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!
This is the last day of our tour around Finland. We didn’t try to follow borders as close as possible. It just came like this… We went north from the east side and came back from the west side. We tried to check nice places on our way but certainly there was many places that we didn’t see. So there will be many nice spots to visit in the future.
Quite soon after we started riding we had this road. The route has a very nice ridgeroad going through small lakes 2 times! These are very beautiful places to make short stop and take pictures.
These pictures are from Rantalansärkkä wich is the more beautiful one… or at least it is easier to stop the bike there.
When we arrived to Ruovesi area we rode to the forest. With this bike and this load (maybe around 450kg’s) it’s not easy to ride on the forestroads if there is soft sand. We found this interesting “monument” or a memorial sign anyway.
They put the sign because some war-veterans were planting this forest long time ago (I think it was 1972).
Couple hours later we took a short walk in the museum-bridge in Teisko.
It’s called Aunessilta. It’s nowadays for walking only. Usually here you can see also some boats.
Then we checked one of the most famous place to have a coffeebreak (for motorcycle riders). It’s the Vehoniemi car-museum and cafeteria. This is located in a beatiful high ridge in Kangasala. The place is more than 40 meters higher than the lakesurface just beside the ridge! There is also a viewingtower.
After this we didn’t make any stops anymore… We just ride back home!
Video of this day made by my wife:
The route for the last day was like this:
The staright road home would be about 500 km’s -but not yet. We will still ride the small roads and explore this beautiful country.
On the southside of Pietarsaari is one of the most “Swedish” areas in Finland. Here we saw this:
This “Klacken” is a big party place in “Lillby” (Small village). Most of these kind of places have died in Finland but this seems to be quite active!
Right beside this partyplace was the local shop. Seemed like an ordinary “K-Market” but actually it was more like a mall!
They had clothes, tools and almost everything you can imagine you will need while living in the countryside -even agricultural machinery!
Soon after this “Lillby” we stopped at “Ilveskivi”. This is one of the biggest boulders in Finland. To get to the stone you have to walk almost 1 km and we didn’t change any clothes. It was still quite hot day so walking in riding gear was not a good idea!
Luckily the place is very beautiful and the stone is huge! It rises 16 meters up from the groundlevel and they’ve even built the stairs there so you can climb to the top of the stone!
After this stone we found nice beach to take a swim in Lappajärvi. And soon after the refreshing swim we checked the area full of war-machinery and trench in Menkijärvi.
This area is not actually a museum, but still it gives a good point of view how it was 75 years ago!
Just before we arrived to our next accommodation in Töysä village it was raining. Luckily it was just a short shower so we didn’t get totally wet. We just removed the bags from the bike to our room and changed to a little bit lighter clothing (it was still very hot after the rain) and we went to the small village shop… We did some shopping and enjoyed the dinner in one of their restaurants.
In the evening it started raining again but luckily it wasn’t heavy so we could take a short walk in totally dead Töysä-village. We saw maybe 10 people in the village (saturday evening 8pm).
Töysä beach is in Lake Ponnenjärvi.
Video from my wife about this day:
The route for the day 15 was like this:
This was about to be quite short day… (if you think about how many kilometers we made). But we saw many nice places anyway!
First was Kalajoki!
It’s a huge sand-dune area and quite a lot of holiday activities around it. We were there very early in the morning but we took the swim anyway.
Then there was Ohtakari Island at the end of Vattajaniemi -area. These are the biggest sand dunes in northern Europe, the area is about 40 square kilometers wide! Here you can also park your bike beside the sea!
I swam also here, my wife didn’t…
In Kokkola we stopped to check the longboat that was taken from the Royal Navy when they tried to conquer the city in Crimean war (quite a lot of the fights were at the coast of Finland).
This is the Royal Navy longboat from Halkokari fight.
There is one abandoned lighthouse in the northside of the city. This is very interesting place! It would also be quite spooky place in the dark (I guess)…
It’s called Harrbåda lighthouse.
Around 10 years ago there was quite nice motel, beach and restaurant and I spent quite many nights in this place long long time ago…
But then slowly they didn’t have customers anymore, they should have renovate the place and make it modern but they decided to sell it (or it went to bankruptcy?). I think the price was something like 10 million euros first… but quite soon the price went down. The place was so terrible condition!
2015 there was news that they have new owner and there will be totally new hotel and restaurant… But it seems nothing happened there yet!
Then we stopped at Öja fishing village and this beautiful cafeteria in the harbour. It’s called Bryggan café.
Here you can easily spend many hours just sitting in the café and enjoying the atmosphere!
Then finally we arrived to Pietarsaari -this is one of the most beautiful cities in Finland!
But the hotel we had was totally opposite to all this nice surroundings!
We had Hotel Vega with quite nice price but there was simply nothing good the place!!
– Reception was totally dark when I went in
– They had lots of strange toys and items everywhere. And when I say “lots of…” I mean like hell of a LOT!
– There was dead bird in front of our door
– Room was dirty, there was sand in my wife’s bed
– The yard was dirty, I think it was cleaned maybe 10 years ago
– Breakfast was not fresh! There was lots of canned food!
– It was like the hotel from the movie “The Shining” but in small size… very spooky!
Here’s some pictures:
But at least I got one nice picture of my wife just outside our room!
She’s the one who makes these videos:
The route for the day 14 was like this:
This was another very hot day. But I was thinking that the gravelroads here are not that bad so I took one in the beginning. This road was actually very nice ride because it was in very good condition.
The first stop we made at interesting cafeteria in Yli-Ii (Wife pronounced this as “ULI-LEE” and I was laughing about it!)
This cafeteria was an old gas station but the gasbumps were already empty…
Then we checked two dams and powerplants. There was also a fireplace (laavu) near the Pahkakoski dam. But this fireplace was in very bad condition. At least there was quite nice place for swimming…
Then finally after 12 days of riding around Finland I found a place to wash my bike! This was in Oulu! And now I had a clean and shiny bike again!
Picture was taken somewhere southside of Oulu. I really don’t have any idea what is this “thing” behind my bike??
We found a place to stay the night from Pyhäjoki, but not from the “city”. It was a bed n breakfast place 7kms away from the village (Puttaan Kartano)
Ok… Pyhäjoki village is not very big, we found only 1 pizzeria where we could have something to eat. And after eating we went to the beach to check how sea looks up here.
Sea was quite ordinary but my wife is very special and beautiful!
And this is a video that she made of this day 13:
The route for the day 13 was like this:
Weather was again very warm. This is not at all typical in Lapland that the temperature stays over +30 long time and even the nights are warmer than +20.
We started soon after 9am and it was already stifling hot. I had plans for some gravelroad in the beginning of the day but I choose the paved road because I could ride faster and get some refreshment from the wind.
I didn’t fill the tank in Kittilä which was a big mistake. I soon realized that there’s no big citys or even villages between Kittilä and Rovaniemi -it looked like there’s no places to add gasoline!! But finally there was one!
This place was 57km’s south from Kittilä and the gasoline pumps was still working! Many these kind of places don’t have gasoline anymore because the regulations are more tight about spoiling the enviroment.
Quite soon after this we found a place for a break and swimming. There was this big river Ounasjoki and our route was following it until Rovaniemi but the rivers are not so obvious places for swimming…
This was a place to put the boat to the river and it was ok for us to make a quick refreshment. About 1 hour later we were in Rovaniemi and there’s one place my wife wanted to see! The Arctic Circle and the Santa Claus village!
Even in a very hot summer day you can hear at least Japanese, Russian, German, English and few other languages here. I hope these people didn’t come here to find the winter wonderland… We almost went to visit Santa Claus!
But we chose the motorcycle ride to the city… and we didn’t want to ride there too long. It was simply too hot! Our final stop was at Ranua -about 110 kilometers south from Rovaniemi. Just behind our hotel there was a beach so we could relax for awhile and ofcourse go swimmig.
Later in the evening we had a dinner in our hotel but to stay the night here we had chosen the “economy room” which meant a room with very poor air ventilation upstairs of… police office!
Luckily we could keep the window open all night so at least after midnight it was already almost ok to fall asleep.
Here’s video about the day (made by my wife):
The route for the day 12 was like this:
This was the day when we started our way “back home”. It was only “downhill” from here untile we will reach the Helsinki-area. But luckily there was still many nice places to see…
This picture is from the beginning of this road (Road to Kalkkoaivi). I didn’t have the time to check the whole route and I also had the very unlucky experiences of having the flat tire few days ago… So I only checked how it looks from the beginning.
After quite many kilometers we finally made a stop to check Äkäsmylly. It’s still operational watermill in Lapland wilderness! We though it was very beautiful place.
Pitty it was very HOT day (+32 celsius) and we didn’t want to sweat our clothes totally wet so we walked back to the bike quite soon and continued riding.
Next stop was after quite long gravelroad-ride!
In the Pakasaivo -lake the water doesn’t change! There are no rivers or creeks that comes or goes from it! There’s also a special Lappish mythology that says it’s a place for the dead… So even it was very hot day we didn’t want to go down there and swim because we thought the place was little bit scary! (And because we were 50 meters higher than the lake surface!)
After this it wasn’t too long to our hotel. This time we were lucky! It wasn’t the best possible season for skiing so we got the room from very nice hotel (with spa) and it was quite cheap! Just when we were arriving at the hotel when we saw this:
This was kind of shocking… when you have this beautiful image on your mind about cute reindeers who are helping the santa claus and walking around lapland wilderness… And here she was peeing almost in the middle of the road making the pavement wet!! Yaiks!
We spent the night in Lapland hotel Saaga with this view:
And my wife made a video about this day:
The route for this day was like this:
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 you 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:
The morning started with the visit up to the “mountain” Kaunispää. We took few pictures there and continued to the next mountain (Urupää) and there we chose the “old road” which is called “The magnetic hill”. Long time ago it was difficult for bigger cars to climb up to the hill (especially in the winter) and somebody made up the story that there was strong magnet keeping them down!
We checked The airport in Ivalo but we only met one reindeer:
The road between Ivalo and Inari is very enjoyable ride but usually you will meet many rendeers here! We were lucky since we didn’t see any! We also stopped at “Karhunpesäkivi” which is a big boulder with kind of giant’s kettle inside the stone… And you can go there! There are few strange holes in the inside walls of the stone and this made it possible to make up many different stories about what happened and why…
But it is known that there was a bear in winter hibernation many times long long time ago…
These stairs lead you to the stone and the stone looks like this (PicBy Puppe100 – Oma teos, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=71268537) :
Next time we stopped at the viewing tower of Toivoniemi. It is actually named as a bird watching tower but anyway there’s quite nice view from the tower to the Lapland nature around!
The actual “Toivoniemi lintutorni” looks like this:
This you can find near Kaamanen village and there’s also an old airport that was built by German soldiers… or actually their prisoners of war. So still after 70 years there’s nothing but “empty land” in the place where was supposed to be the speedlane:
From Utsjoki we found our cabin to stay for the next night. We took the luggage away from the bike and continued “naked” to the north…
There is one museumroad between Utsjoki and Nuorgam. It’s a gravelroad that climbs quite high above the river of Teno and you will have very nice views from there!
Only few kilometers more north and we were here:
And because the idea of this tour was to stay in Finland we turned around!!
Very close there is the road called “Pulmankijärventie“. If you choose this road you will find amazing place without any trees and open landscape everywhere around you!
This might be the only place in Finland where you can find this kind of view!
I also had to take a picture of my bike with this bridge (Sami Bridge between Finland and Norway):
Plus some pictures with the Drone:
And video:
Our Cabin at Camping Lapinkylä was like this:
Once again my wife made a video about this day:
The route for the day 8 was like this:
GoZa Mite 