- 208100 km on the bike
Hedemora next morning is a ghost town. Last night I heard several people in various stages of drunkenness navigating their way to various rooms of the hotel. Now I know why the room rate was so low - the rooms are merely an add-on for those patrons of the pub too drunk to remember where they live. So everyone is still comatose except the lady who has prepared the usual luxurious breakfast. Aside from her I could believe I am the only living thing in town.
I am not overly sorry to see Hedemora disappear in my rear mirrors a bit later this morning as I am heading deeper into Dalarna county, my course again due north on highway 266. Around the eastern shore of Lake Runn I bike on into Gävleborg County and further on into Jämtland and towards Lake Storsjön.
During the day it has turned hotter and hotter with every mile I am biking north. At 27 degrees Celsius in the afternoon it certainly does not feel like I am biking at 63 degrees northern latitude. This is especially so because I know that the highest temperature expected for Zurich today is about 14 degrees. Well, I am sure that spree of warm weather is not going to last forever up here, so I just make the best of it and finish the day at Hammerdal - mainly because the "Hotel Asgarden" is located in this tinpot little village and the locals assure me that the village is definitely not know for its nocturnal party activities. I have a pipe and a shower, drop on the bed and in spite of the White Night the next thing I hear is my alarm going off at 7.30 am next morning.
- 208520 km on the bike
A cold front has gone through during the night and the maximum temperature expected today is about 14 degrees. But the sun is shining out of a blue sky again, so I just put on an extra jumper, extra pants and my heated gloves (normally just used for winter biking back home) and head on north into Västerbotten province. Biking here is fascinating and the last time I have seen a countryside like this was when I was biking through Northern Canada and Alaska in 2007. Here is a snapshot that should give you an idea:
It is not always this straight, but the picture gives a good impression of the vast distances one can bike here. 500 or 600 km biking during one day does not move my position on my map very much further. One has to bike for several days from dawn till dusk (only that there never is a dawn or dusk this far north, it being light 24 hours a day, the so called "White Nights") to really make any progress on the map.
Other than in Canada it would be possible to bike here with a regular bike with a small tank, because petrol is available at least every 60 miles - your bike wouldn't need Kitty's endurance of over 500 kilometers on a tank. The roads are also much better than in Canada and about as good as you would find them in the United States.
I am now biking through Norrbotten, and for those of you more familiar with North American geography, this is about the same as having biked a good stretch north from Dawson City on the Dempster Highway - in fact I am biking along the Arctic Circle. That the European Arctic is so much more populated and warmer than the American Arctic is all to do with warming effect of the Gulf Stream - even this far north.
My helmet camera is working fine and I have just switched it off when entering my destination for today, the town of Överkalix, when a couple of reindeers cross the road right ahead of me - sod's luck. But anyway, these reindeers are no match in size to the 1600 pounds of the North American moose of which I saw plenty when I was there, though smaller specimen of moose live in Scandinavia, too and are called elk here.
The "Grand Arctic Hotel" at Överkalix has comfy warm rooms and a garage for the bike. The one thing they do not have is window blinds to keep out the sunshine - a thing I noticed on various hotels up north; the hotel owners are probably born and bred up here and it is incomprehensive for them that us southern pansies find it difficult to sleep if the sun is shining through the bedroom window out of a blue sky at midnight. Luckily for me 600 km on the bike today ensure that I sleep soundly, even though I wake up to find that during the "night" I have considerably deepened the suntan on my face.
- 209000 km on the bike
In temperate regions a cold front like the one that passed through yesterday is usually followed by a warm front or by slowly climbing temperatures. Up here another cold front has right away followed the one from yesterday and temperatures are expected not to exceed 10 degrees today. But again the sun is shining, and that is all I care for. Just putting on more jumpers, winter over-boots and my winter shawl in addition to yesterdays cold-weather kit doesn't bother me. Cold and dry weather is far better for biking than hot and/or humid weather.
I am heading east along the Polar Circle towards the border of Finland, which out here is the Torne River. This video should give you an idea on what a bliss motorbiking up here is:
I fill up on petrol with my last Swedish crowns at Övertorneå before crossing the river - Finland is the only Scandinavian country yet to have adopted the Euro. Another very civil thing about Finland is that as a courtesy for their six percent native Swedish speakers in their population most signposts, restaurant menus etc. are also in Swedish language especially along the western and southern coast. This a great help for me, as Finnish sounds to me like someone with Urdu as his native language is trying to speak Dutch while having a knot in his tongue.
The disadvantage of this bilingualism is the fact that many people opt to learn Swedish as their first foreign language, so English is to some extent less of a lingua franca in Finland than in Sweden.
I am biking south now through Lapland along the Kemijoki river towards the coast of the Gulf of Bothnia. At Kemi I turn east along the coast on the E75 road and then south into Oulu province. I am surprised to find that Finland is far less good for biking than Sweden; there are more villages, more traffic and many roads are wide and fairly boring. I continue along the coast until I reach Kokkola and stay overnight at a roadside hotel. The weather is finally closing in on me, so I want to get as far south as possible.
- 209450 km on the bike
In spite of the gloomy weather forecast the sun is still shining next morning. It was obviously a good idea to stick to the coast.
I need a few more Euros, so I stop at an ATM, which is another peculiarity about Finland; nearly all ATM's in this country belong to the Otto. ATM network and not to a specific bank.
After about 250 km of biking south I am finally turning inland and eastwards towards Helsinki. The weather has slowly deteriorated all day and by the time I arrive in Finland's capital it has started to rain.
Most cities are not overly impressive if viewed from the back of a motorbike on a rainy afternoon at 11 degrees, but Helsinki strikes as especially grimy, uninviting and hectic. After some searching I find the suburb of Espoo a bit more to my liking and book myself into a hotel, where a hot shower and a decent diner make up for the grotty weather.
But in general I suppose I can not complain having spent several days in Northern Scandinavia without any rain except those few drops I got today.
Here is an alternative overview of the trip so far:
- 209850 km on the bike