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After fueling up at the Finnish border we follows some roads including a small detour along a river. The reason revealed quickly: Instead of taking the big bridge, we were supposed to take a small ferry in a small town. No one was there to operate it. No people around, just some empty cars standing by and some were diving by on the main road. The ferryman’s house looked a bit abandoned and no service times visible. On the other side was a car waiting to cross the river, too. Light on and engine running thus we decided to wait and have a coffee first. With the perfect timing a pedestrian with a dog approached us, just as we unpacked everything and set up the coffee. (Without unpacking we would’ve probably waited for hours for someone to appear.)
He told us straight away, that the ferryman died 12 years ago and everybody has to operate the ferry themselves. We invited him for a coffee and he told us in good but simple English about his dog, knife and hunting. And most important that on the other side there is only complete wilderness, which he repeated multiple times during our encounter.
The ferry itself had an engine, but it was locked and only some people have a key. We hat to pull manually. He showed us how its done, using self-made sticks, we arrived on the other side shortly after. We felt slightly sorry for the driver on the other side, who simply waited for us to bring the ferry over. (With that knowledge, we discovered several rowing boats on each side, that one could get the ferry on their own. What a hustle.)
We were really glad about this experience and enjoyed our ride in the “complete wilderness”. Here we found paths with a little sand on them, going over roots and a little up and down and many diversions. This would have been the perfect area to put away the luggage and start discovering and having fun on the motorcycles. But we decided to ride on.
We entered Finland on a big paved road, we had to follow as a connection to Norway. Smooth but unspectacular pavement. On the sides cheap cottages with sauna were praised, but we hat a run and continued riding. It was late, we had quite some distance on the clock, but decided to go on anyways.
Entering Norway was spectacular. Like always Norway has someting special to offer. Not only a view over the landscape, but also mountain ridges at the horizon and a small gap in the clouds, which made everything glow orange. After a gray day, we even hit a patch and were able to collect some direct sun. Turning away from the main road on a small gravel connection road through bushes, we decided to stop and camp right here.
