Monday 5th June 2017

Today started quite promisingly. We saw these nice boulders close to our overnight parking place. It seemed much warmer and it wasn't raining.

Unfortunately as the day wore on it got wetter and wetter. We traveled south along the E75 through interminable forests with the odd lake to break the monotony. We often saw reindeer along the way. We stopped at the town of Ivalo to buy groceries and drinks (as in Norway, in Finland you can only buy strong alcoholic drink in the state run drink shops, here they are called Alko as opposed to Vinmonopolet in Norway).

Further down the E75 we stopped at the town of Sodankyla to visit this old wooden church.

The town of Sodankyla was burned to the ground by the retreating Germans at the end of World War Two. Somehow this church survived. A German registered tour bus was visiting at the same time as us. I wondered what modern day Germans visiting the town make of this and indeed what the inhabitants of Sodankyla think of their German visitors. 

After a very long journey we stopped for the day at this lay by on the E75 about 60 kilometres north of Rovaniemi. The German registered van on the left didn't stay long. The weather has vastly improved - it is dry and about 12C!

There is a nice river here.

Reindeer come and go in a field just over the road.

Today we traveled 162 miles (261 kilometres). We are at N66.88614 E26.18448