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At Utsjoki in Northern-Finland we finally cross the border with Norway, while more and more rain pours from the sky.

Norway [1]

Elisabeth & Teije
2004-03-06 15:21:13

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Monday, June 24, Ivalo (Finland) - North Cape (Norway)

At Utsjoki in Northern-Finland we finally cross the border with Norway, while more and more rain pours from the sky. The road is winding and desolate, but we enjoy the changing landscape: finally we see more hills and even mountains covered with snow, and twisting roads. Approaching Karasjok, the sky becomes clearer and sometimes we can even see the sun. We feel we are now in the most beautiful of all four Scandinavian countries, if only for the presence of mountains.

Halfway the road to Karasjok we halt at a parking lot for a picnic and although we liked Finland very much, we like this place even better. In Karasjok we take a quick look at the parliament building of the Sami, near the open-air museum about the Mountain- and River-Sami. But soon we go on, further to the north.

At Kolvik we take a small road to Trollholmsund where whimsical rock formations should represent petrified trolls. A beautiful area to take a walk, but we don't have time for that, today. Further to the north, where we pass the first toll tunnel (almost € 26), going under the sea to the island Magerøya. After that we pass one tunnel after another and most of them are quite bad. One is still unfinished, without lights and the rocks still seem to be hanging over the road; very scary.

This island is one of the summer residences of the herds of reindeer and the first herd we encounter consists of almost 100 animals. From now on, so we decide, we won't stop for every reindeer we see to take a picture.
We also see the first big waterfalls on this trip and probably it will be the same as with the reindeer: after having seen a hundred of them we will probably stop photographing them.

The road on the east coast of the island is very small and quite bad. The bus to the right drove a little too fast and lost its bumper. A traffic jam of at least ...