All the posts of Tour de Laponie 2013
All the pictures of Tour de Laponie 2013
Today I didn’t have any hurry in waking up, since my destination wasn’t that far away. Of course at 6:30 I was already awake and ready to start. It’s always like this: when you don’t have to wake up, you end up being awake much earlier than you should.
So I just took more time for breakfast. The day started in the same way as the previous ended, that is, cloudy and rainy. In front of me the climb of Yllästunturi hill, so I wasn’t definitely in a hurry. And of course it started raining again, so I had to I had to pack the tent as wet as it was, and it seems I can still feel the smell of it from the bag.
However, the climb itself turned out not to be the hardest one of this trip, and soon I reached the beginning of the skiing slopes of Yllästunturi, the only problem was getting pictures of it:
Yep, low clouds were even too low, so there was no way to see the top and the surrounding of Yllästunturi
I decided not to stop any further and just jump in the long and fast downhill on the other side of the hill, this time with the wind jacket on, last thing you want to do is freezing on a bike. Once at the bottom, another try for a picture of the hill.
Continuing cycling, however, the weather started to change towards the positive side. Already in Ylläsjärvi it seemed that it wasn’t going to rain anymore.
With the help of (finally!) proper tail wind, it didn’t take long to reach my final destination, Kolari. It was so fast that I even reached this:
Well, now that I’m here, yes of course, but just for a little bit.
Enough to tell that I’ve been in three different countries during this journey.
Today the temperature was very strange: quite cold if cloudy, very hot if sunny, so it was all the time getting on and off the wind jacket. In the afternoon it started to be stable on the sunny side, so I decided to have a late lunch beside the Muonio river under a wonderful sun. So sunny, that I ended up eating in the shadow as my skin started burning (remember the suntan on my leg? Don’t need more)
After a good and fortifying lunch (dry pasta as usual) I definitely felt fit to do some more cycling. But then I found this on my way:
Yes it is, Kolari has the northernmost railway station in Finland. And I’m afraid to say that train is going to bring me straight back home in Oulu.
The tour de Laponie 2013 is over! It’s been great, for the routes, the weather, and of course the cycling. I also met other long-distance cyclists, and I want to mention especially Ian, a Scottish cyclist really fond of Sami music, and Matthew, who’s been cycling a very long way from the Netherlands to Northern Norway and with whom I had the pleasure to talk about cycling under the Norwegian rain.
After two weeks in the woods, I guess it’s time to get back to the ordinary life. And to plan the next cycling tour, of course.
Cheers everybody! Cycle safe! Cycle everywhere! Cycle all the time!
Day 15 – Tour de Laponie 2013: Äkäslompolo – Kolari
Trip distance: 70 km
Total cycling time: 4 h 30 min
Tour de Laponie 2013: grand total
Total distance: 1166 km
Total cycling time: 80 h
Grande Raffa! Ebbi solo ora il tempo e la voglia di leggere tutto d’un fiato l’intero resoconto del tuo tour lappone. Gran bel tour, ma devo mio malgrado dire che la cosa che più mi ha impressionato è la T-shirt “The Äkäslompolo adventures” a Kerman: ha ben poco a che vedere con questo bellissimo viaggio ma rimane la cosa più improbabile fra tutte quelle citate nei 15 post.