when temperature was around -5° centigrade and when it was sunny it felt quite nice!
This picture is taken in 18th of february. So is this next one:
Video was taken in 17th of february:
Last week the temperature went down! -24° centigrade was the lowest we had. But it was very nice that we had better weather in the weekend… So again I got some very cool pictures:
On sunday we took a walk around the lake nearby (Meiko lake). It wasn’t totally sunny day but quite nice anyway. My wife was shooting a video in many places… Now we can enjoy these snowy landscapes:
Today I (accidently) took 2 pictures that was very obvious for animated GIF.
Thanks to DJI Mavic and to my wife!
Yes, after 9 weeks I finally thought I can try. Neck and back didn’t feel too bad and I had my KTM ready and fixed back home so lets go!
This is kind of my favorite place now! It’s very near and you can always take a good picture here (Just beside Espoonkartano).
I had the idea NOT to ride any offroad parts… but when I noticed a new trail in place I didn’t see before I just had to go there…
I can tell now it wasn’t a good idea!! Because next night I had much more pain almost everywhere and I suffered a lot while I was sleeping!
But it is autumn now. I fould a huge stack of pink hay bale and they looked weird.
It was a great day for a ride so it was nice to take pictires in beautiful places!
It is still easy to find place where you don’t see the autumn colours… But then again if you find some mapletrees you can really see the autumn is here!
But after this weekend I can say that maybe it’s not the right time yet. My back still hurts and becouse I can’t stay away from offroad parts it’s better to wait.
We would leave this beautiful island… oh yes. It would be wise to stay for example 1 week but we want to spend more time those roads in Europe! So early in the morning it’s time to choose same route back to Bastia -harbour. And then take the boat-trip to the mainland (Savona this time). One last picture from Corsica:
This is from this here. We’re riding so early we actually had time to have some kind of breakfast in the cafe near the harbour before the check-in to the boat.
But the trip takes more than 6 hours this time… so definately if you don’t want to put all day to your boat trip it’s better to choose Livorno – Bastia route.
We will be in Italy mainland about 6 a’clock in the afternoon… And the food is not cheap i the boat!
Then from Savona we had a nice ride through countryside… Lots of nice twisty small roads with nice scenery every now and then.
The hotel was in Ovada… Pretty nice hotel with garage but without restaurant.
