Sunday 8th October 2017 - Lapland

We rose at about 8 a.m. and showered before going down to the main hotel building for breakfast which was a very tasty buffet.

After breakfast we suited up and met our guide Eetu, who has Sami lineage, who drove us a few kilometers in a small minibus to Urho Kekkonen National Park. This is a slightly hilly wooded area which was an area hard fought over in World War ll by the Germans against the Russians. we walked on the trail for about 3 kms and Eetu showed us various former military bunkers and installations as well as pointing out the various types of trees, lichen and plants on the way mas well as describing the wildlife who live in the woods including a type of bird called a capercaillie as well as bears. At about half-way, we stopped for juice and chocolate bars.

Eetu points out some feature of the park

A replica of a former military observation point

Information about the military installation

A German howitzer

Kuksa, growth on trees which are carved and used to make drinking cups

Beard Lichen

Back at the start of the walk, Eetu set about starting a fire to cook us lunch. He copped the wood and then took his knife to pare some of the wood to make kindling to get the fire going which he did quickly and expertly. Eetu then toasted sandwiches, cooked sausages for us and made coffee on the fire.

Eetu chops wood for the fire to cook our lunch

After leaving the National Park we drove a short distance to an old gold-panning town where relics from the time when gold mining was at its height. Most of the gold was panned from the river rather than deep-mined.

Some scenes from the gold museum with examples of the clever wood carvings which decorate the area

Then it was back to the hotel for a nap.

After a short nap, we drove to the nearby town of Saariselka which is popular with Russian tourists in winter as it has nightlife as well as easily accessible ski-lifts. It also contains Santa's Office!!

After driving through the town we drove on up the fell called Kanispaa. On the fell top a rather ugly new hotel is being built.

On the top of the hill there was quite a large herd of reindeer. For those readers allergic to reindeer pictures, quit here!!

This guy had rather 'African' antlers

After we had had our fill of reaindeer, we drove back to the hotel, had a sauna and a shower and had dinner in the hotel.

After dinner, we had a briefing on the aurora from the hotel staff which was very interesting and showed how the aurora was formed from explosions of gas from the sun ionizing the earth's atmosphere.

From Wikipedia

"An aurora (plural: auroras), sometimes referred to as polar lights, northern lights (aurora borealis) or southern lights (aurora australis), is a natural light display in the Earth's sky, predominantly seen in the high latitude (Arctic and Antarctic) regions.

Auroras are produced when the magnetosphere is sufficiently disturbed by the solar wind that the trajectories of charged particles in both solar wind and magnetospheric plasma, mainly in the form of electrons and protons, precipitate them into the upper atmosphere (thermosphere/exosphere) due to Earth's magnetic field, where their energy is lost.

The resulting ionization and excitation of atmospheric constituents emits light of varying color and complexity. The form of the aurora, occurring within bands around both polar regions, is also dependent on the amount of acceleration imparted to the precipitating particles. Precipitating protons generally produce optical emissions as incident hydrogen atoms after gaining electrons from the atmosphere. Proton auroras are usually observed at lower latitudes."

The following photos are taken from Google and were not taken by us.

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Some examples of the Aurora Borealis by those lucky enough to see them. Sadly we didn't but we had a great time anyway.

We moved from place to place in attempts to find a gap in the clouds but failed to find one where the aurora was visible.

Then it was back to the hotel and bed.