Day 21 – Good food boring ride

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This morning getting up from bed was heavier than usual. I had slept well but felt like I continue some more. We had a lazy breakfast, which Benni prepared. Around 11 a guy from the camping ground came around making sure we were packing. We were indeed packing but decided to take lunch still at the camping ground. We got some locally prepared and catched smoked salmon and coffee. It was delicious and reasonably priced.

Today we had the longest stretch of our journey without gas stations or civilization really ahead of us. 290 km of  endless forest gravel roads and a coffee break later we arrived at the gas station in Salla. Driving so far was very calm, temperatures fair and most of all no rain . We both listened to audio books and enjoyed this lap of our journey. Despite the remoteness, some cars were driving by as we made a stop.

Straight as far as the eye can see

In Salla we got gas, I had reached my reserve about 60km before (avg. consumption was in my favor at 3.7 l /100km) ate some chocolate and brewed another coffee. We were looking forward to a toilet, but the shop of the gas station was closed. Apparently that was unusual, as several people tried to get in, and wondered about the locked door. A group of Finnish bikers, also driving adventure motorcycles but keeping to themselves (stereotypical?) had a break right next to us but left earlier. We shopped for some food and got extras on Fazer chocolate (recommendation of Camilla and the TET linemen). Tomorrow will be the first day without porridge as we bought some rye flatbread and some toppings instead. We left Salla and a found a camping spot 35 km down the road. An old leg of the main road, which ended at a small creek. The sun had started to shine and the landscape had a non intimidating calm beauty. Much less dramatic than Norway but still captivating. The camp spot was in soft sandy ground and my side stand wouldn’t work so I dug in my rear wheel. We cooked a soup inside of the tent to get away from the mosquitoes and booked our ferries later. We decided to leave finland on the 21st. That leaves some room for relaxation / problems to spare while still accomplishing the whole TET, assuming we will continue to progress like today.

Camp spot. A small river was in my back

Day 20 – Detour into Finland

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The black spots are all mosquitoes

The Knobbies get progressively worse
Lunch break on the roadside

This morning the mosquitoes were pretty bad. After starting I had to stop because one found its way into my ear canal and was stuck between my ear plug and my ear drum, no idea how it got there but very annoying. After crossing the border we got gas for the enormous price of 1.78 € / l. Following the TET was pretty boring and then we hit a closed road with an army guy in front of it telling us to turn around and denying the possibility of a break there, which forced us to take a really long detour as the next three roads going in our direction were closed as well. We had lunch with canned bolognese concentrat (found in a Norwegian supermarket) that tasted pretty good(it was based around peas and minced meat). Second tank stop of the day included the discussion on whether to head southeast or north again. We decided for north as it was described in the TET as one of the nicer sections (with sparing fuel availability). Short before entering gravel again for longer time we passed a camping ground and took a cheap cabin from the former wrestler owner and had two beers and polarbröd for dinner. We were both not really satisfied with the day as neither the riding nor the scenery kept up with Norwegian standards of the last days.

Cabin for the night