Enontekiö

Awaking this morning after a Sauna last night and an ice dip. Shown buy the photo here, so dark that even full brightness on the light its barely viewable! A few of the guys ripped the skin of their hands when getting into the ice pool as they used the ladder to get in and instantly regretted the action as the skin froze to the ladder.

So a few sore hands and feet today.

We then head up to the cabin to light the fire and review some footage. Going to sleep with the temperature a barmy 4F.

We actually got locked out the cabin last light and Russell had to climb the rear ladder to let us in, luckily we left the balcony door unlocked.

We awoke to a beautiful sunrise and a temperature of -7F with a windchill factor of -16F.

The plan today is to hit the lake and go for a walk in the woods to see what we will find, we may also go to the one shop for souvenirs and essentials. This day is the relaxing day where not a lot of filming or photography will happen during the day as this is the culmination of the trip saving the best til last. No doubt the gear will be lugged around, I’m sure something will crop up.

Ive had my weetabix and my jam to fuel me for the cold and off we go, into the cold.

 

Ivalo to Enontekiö

Our time in Ivalo has come to an end and we are starting to go to bed to get ready for our trip tomorrow.

The skies are clearing and the temperatures are plunging in the next few hours, its around -8 now and will be -20 by the time we get to Enontekiö. A fierce wind has been here today and yesterday evening; bringing the temperature down to around -13 so if its windy tomorrow it will feel very very cold.

We trekked into the forest last night to see how far we could get and went around 2 miles in total, very difficult with full camera gear and 4 foot snow drifts, obviously the other guys were not carrying gear and still struggled!

Today we filmed and went onto a frozen river, the Ivalo river to see what it was like. But all in all its been a pretty easy day, exploring the local town with all 4 shops and generally running around in the cold. Steve and Anton built a snow cave and realised that in the 10 minutes getting hot and taking their gear off within 2 minutes of stopping they were freezing again.

So far the diet has been Fish and bread as its all that really exists thats any good. You can have cooked food but it is all convenience food such as burgers, pizza or chips. They don’t really sell any Finnish food in this part. Probably, as all the people you meet are generally tourists for the northern lights, do not have any cold weather gear and stay inside all day until the tour. So here for 1 or 2 days then go – the guys we have met haven’t seen it due to heavy cloud cover – but its clear for the next few days!

They must think we are mad being outside all day. It seems that we are by far the most outgoing and loud in the whole town, leaving people cursing the British no doubt. (Anton gets bundled with us). It does strike me as very odd that they do not go outside to enjoy the environment.

A long trip in the car tomorrow then to enjoy a very remote part of Finland where, safe to say, we will no doubt be the only tourists.

 

Look what I found!

From Scotland to the arctic.

The First Day

After getting lost and nearly doing double the distance to get to our first place of residence (thanks to Steve) we arrived at our Cabin which was spectacular in terms of accommodation in Finland.

It has a private Sauna,

 

an Indoor Furnace

and full decoration throughout (a rarity).

Rovaneimi, albeit having an airport, does not have a lot to do. We found one restaurant and had this: Im not too sure what it was to be honest but was edible and not stupidly expensive.

 

There is a museum but we are leaving that to the last day as to not leave us with nothing to do. And then thats it! The drive tomorrow is around 200 miles and we are planning to use all the daylight to do it as driving in Arctic conditions at night is not something i wish to repeat in a hurry and especially with a choice.

But we are going ahead with the film and getting some great footage, this time it will be done and we are already editing it! Proof below!