Trip around Finland on a -81 GS850G

[Juke Nukem]

Btw, Thanks alke, steve, ed, rich and everybody for following. Nice to know someone reads these things

[Rich82GS750TZ]

sure, great stuff.
RE: pictures
The best way to post pics into a forum post is to have the images on a picture hosting website like flickr or Imgur. You need to copy the BBcode of the image and paste it right into your post. No need to mess w/ the toolbar images tools. To my knowledge, only picture hosting sites, like these (photobucket is another, but I think is not free, don't know) give you the BBCode as sharing option. Google images/Google docs don't, at least not that I've been able to find.

This is as large as I could make this pic by copying it to my PC, uploading it to Imgur, copying the BBCode and pasting it below.

[GSXR7ED]

Great travel stories. Now we just need you to post better pictures. I have written instructions on using Imgur for this purpose, in my signature.

But, I like the little pics that I have to click on twice to expand! lol!

Ed

****

[Grimly]

Btw, Thanks alke, steve, ed, rich and everybody for following. Nice to know someone reads these things
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There's more people following along than you know.

[Juke Nukem]

Left Kirkenes, it’s raining and +9C. Drove back to Neiden where the border crossing is. Then visited an interestin museum of the local Sami people. Then towards west.

On this plateau I stopped for the scenes and added some oil… and left the filler cap on the engine and headed on! Luckily I noticed it in few km, but couldn’t find it of course. Oh how I kick myself for this!

[Juke Nukem]

As an emergency solution I cut a piece from a birch tree with a camping knife and then covered it with duct tape to make an ad hoc plug for the filler hole.. seems to hold so far.

[Burque73]

As an emergency solution I cut a piece from a birch tree with a camping knife and then covered it with duct tape to make an ad hoc plug for the filler hole.. seems to hold so far.
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Nice work. Hopefully you come across at least a plumbing supply place or something. Have seen folks use various rubber stoppers in similar fashion.

[Juke Nukem]

After the filler cap incident, continued to Pykeija, which is at the tip of a wind swept peninsula. The roads there were pretty epic following the coast. I only heard about this place after I left for the trip. It is at least party Finnish speaking area. I could order food from the bistro in Finnish, great! The weather has been pretty bad today. Below 10C and mostly raining. The heated grips are keeping me in driving condition but I have to pull over regularly to do some jumping and running

[Juke Nukem]

Returned from Pykeija to the main road, which followed the coast for a while still before turning inland. The scenery became more flat but still impressive. The road then entered the river valley of river Tana (Teno). In Tana bru it was a decision point to either stay there or push forward and hope I come accross a camping site. It was about 6pm so I decided to continue forward. Nothing came up very soon and I was getting really cold. One camping site was apparently closed for the night and it looked like a set from a horror movie so probably a good thing. I ended all the way to Utsjoki, which is a crossing point back to Finland. From a tourist info sign I spotted a camping area on the Norwegian side 30km away. I phoned there. They were closed but said that they’ll rent me a cabin anyway. I had been dreading of being forced to set up my tent in the bushes somewhere in rain, so this was great! Last 30km in dimming light and cold were not a problem anymore when I knew there was a warm cabin waiting.


edit: distance covered 270km / 167mi

[Juke Nukem]

Left the camping site and followed the road along river Teno, which also marks the border between Norway and Finland. Road was nice and weather decent. The river looked really interesting with sand banks in the middle of it. There were occasional showers but nothing constant. Temperature just about tolerable. Nice bit of driving all in all.

[Juke Nukem]

I really wanted to take a closer look at the sand banks on the river, so I kept looking for a track which would lead down to the river. Almost all tracks ended in fields or to yards of country houses, at which point I always took a U-turn. Finally I found an old tractor track and got down to the river. The track was a bit rough but the GS has a decent ground clearance

[Juke Nukem]

Had lunch in Karasjok, where most of the people were clearly Sami. Since about Ivalo, Finland, all street signs have also been in Sami language, and on the Norwegian side I think in few different Sami languages. Anyway, again a decision whether to return to Finland or continue on the Norwegian side. Returning to Finland would’ve meant some backtracking on roads I have already been on. So, a turn further into Norway, to Kautokeino. Again nice roads a bit higher on a sort of a plateau. It was easy to keep up good speed in these roads. Only few reindeer but some sheep. Stopped by a beautiful lake which had sandy beaches. If only it was about 25 Celcius warmer!

[Juke Nukem]

Stopped in Kautokeino for a chocolate bar and Red Bull. It was again late afternoon so I didn’t stay for sightseeing but continued directly to the Kivilompolo border crossing station. I had hardly seen another motorcycle after the classic jap bike meeting in the beginning, but now two Swedish KTM Adventure riders drove by while I was doing my warming up routine by the road. Exchanged waves and thumbs up. At the border crossing nobody even stopped me. I guess Finland allows people from Norway now without a Covid check? Don’t know, it changes all the time. Weather was getting better so I started thinking I should do at least one bush camping on this trip. Stocked up in Enontekiö and pushed on to Muonio on Swedish-Finnish border. After Muonio I started looking around and found a promising wood harvester track. I checked the orienteering map -app that there are no houses nearby and followed the track about half a kilometer into the woods and set up camp.


edit: distance covered 380km / 236mi

[steve murdoch]

This is some hardcore touring.
Great travelogue, Juke.

[Juke Nukem]

Temperature dropped to +2C at night but I had learned from earlier tent nights to wear practically all clothes in the sleeping bag, and it was Ok. And a good way to warm up is to put on the riding gear and pack up the tent etc. I exited the woods and continued south on the main road. The scenery was again flat and foresty. The road soon started following Muonio river on the border between Finland and Sweden. Muonio river soon connected with Tornio river. The Teno river between Norway and Finland runs north to the arctic sea, and the Muonio/Tornio rivers run south to the baltic sea. In Ylitornio is a bridge crossing to Sweden and cars seemed to be passing back and forth without any covid control checks. I checked the official pages that yes it’s Ok to pass and with the double vaccination I don’t have to go to quarantine or anything. So, I crossed over to Sweden and continued to follow the river on that side.