Day 61 – 4778 km

It is often said that the day starts de night before. In this case it couldn’t be closer to the truth. It was a terrible night, the rain kept drumming on my tent the whole time and the wind was severely pushing and ripping on the outside of my tiny shelter. As the sun doesn’t leave, the continuous daylight wouldn’t help my sleeping rythme either.

When morning broke, only time-wise, because the sun stayed invisible behind the clouds, rain and wind kept working hard. It was the type of morning where you realise- after getting up and rubbing the sand out of your eyes – that the better option would be to just get back in bed, do nothing and try again tomorrow!

Some of the sunny moments

As I preferred keeping dry things dry and make an attempt to get wet things dry as well, a complete routine was designed. It took an hour of running up and down between my tent, the dry picnic spot and my bike. After a successful operation I was ready to go.

As the sun didn’t show, the additional problem was the charging of the bike. As I was near a lake, I parked my bike on the little beach en directed the solar panels as much as possible to the east and to the lake, hoping the reflection of the lake would increase the productivity. And I think it did. Because I started my rainy cold day with a full battery.

Thing were not so bad, yes it was raining and yes it felt like zero degrees, but the strong wind was for once in the right direction! And the views, even with the dimm colours of the impermeable cloud cover, stayed stunning.

My supplies were low, so I had to stop at a supermarket. As often people started talking on the parking space.

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Same supermarket different country: https://jokkmokk.se/Nyheter-och-Event/Nyheter/kommun-och-samhalle/klimarsmart-resande-i-vuollerim/

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This time, one of the enthousiasts was a three year old boy who just got his first bicycle and was now full into bicycles. Another was a Sami musician & artist inviting me for tea.

A few days earlier I learned from a much more experienced Dutch cyclist: “Never skip an opportunity for coffee, because it will not return.”

So Harald drove off in his car and I chased behind. He showed me his workshop and even gave me a home made wooden necklace. After I told him I was a musician as well, he gave me a demonstration of the Sami’s Joik. Served me tea and was happy to keep talking and talking. I felt I could listen for a week, but at this time I didn’t have a week. So a bit later in the afternoon I thanked, posed for picture ( that has become a habit) and went on my way.

Some 20 km’s further I stopped at a bus stop, to get out of the rain a bit, but also because there was a WiFi connection and I had some little things to keep up with, and also important things like keeping my grandmother updated. I saw a bit further there was a party going on with all nicely dressed people. As I was tickling the screen of my phone, one of the party crew came up to me and invited me in, as there was so much food left. It was Kaja’s father who invited me in. I was suddenly at Kaja’s Confirmation ceremony, so poorly dressed with only some technical cycling gear. It was not difficult to spot the stranger.

Extreme difference in dress code.

As I got a plate filled with delicious food, I suddenly thought about the beautiful necklace I got earlier that day, knowing I probably wouldn’t wear it. So I got to the bike, and handed over the gift. Her enthusiast reaction was much more then I expected.

I’m so happy that the necklace, which I got as a gift and obviously wouldn’t want to dishonour by keeping it in one of my bags, got on such a surprising voyage!

A simple wooden necklace, made 3 people happy in one day! What a powerful jewellery!

The day ended as it started is my tent in the rain, 80km further north and much happier.