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  • Day 3

    Starting Hetta to Pallas

    June 4, 2022 in Finland ⋅ 🌧 10 °C

    After a good night of sleep onto the bay where we waited for the boat, the one that would take us to the start of our first trek, we crossed the lake and had our morning lunch next to it.

    So we started the Hetta-Pallas trail with a mitigated weather, but just good enough to trek.

    It started with a pine forest with a rocky floor, we stopped at some places to see some birds ; we saw multiple kinds that were nowhere to find in Belgium, beautiful. We stumbled across two reindeers who didn’t care much for us, so we could contemplate them easily.

    As we started to get higher in altitude, the trees were becoming rare to let place to small vegetation and rocks. Still, we were able to see beautiful birds, and some very closely !

    We finished our first that of walk into a refuge for only ourselves, that is impressively equipped, clean and ready to be used ; we are the first one here this year.

    After seeing wonderful landscapes and animals, we lighted up a campfire to recall all of this and share a lovely dinner with all of us. Tonight we would not need to take our tents out as we will sleep into the refuge!

    Martin, a Czech guy, arrived quite late and spent the night with us. He explained us that he ended up in a stream while trying to cross it 😂 nice guy and he share his cookies. Would recommand 100%.
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  • Day 3

    The ride that never came

    June 4, 2022 in Finland ⋅ ⛅ 10 °C

    After a sunny & rainy night, we woke up at 9AM. As we still had no gas bottle, the breakfast was short & light.
    The day goal was to get to Enentekio in Finland to start our first trek.
    It began really well as the first car we crossed stopped to pick us up and dropped us 25 kms further in Vintangi.
    Next strategic target was Keresuando, 100 kms away from there.
    We became a bit less lucky with the weather and hitchhiking. Fortunately we were hosted by a young Swedish and French couple until the first car we took in the morning came back again! Another 50-km step was made thanks to him :)
    We thought the last 50 kms to get to Keresuando would be easy as it sounds but we suddenly had to review our plan as no ride came (even if we still looked fine at this time!). We didn't have any other option than taking the bus to get to the Finnish border.
    Once we crossed this border we couldn't count on the Finnish hospitality with hitchhiking... and were forced to book a cab as the clock was ticking and our willness to get to Enentekio in the evening was pretty high.
    We eventually arrived at 11PM to establish our camp site next to the taxi-boat which will make us cross the lake to reach the starting point of the trek :)
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  • Day 2

    Arrival + first night lost in the wood

    June 3, 2022 in Sweden ⋅ 🌧 10 °C

    BRU to ARN (2h). We had 6 hours waiting in the airport. We found the perfect place to chill, plan our arrival and share a beer. We learned few word of Swedish with the Yatzi Maxime bought at the airport (the famous dice game) .

    ARN to KRN (1h20 with 1 hour delay) . The plane almost took off without some luggage!

    We arrived in Kiruna around 9 PM, the sun was still high in the sky. We headed to the train station to drop some stuff that wasn't necessary for our first trek.

    Time to hit the road by hitchhiking. Quite lucky to be honest, first car that came took us 50 km further, litteraly in the middle of nowhere.

    It was already 1AM and the only vehicules that were still on the road were the coke trucks that were passing by every 15 minutes.

    We quickly found a good spot close by a lake, in the middle of the forest. Time to go to sleep, we realised that for the coming weeks the sun will never go down. The rain came right after the tents were set up, we were lucky with the timing! :-)
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