Snowmobiles, suomi saunas and santa

After watching the local rednecks (think Deliverance with fishing rods and waders) smoking fish at 4am we eventually hit the road late morning after watching crazy finnish fellas race snowmobiles across a river, apparently the snowmobiles float if you drive them at over 70mph. We didn't partake in what appears to be the national passtime of swilling beer at 10am much to the disappointment of the this time friendly local guys.

We made a detour north to Santas house in Lapland to find busloads of american tourists. We obviously took the obligatory 'standing on the line of the arctic circle' pictures. Met an Italian guy and his wife who were travelling south from Nordkapp where the weather was -3 degrees, unfortunately he had been stranded for three days as the final drive on his 1200GS adventure had failed, its not surprising when you saw the amount of luggage he was carrying, not sure it will stand up to a warranty claim. We have been lucky with the weather, it has been raining for two weeks solid at 66.6 degrees north up until yesterday.

This afternoon we turned south to head for the Russian frontier, we are going to attempt to cross about 200km north east of Imatra into Russia. We may get refused entry there and have to cross elsewhere but we have been informed its much quieter, apparently the line to get across at the main border crossing from finland can be up to 20km long.

The afternoon was spent in what has become standard practice of dodging reindeer and anticipating finnish drivers actions as none of their cars seem to have indicators. We have been struggling to read the signposts on some of the minor roads off the highway as they tend to have been shot to shit by locals with high velocity hunting rifles. Road conditions have been a mixed bag of good tarmac and dirt tracks covered in gravel with on the GS is fine but Wills bike has been skittish. Frost heave is evident on lots of roads which means there are huge cracks along the centre of them.

We are currently around 300 miles from the Russian border being eaten by cat sized mosquitoes. No camping tonight but a log cabin in the middle of a forest with just a calming buzzzzzzzzz of bugs.

Its now offically not a motorcycle touring holiday but an adventure.

Cheers
Mike

PS. We couldn't find any reindeer to cook but plan to get some tomorrow.
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