Day 9 Off to the far north to Inari!

Day 9

30.3.2024

We leave Levi at around 10:30 and drive north. From now on we drive almost 200 km north and after a short time the road is completely "white", nothing is cleared here and on the next 70 km to Pokka we come across no less than 4 (!) cars!

By the way, there are NO cars driving in our direction! We are completely alone.

After just the first few kilometers, as we follow the road to Inari, our navigation system in the car no longer recognizes a road. We seem to be driving off the beaten tourist track.

The snow that was predicted came last night, but in a much weaker form. In any case, we are very happy that it is not snowing at the moment, because all we can see is "white". Totally crazy, now I know what is meant by "snow blind".

What's fascinating is that even where we don't see any houses or anything like that, where there are no cars on the road, no parking spaces, there is a marked snowmobile track right next to the road! Sometimes there are even cross-country ski tracks. Crazy!

After a short stop in front of the restaurant/shop/gas station in Pokka (we have to clear the ice and snow from the wheel arches), we continue. The snowy landscape is a dream and I actually see a wild reindeer nibbling on a tree next to the road! One is better than none, as we all know 😅

A moose would be cool! But today we'll stick with the one reindeer next to the road.

About an hour's drive later, we see the turnoff to Lemmenjoki National Park and spontaneously turn into the snow-covered road.

We follow the road to the lake, where there is a campsite with a small restaurant and huts. We meet a small group of Spaniards who are out cross-country skiing and are probably staying in one of the huts.

Since it's lunchtime, we stop by the restaurant by the lake. According to the plan, there are 3 types of soup and reindeer strips. Hmm... OK, soup perhaps? (2 of us are vegetarians)

We don't particularly like the €13 per soup, but we have no choice - there is no alternative here!

The lady behind the restaurant counter is extremely taciturn, doesn't bat an eyelid, takes our food (2 vegetable soups and 1 dish of the day, "meatballs with mashed potatoes") straight away and then deigns to say a German "thank you". When asked if she speaks German or when we try to make small talk with her, she doesn't react. With a "yo jo" she disappears into the kitchen and brings us cutlery and glasses.

Here too, "still water" (table water) and even a kind of juice (looks like fizzy powder in still water) are free and you can take as much as you want. Incidentally, this has been the case in every Finnish restaurant so far. Cool thing for everyone who likes to drink still water.

We sit down at the window and wait. The decor is very old-fashioned, stuck in the 60s/70s, with stuffed animals hanging on every wall. It's kind of creepy...

To our surprise, the food we ordered is freshly cooked! The freshly cooked vegetable soup with root vegetables and cauliflower is really delicious, my husband also likes the meatballs, the mashed potatoes are freshly mashed and we also get a huge bread basket with 2 types of bread and butter. Well then - perfect 😜

After dinner we ask the lady what we can do in the area (short trail etc.). She recommends that we walk to the lake directly behind the house and then take a circular walk on the lake. You can recognize it by the blue poles that mark the path - and we should definitely not leave these, as the lake is apparently already thawing in some places. Ugh - I didn't want to hear that...

But with the current -5 degrees, I hope that nothing has thawed along the blue poles.

We walk onto the lake - it's really huge - and dutifully follow the poles. On the opposite side we see 3 wild reindeer coming towards us. However, they run away when they notice us.

After a digestive walk across the lake (just under 5 km) we drive on to Inari, where we visit the main attraction, the Sami Museum & Nature Center . Entrance fee per person is €15, we take the family ticket for €30 - children are included in the ticket.

The museum is nice, shows the culture of the Sami, some current exhibitions with photo series "past vs present" from the surrounding area and an open-air museum outside. We spend about 2 hours here and look at everything before moving on to our destination for today.

On the stretch between Pokka and Inari (approx. 100 m) we see 6 more cars coming towards us - NO cars are driving in our direction to the north. It's kind of strange...

It stays cloudy all day, occasionally we see the sun briefly through the clouds, there is no heavy snowfall (luckily!).

We now drive in a small arc back to the "south", after having been over 250 km from the Arctic Circle in Inari. After 40 km we reach the town of Ivalo (which even has an airport), where we stop at the S-Market and buy some drinks. The supermarket is huge, which we somehow didn't expect in such a small town. Above all, there are several supermarkets. The competition is located just down the road, the "K"-Market 😜

Our destination for today is the Arctic River Resort , where we will be staying in Aurora Cabin 3. Directly opposite the restaurant, the first cabin in a row of 4-5 Aurora Cabins, with a direct view of the river. Theoretically, there could still be campers around the cabin, as there are pitches in front of and to the side of the cabin, which are now being dutifully cleared in winter, but apparently are not being used. Lucky for us, as we have no "neighbors" and no one uses the public camper toilet - this is actually integrated into our cabin on the side (next to the bedroom). The public toilet can be accessed via external doors, but it's still kind of weird when you're lying in bed right next to it and "hear" the toilet. In any case, we have peace and quiet, as there is no one there to use the toilets 😅😅😅

Today my son can move into the sofa in the living room, and we're moving into the small bedroom with 2 single beds. Cozy, we like it here!

It's a shame that the weather isn't playing along. The chances of seeing the Northern Lights would be perfect here, we just have to look out the window. Unfortunately, the cloud forecast is 100% again - including snowfall all night. As we all know, hope dies last. Let's see if we get another chance to see the Northern Lights.

Somehow I didn't realize that we would have a complete kitchen again, so we quickly drive back to Ivalo (this time to the K-Market) and get some salad, bread and cheese for tomorrow.

The highlight here: cucumbers! Pickled cucumbers are a perennial favorite here! You can fish them out of huge tubs or buy them shrink-wrapped in packs of three cucumbers.

This evening we treat ourselves to 3 takeaway pizzas from the pizzeria "Hannan Pizza". The pizzas are super delicious! Absolutely recommendable!!! Even though I find pineapple on the pizzas a bit strange (I swap my pineapple for mushrooms 😅), my husband tries the pizza with the catchy name "JÄNKHÄ" (reindeer, egg and cucumber salad...!?) - he thinks it's great 😜

With that a Lonkero - cheers!

Key data:

Weather: cloudy / light snowfall, -5 to -1 degrees during the day

Distance travelled: 240 km