New country, different currency and a problem with time.

It was something of an anti-climax as we headed south through Finnmark. The Northern Cape had been on our target list since we started planning this trip and heading south meant retracing our steps for the first time on the journey. We filled up with LPG at Alta, the last chance we would have before reaching Estonia. Finland does not allow cars to run on LPG so bulk supplies of Autogas are not available. However, we reckon we can last two weeks with a full tank so that should be enough. 

The Alta river gorge was a fine farewell from Norway

Our journey south from Alta took us through the spectacular gorge cut by a tributary of the River Alta. The winding road ducked and dived between huge rock faces in what was to be the last chance we had to sample Norway's spectacular brand of scenery. Once through the gorge the countryside levelled out to become low, undulating hills linked by plains of scrubby bushes and small trees. In the village of Kautokieino  we stopped at the motorhome services in a supermarket car park before making our way 5km down the road to the edge of a lake for what would be our last Norwegian night on this trip. To cheer us up the sun had come out so we ate our evening meal outside despite the onslaught of Norwegian attack midges

More subdued countryside as we went south

The next morning we took the spaniels for a walk up a rough track which wound uphill through the bushes. Nothing can grow on this rocky, sandy soil and the only activity here is the herding of reindeer by the Sami people. We had become used to seeing their language appearing on road signs alongside the Norwegian. It reminded us of our trip last year through the Basque country of France and Spain where dual language signs also celebrate local culture. A quick trip back up the road to the supermarket for services and a few bits before we headed south again.

Someone's been using this for target practice

The landscape barely changed for miles and had it not been for the signs and the border post, we would not have realised we had crossed into Finland, the eighth country on this trip. Obviously cross border traffic is common here, so much so, that the first filling station we passed displayed prices in Norwegian kroner rather than the euros adopted by Finland. The North of Finland is as sparsely populated as Finnmark so we saw few other vehicles as we made our way south. The dual language signs, now in Finnish and Sami continued, the Sami people obviously consider any border irrelevant. The reindeer looked the same too.

Our first night in Finland was spent close to the river Etuvayla which, in this part of the country, forms the boundary between Finland and Sweden. We had forgotten that crossing the border entailed a change of time zone, with Finland being an hour ahead of Norway and Sweden. We were still blissfully ignorant of this by the time we stopped for the night because we both wear Apple watches which take the time from our iPhones. However, the strongest network signal was coming across the river from Sweden so technology decided we were still on Swedish time. 

1015 on the left in Sweden..1115 on the right in Finland

Common traffic hazard

Our walk with the spaniels along a rough path bordering the river took us to a couple of wooden buildings where a group of schoolchildren were waiting their turn to do some white-water rafting down the swift flowing river. We had a chat with one of the teachers who told us she had visited London and Stratford on a previous visit to the UK, when she had lived for a while in Solihull. We were able to get down the bank to the river so that Max could have a swim. he is an enthusiastic water baby.

We drove back to the town of Muonio to do our first weekly grocery shop in Finland and try to decipher the labels on the products. We had just about got the hang of Norwegian but Finnish, a language with a completely different root to other Nordic tongues, is a real challenge. On the plus side, although food is dearer here than the UK, it is cheaper than Norway. The range of products, especially fresh food, is also much better.  It says something that we were positively ecstatic that a box of wine in Finland cost 'only' 28 euros, still horrendous by UK standards but some 15% cheaper than across the border. We were delighted to see that the state wine shops are branded 'Alko'. We also discovered that diesel was priced at UK levels which was nice after four weeks of Norwegian filling stations.

More wine

The rest of today's journey south was routine. We had  been warned that driving down through Finland would just be a succession of straight roads lined by trees and so it proved. In fact, the roads were so empty and monotonous we decided we would swap over each hour in order to fend off the boredom. We actually saw just as many reindeer as we did other vehicles. Tonight sees us parked by a beautiful stretch of water, just one of 187,888 lakes in Finland. There is unlikely to be a hosepipe ban here. 

We've stopped in worse places