The Underworld - Sunshine! and the land of forests and lakes

It's been a while and we are now in Finland. We left Kiruna in Sweden after a day of relaxation and a visit to the world's biggest underground mine.















We literally drove in a bus to 540m underground. Our guide provided us with some mind boggling facts. The mining happens at 1km deep and they ship out about 100 000tonnes of magnetide (magnetic iron ore) per day. At level 540m they have a staff cantine, visitor exhibition and it feels like a city under ground which gets pumped with fresh air at 100.000 cubic metres per minute!














Overall there are over 400km of tarmacked road underground and most diggers and drills are operated via remote control above ground. All that digging underground means some of the ground crumbles and they now have to move the entire city of Kiruna within the next few years or it will fall in the hole!!!















We then went back on the road. The long straight open road to Finland - Rovaniemi, it's capital of the North - also known, because that's the official residence of Santa Claus.
















Sunshine is now with us and since the cold coast of Norway the temperature has tripled! from 8degrees to 24! There is still occasional rain, but summer has truly arrived.
















To get to Finland we cycled over the bridge across the mighty river Tornionjoki (Finnish) or "Torneälven (Swedish) in Pello.
















We also got to test the bikes for the off-road capibilities and reckon they are fit for Mongolia.

















As said Finland is the land of forest and lakes. Long stretching roads, often flat sometimes undulating. A dramatic change from the fjords in Norway or the tundra-esque, rocky landscape in Northern Sweden.































Fishing is the National past -time. The Tornionjoki has some big Trout and Salmon to catch.

In Rovaniemi we enjoyed a visit to the brilliant (interactive)museum "Arktikum", which is all about life above the Arctic Circle. And we met yet another bear!

Now - it's sunny and lovely - but this brought about the Mosquitos! Biting and merciless, leaving us slightly crazed during pitching and packing up.

Have we mentioned we meet lots and lots of other cycle tourists? Here we have Klaus, on his way to Nordkapp via Murmansk (http://www.rad-fernweh.de/).

Apart from that not much has changed, we cycle, we eat, we sleep, we chill - NICE!

The roads are not always quiet and are getting busier as we head South. They like their double trailors in Finland.

Overall we have ridden over 1000 Miles now. Today we are having a day off in Oulu, a mini-Venice at the Gulf of Bothnia. It's a lovely town and there is currently the Garlic-tasting Festival...so we'll check that out today. Last night we thouroughly enjoyed a chill out in the Finnkino (cinema) watching the A-team. Luckily the films here are just subtitled in Finnish. Off to the beach now!