It is always fascinating how the landscape changes so drastically right after a national border. As soon as we arrived in Norway, we only saw small, stunted birch trees and soon after, the first 'mountains' appeared on the horizon. On our first day in Norway, we cycled through the Sami village of Kautokaino. Coincidentally, the book "The Children of Kautokaino" is one of Fiona’s favorite child-book. Unfortunately, the village does not look particularly inviting today; it is not as picturesque as shown in the book. For our first night in this new country, we pitched our tent by the roadside in a huge berry field. For breakfast, of course, we had plenty of berries.
With a wonderful tailwind we reached Alta on the west coast the next day. With 127 km, this was our second record day (the first was in Western Sahara with 170 km). Fortunately, we found a nice shelter by a lake where we could cook a delicious meal, and sleep well.

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For the next four days, Maxime joined us on our route northwards. Like Miikka (the Finnish guy we met near Oulu) recommended, we took the road on the eastern side of the river Ounasjoki. This was such a good decision. We had very little traffic, and imagine — we had a tailwind 😁. Therefore, it was a pleasure to pedal, to camp along the river, and to enjoy the beautiful sunset. On the one fully gray and rainy day, we stayed in the Laavu in Lohiniva. That was a nice rest day. As soon as the sun came out again in the evening of the rainy rest day, Marc and Maxime went for a swim in the chilly river. The day after, we pedaled through Kikinda and Levi. Especially Levi was a very touristy place; therefore, it was a bit trickier to find a suitable campsite. But since it is legal to camp everywhere (150 meters away from private property), we pitched our tent on a grassy spot next to an adventure park of a ski resort. So far, this was our worst campsite in Finland, but we were rewarded with a magical moment in the morning when a reindeer came to eat in front of our tent. 😍

#cycling #bikepacking #cyclinglife #nomad #cyclingaroundtheworld #traveling #finland #photography #naturephotography #travelphotography #rainyday #restday #camping #wildcamping #sunset #rendeer #samiland #lapland