European Snow Trip to the Arctic (part 5)

After the aurora borealis magic, we headed again north. Our goal was Nordkapp in NORWAY (aka the Land of the Midnight Sun) - the northernmost point of mainland Europe that you can reach by car, located at a latitude of 71°10′21″ North and about 2,000 kilometres from the North Pole. If you want to reach Cape Nordkinn, the real northernmost point of mainland Europe at a latitude of 71°8′2″ North, you will need to hike, which is out of the question in winter… 

Little we knew that our plans were going to get terribly wrong!

The day started with a stunning sunrise over the frozen Inari lake. We spotted some gorgeous reindeer near the road and tried to turn around to have another look, which happened to be the first time we went off the road this day… There was no one around for more than an hour, so we started digging out the snow which seemed to be the most useless endeavour ever. The car remained stuck in the deep snow… And then we saw a mirage - a large pickup was coming our way. A nice Finn who did not speak a single word of English but had one of the biggest smiles we had ever seen, picked a long rope from his trunk (Finns, like Icelanders, are prepared for this type of incidents) and just like that pulled us out from both the side of the road and our misery! To show him our gratitude, we offered him a bottle of the Bulgarian alcohol rakia and I think that this made his day! 

After we crossed the border, we stopped for a few minutes in Karasjok to see the beautiful Sámi parliament shaped as a lavvu. The cute colourful houses we remembered from our previous trip to Norway started popping up along the road, but this time covered with snow. 

At first sight the stunning Norwegian fjords appeared completely frozen but we noticed that there was less and less ice on their surface as we were getting closer to the sea. 

And then, out of the blue, we had our real Arctic experience - we found ourselves in the middle of a snowstorm with terrifying intermittent blizzards which completely blackened, or more accurately whitened, everything around us. We could not even distinguish the road from the shoulder in front of our car… And just like that, in the blink of an eye and for the second time on the same day, we went slightly off the road into some really deep snow… It was like watching ourselves in slow motion and almost felt surreal. Luckily, there were a few cars around this time and we got pulled back by some friendly German tourists who were fully prepared for the crazy Arctic weather… When the storm calmed down for a couple of minutes, we realised that the place where we went off the road was stunning and dangerous as hell and our life had been hanging by a thread - if we had got off on the opposite side of the road instead, we would have ended in the icy waters of the fjord… 

We had just crossed the latitude of 70° North when the road closed. Together with dozens of other cars and motorhomes, we were there for a long and uncertain wait until the storm ended. If I tell you that this was one of our scariest experiences ever, it would be an understatement. Our car was shaken like a feather every 2-3 minutes and we watched with disbelief one of the large motorhomes simply being slidden off the road by the powerful blizzards… 

We didn’t know how long the storm was going to last and, contrary to the guys in the motorhomes, it would have been pretty uncomfortable to sleep in our car. The big question was whether we should stay and sleep in our car without any guarantee that the road was going to open in the morning, or head back to the last city we had crossed, facing the danger of getting off the road again, without any other car around to help us out this time. We chose the second option - Nordkapp would have to wait. However, we decided that we were going to stop the car each time there was a blizzard. We tried to find a hotel or a guest house in the surroundings but they were either closed or already full. Our last option was to head back to the closest village in Finland - Hetta. We had little hope that the hotel we had found online was going to pick up the phone at that late hour and wait for our arrival in the middle of the night, but they did! It was (again) one of our scariest drives ever. We came across dozens of reindeer on the dark road which easily could have been frightened by our lights and might have jumped in front of the car causing a major accident. The blizzards kept coming and getting off the road again appeared like a real and imminent danger, this time without any help coming until the morning and with an outdoor temperature of -30°C... 

We were lucky to arrive safely in our hotel in Hetta - it was 4 am but the sweet owner was waiting for us and we will forever be grateful for that! What was supposed to be a stopover in Finland ended up being one of our favourite places in Scandinavia - the village of Hetta! 

In the following sunny morning, without a single cloud or blizzard on the horizon, we went snowshoeing in the white forest around the village of Hetta.

It was just unbelievably pure and beautiful! 

The day ended with a beautiful sunset and some gorgeous aurora borealis! The dangers and emotions of the previous night instantly became distant memories and we felt like we were in snow paradise!

The events made us realise that, despite the heavenly landscapes, we had had enough of the cold and got really tired of the daily ritual of adding multiple layers of clothes on our bodies, turning into walking cabbages, as well as removing multiple layers of snow from our car. 

After more than a month driving north, we decided to head back south and crossed the border to the largest Scandinavian country - SWEDEN...