June 28: Day 58, Kalix-Keminmaa
I finished up my stay at the unattended hostel by having breakfast and leaving without seeing any staff except the cleaner. (We did exchange a friendly word though.) Breakfast wasn't provided so I'd picked up some things last night - milk, yoghurt, fruit to go with the breakfast cereal I've been carrying since Denmark. There was a coffee machine but it wasn't free, it needed payment! I've regularly seen the same machine in other hostels, I don't want to encourage this, so I skipped coffee this morning.
The back wheel started clicking yesterday. I've had some front wheel noises which turned out to be stones glued to the tyre by melted asphalt, but this wasn't the reason here. While the panniers were off I tried to figure out the cause: the tyre wasn't touching anything... The noise didn't happen while I was spinning the wheel, which isn't helpful. The rim was no longer a svelte circle, it had started to bulge outwards ungracefully. (In contrast, all the biking has fixed my bulges - is this the wheel of Dorian Gray?)
But I couldn't find an explanation, so I put some lubricant on and got on the road. And it gradually disappeared - I guess it was just needing some oil.
From left to right: Bridge on the way out of Kalix. The gravel connecting road. Another hunter lookout. Action selfie, while being chased by bugs.
Today's route included some state roads, but nothing too major - I'd carefully checked all the sections last night, I'm keen to avoid motorways. It did have a long gravel backroad in the middle though. The surface was pretty good, as gravel roads go - it was solid enough for a high gear, I didn't have to carefully pick my way along wheeltracks or among big stones. It did have some climbs, good views, and a stream of interested bugs - but so long as I didn't stop it was fine. One outlook was so good I had to stop and set up the tripod, but while doing that I got swarmed. I got the video, but the bugs were so relentless that I folded up and put away the tripod while cycling away.
So at lunchtime I wasn't looking for a shady place to sit, but anywhere bugfree. In these parts there's few people, very few parks and even fewer park benches: I decided a bus stop was the best option. It worked well, no bugs joined me.
By now I was on a cyclepath, off the roads. It progressively got nicer as it got closer to Haparanda/Tornio, the Swedish and Finnish sides of a town on the border. The path suddenly emerged from trees next to a shopping district, all warehouse-sized outlet stores and equally large parking lots. Just before the border was the largest IKEA store I've ever seen - presumably for the Finns.
The border was so low-key I accidentally crossed it while taking a detour to get around a broken path and the bird colony living on it. I looked for a sign announcing Finland and found it beside the road, but it was accessible from a park so I circled around to get a selfie with it.
From left to right: lunchtime spot. A milepost? Deceptively rural cyclepath, moments before the warehouse shops were revealed. Crossing the Finnish border.
I figured it was a good time for a coffee break so I went into the nearby mall to get one. Finland works in Euros! But the prices were unpleasantly high, my iced coffee plus cake was about double what I was paying in Sweden.
One noticeable change from there is that the cyclepaths improved. In Sweden they tended to only be inside towns; but for the last 20-30 kilometers in Finland I had a reliable cyclepath route, safely distanced from the road.
From left to right: cyclepaths! And an interesting river.
The place I’m staying tonight looks like a summer resort - lots of rooms, shared kitchen facilities. The windows have blinds for summer, but are also multiple layers thick, presumably including double glazing for the winter. There’s two hinges for the two main layers, so things move and slide when they open and close. Complicated stuff!
They don’t offer dinner, so I had to cycle 5km back towards town to find something. These are the downsides of choosing the cheap places…
But the room is has everything I need, it all works, and it has unusually big blackout blinds. My biggest complaint is that the light fitting is a bit too low for me, so I keep knocking into it, and it’s metal. If I keep doing this, it’s going to leave a mark.
Tomorrow I’m heading north up the river Kemijoki to Rovaniemi and taking the last rest day. Not many days left to the finish…
