Alta to Rovaniemi, Finland

As expected the weather in Alta’s microclimate was dry and sunny. Apparently they compare their rainfall here with that in the Sahara, whatever that means. So after packing up I was on the road south. It wasn’t long before the cloud thickened and the drizzle started.

The road was pretty straight and unexciting and there was not much traffic but the occasional reindeer wandering into the road made it interesting. Alta is not far from the Lapland border so it wasn’t long before I was saying goodbye to Norway. The scenery didn’t change much but the roads seemed to get even straighter and longer.

As the road follows the Swedish border, I made a slight detour to the Swedish side to stock up with Surströmming for the forthcoming barbecue season. There have been a lot of roadworks in the north and health and safety don’t seem to play a major part in any of them. It can seem like riding through a building site at times. But Sweden seem to have taken it to a new level. The main road through one village was in the middle of reconstruction and about a 2km section had been dug up and left as a gravel track.

I overnighted in a small ski resort in Finland called Sirkka. Not being the ski season it was pretty quiet, and as it was cheap and still raining I decided to stay an extra night.